SEMINAR244

Title: Separate from the Separated City: The Opening of the Transatlantic Sea Route and Emigration of Ethnic Minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Speaker: Dafeng Xu, University of Washington

Time: November 6th, 2020, 10:00-11:30

Online seminar

About the speaker:

Dafeng Xu is currently an assistant professor at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington. His research interests include immigration policy and urban/regional policy. He received his Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University. Prior to joining the University of Washington, he was a postdoctoral scholar in population studies at the University of Minnesota.

Abstract:

Political and economic inequality often drive the emigration of ethnic minorities, but transportation geography could interact with the political economy and lead to divergent migration patterns among oppressed minorities by shaping spatial heterogeneity in transportation resources. Using U.S. census data, I focus on the opening of the new (and only) transatlantic passenger sea route between the U.S. and the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary (the Separate City of Fiume to New York) in 1904 and study its effects on the emigration of Hungary's two major Slavic groups, Yugoslavs and Slovaks. While the two groups faced similar political and economic disadvantages, the port of Fiume was located in the Yugoslav region but was far away from Slovakia, Hungary's northernmost region. Due to Hungary's insufficient domestic railway connections, Slovaks' migration cost became higher relative to other ethnic groups. As a result, the new sea route led to a relative increase in Yugoslav migration and decrease in Slovak migration; moreover, the new sea route led to negative selection of Yugoslav migration and positive selection of Slovak migration. These results suggest that the migration effects of political economy factors might be exacerbated or attenuated by both international and domestic transportation resources.