Tags: Ethnic Group.
Hunkies is an ethnic slur used in the United States to refer to a laborer from East-Central Europe. It originated in the coal regions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia where Poles and other immigrants from East-Central Europe (Hungarians (Magyar) Rusyns Slovaks) came to perform hard manual labor on 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.