Hunky (ethnic slur)

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Hunky, Hunyak is an ethnic slur used in the United States and Canada to refer to immigrants of Hungarian or Slavic descent. It originated in the coal regions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where immigrants from Central Europe (Hungarians (Magyar), Polish people, Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Rusyns, Ukrainians, Slovenes, Serbs, Croats) came from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to perform hard manual labor in the mines. They were called "hunkies" by the American public, which lumped them together into a category of Slavic immigrants, irrespective of their individual ethnic background. The term as an ethnic slur has fallen into disuse, but the term hunky and the public image associated with it has historic relevance in the perception of Slavic immigrants in the United States. There is some usage of the term in other forms; for example, in regions of Pennsylvania, any mill worker may sometimes be referred to as a mill hunky. Another version of Hunky is Hunyack/Hunyak, coming from contraction...

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