BECOMING HUNGARIAN

Giles reconstructs her family’s perilous escape from Communist-controlled Hungary and recounts her attempt to reconcile her American upbringing with her Hungarian ancestry in this memoir.

The author’s parents, Sándor and Vilmy Reich, enjoyed a happy and prosperous life in Szombathely, a Hungarian town only 10 miles from the Austrian border. Sándor worked for his father, the founder and owner of a thriving factory, where Vilmy worked as well as a payroll clerk. However, in 1948, all that changed when Soviet-backed Communists took over the factory, eventually leaving both Sándor and his father jobless. Only a month later, the author was born into this familial crisis, which dramatically concluded with a dangerous escape to Austria, one thrillingly described by Giles. They ultimately made their way to Billings, Montana, enticed by the draw of “enclaves of Hungarian refugees,” and attempted to begin their lives anew, though they were now much more financially constrained. Giles had no personal remembrance of her homeland, and no sentiment of national pride; she did her best to be American, impressed by how “carefree” her countrymen seemed in comparison to her own family, who were emotionally freighted with worry and trauma. Their alienation was only heightened by the profound challenges they faced: Giles’ mentally challenged younger brother, Robie, was sent to reside in a state institution. Additionally, the author and her family witnessed a murder, they but were too afraid to alert the authorities (an expression of immigrant insecurity, per Giles). The author eventually became deeply interested in her roots and began to pepper her parents with questions about their past—her curiosity culminated in her own trip to Hungary with her husband, Leon. Giles poignantly depicts her experiences there and the elusive sense of identity the visit finally restored. (“For the first time in my life, I am whole.”)

Giles’ account is now a familiar one—there are so many memoirs like it by nationally dispossessed children like herself—so readers should not expect great originality here. Nonetheless, this is a profoundly affecting story, written in thoughtfully lucid prose. The author endeavored to bury her ancestral origins—her experience in college made her feel “unshackled” from both her past and her heritage. (“I navigated between my Hungarian and American worlds, trying to keep them separate, never feeling fully part of either one.”) As she grew older, though, she became increasingly dissatisfied with a gnawing “sense of rootlessness,” an incompleteness exacerbated by the tangle of family secrets that were only ever begrudgingly clarified. What emerges in Giles’ account is not only a vivid portrayal of Hungarian culture and the pressure it endured under tyranny, but also the peculiarity of American culture, famously hospitable to exiled foreigners, but also, paradoxically, insistent on an emotionally costly assimilation. Especially during a time when immigration has become such a contentious political issue, this is an edifying remembrance, one that tenderly and intimately reminds the reader of the human stakes.

A stirring account of the author’s search for identity amid dislocation.