“Bringing People Together”: Social Capital and the Integration Strategies of the Hungarian St. Stephen’s Ball in Montreal

The organizations and events established by immigrant groups in the host society play a key part, besides other factors, in which acculturation strategies (Berry, 1997) are followed by them and how successful their integration can be. One of the challenges is how immigrants can maintain their social ties with their own ethno-cultural community and culture of the country of origin, while also integrating successfully into the host society. In this paper, we provide a case study of the Hungarian St. Stephen’s Ball organized in Montreal between 1959 and 2013, an event whose key objective was to bring together Hungarians and non-Hungarians, facilitating the harmonious integration of immigrants into the Montreal-Canadian society. Based on archival research and interviews, the paper analyzes how organizers achieved their objectives by activating social capital, relying on strategies and models outlined by Berry (1974, 1997), Lin (2008), and Granovetter (1973) decades later, and revealing a two-way process of integration, whereby, in parallel with the acculturation of Montreal Hungarians into the majority society, this ethno-community was continuously expanded by means of the conscious building of social relations and social capital, with members of the host society occupying key community-forming positions.