Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) an immigrant from Central Europe, e.g. a Hungarian, Austrian, Lithuanian, Slav, Pole; thus Hunky Town, the area of a town in which such immigrants congregate.

1906		Chicago Daily Trib. 14 May 1: Hun, Pole, Austrian, Bulgarian, Bohemian – the ‘Hunkies’ of Illinois Steel colloquialism – indifferent to pain of shattered, burned, mangled body grow frantic as the stretcher bearers near this fortress hospital.
1912		A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 266: There is ‘Crazy Hunkie,’ the Austrian.
1916		C. Sandburg ‘The Right to Grief’ Chicago Poems I shall cry over the dead child of a stockyards hunky. / His job is sweeping blood off the floor.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 119: We’re putting a limit on immigration. These Dagoes and Hunkies have got to learn that this is a white man’s country.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 209: What the hell they were a lot of wops anyway bohunks hunkies that didn’t wash their necks.
1930		W.R. Burnett Iron Man 68: [of a Swede] That goddam hunky or whatever he is’ll think he got hit by a truck.
1939		R. Chandler ‘I’ll Be Waiting’ in Red Wind (1946) 127: ‘Tony Reseck.’ ‘Sounds like a hunky,’ ‘Yeah,’ Tony said. ‘Polish.’.
1941		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘Fun in an Artist’s Studio’ in Pat Hobby Stories (1967) 149: He was out there [...] with a gang of hunkies to dig the hole.
1949		I. Shulman Cry Tough! 13: In any of the hundreds of slum neighborhoods: in Jewtown, Micktown, Woptown, Hunkytown, Niggertown.
1952		A. Fenlason Essentials in Interviewing 23: Owen Francis draws a graphic picture of ‘Hunkie town’ in the steel-mill district, with its unkempt houses, unpaved streets, [and] unsavory odors.
1962		T. Berger Reinhart in Love (1963) 106: The hunky in his junkyard burns rubber continually.
1963		M. Spillane Return of the Hood 66: Maxine’s a hunkie, but she still picks up enough Polish to get the drift of their talk.
1970		T. Southern Blue Movie (1974) 11: What did they care about a handful of red-neck religious-nut hunkies.
1984		D. Jenkins Life Its Ownself (1985) 20: A Polack, a Hunky [...] or a Catholic cocksucker.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 7: ‘Kenopensky’ – there, that was the hunky’s name [...] ‘will give it to you.’.
1997		R. Teleky Hungarian Rhapsodies 48: A fine way you do be talkin’ wid the poor dumb Hunkie not knowing how to talk good enough to say what’s the matter.

2. (US, also honky, hunk) a derog. term for a black person.

1924		Rosa Henderson ‘The Basement Blues’ 🎵 He ain’t no honky, / Gee, I ain’t tryin’ to be. / He ain’t no honky, / I ain’t tryin’ to be. / So you can’t make no honky out of me!
1928		R. Fisher Walls Of Jericho 297: Synonyms of Negro [...] : hunk, hunky, ink, jap.

3. (US black) a derog. term for a white person.

1966		(con. Vietnam War) M. Bibby Hearts and Minds 67: [...] no black man (or negro) should fight the hunkie’s war.
1967		A. Baraka Tales (1969) 104: Crackers. Hunkies. All the words.
1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 119: I guess every hunkie in the neighborhood must’ve called the po-lice soon as they saw us walkin’ down the street.