The Association was founded in 1960 by Hungarian students at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (USA), most of whom left their country after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in which many of them participated and which was suppressed by Soviet military intervention.
290 outstanding Hungarian writers, scientists and artists participated in the Association’s lecture, conference and exhibit series during the past 48 years.
The Association also initiated an educational program. The Hungarian Saturday Classes offered instruction in the basics of Hungarian language and culture for 26 years to some 1,000 youngster and adults. This school helped initiate the Hungarian Native Language Conference (Anyanyelvi Konferencia), an international professional association assisting Hungarian language and culture maintenance and instruction beyond Hungary’s borders with specialized books, teacher’s seminars, summer courses, periodicals and conferences.
The History Makers Testify (Tanúk-korukról) oral history series of the Association provided an open forum for some of those who played leading roles in changing history. 23 such history makers testified about their actions in this series, 8 of these lectures were published by the Association in book form.
A documentary book describing the history and activities of the Association was published by Csokonai Publishing (Debrecen, Hungary), 2000, titled: Emigránsok küldetésben (Emigrants With A Mission), edited by one of its founders, Károly Nagy.