FACES AND PLACES: What we need in '87 (12/28/86)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

What we need in '87

You want to know what our community needs most in 1987?

I'll tell you direction.

We need direction. We have lost our way. Many of our establishment organizations are floating into the 21st century on a ship without a rudder.

Most of our Ukrainian institutions were established 100 or 90 or 75 or even 30 years ago to meet certain community needs prevalent during those eras. Today, their organizational mission statements are either forgotten or irrelevant.

Some of our organizations are transplants, established and relevant in Polish-occupied Galicia during the 1920s and 1930s, but not in North America in the 1980s.

It is because our Ukrainian establishment leaders have little idea where they are headed that their emphasis is on means to an end rather than the end itself. We focus on constitutionality, language purity, financial growth, new members, ritual, tradition. We rarely talk about purpose, results, assessment, realignment.

How many Ukrainian organizations have a clearly defined corporate mission statement and annual, time-phased, measurable objectives aimed at fulfilling that mission?

How many Ukrainian organizations elect or select their leaders based on ability to get things done? How many members hold their leaders accountable?

How many Ukrainian organizations are led by mediocre establishment hacks who hold their positions because no one else wants the job or because they are the least offensive alternative?

We ask many questions of our establishment leaders, but we never ask why.

Why must our Ukrainian heritage schools only teach Ukrainian history through 1922? What is more relevant today, Ivan Mazepa or the Nazi invasion of Ukraine? Why must our youth be kept in the dark about this period of our history?

Why do our pedagogues refuse to teach Ukrainian immigration history in America? Isn't the purpose of a school to prepare students for the society in which the school finds itself? Shouldn't our students be familiar with the sacrifices involved in creating and sustaining their present Ukrainian community?

Why must a young person be able to speak fluent Ukrainian in order to be fully accepted in our community? Language is a means to an end. I know many young Ukrainian Americans whose Ukrainian is impeccable, but their contribution to our community is zero. I also know other Ukrainian Americans whose knowledge of Ukrainian is poor or non-existent, and their contribution is exemplary.

Why must our religious services be only in Ukrainian? The major purpose of a divine liturgy is to enhance individual spirituality and to communicate with God, not to preserve the Ukrainian language. I prefer Ukrainian-language liturgies, but if English services will help bring back our youth, so be it.

"We must preserve our national biological and cultural substance," exhorted World Congress of Free Ukrainians head Peter Savaryn in Chicago last November 29. Why? If we fail to preserve both, does that mean our community is doomed?

"It is time for the young generation of professionals to take a greater interest and get involved in the so-called establishment organizations," writes Eugene Iwanciw in the December 7 issue of The Ukrainian Weekly. Why? In their present condition, what do these organizations have to offer the young professional? Personal growth? Psychological fulfillment? Broadened horizons? Joy? Excitement?

If we expect our youth to join our organizations because it is their "obligation" or to demonstrate their "patriotism," then we're in deep trouble. That's not enough. People who join organizations do so to derive some benefit or to support some purpose. If organizations provide no meaningful enhancement and have no clearly defined goal, how can we expect intelligent young professionals to become involved?

None of this, of course, is new. I wrote about it a generation ago in a series of articles titled "Where Is Our Youth?" which appeared in both The Ukrainian Weekly and Svoboda.

To those who are still wondering "where" our youth is, let me repeat what I wrote in 1964. The question is meaningless. We know where our youth is. More and more, they are not with us. I believed three far more relevant questions were: 1) What do we want of our youth? 2) In view of our present environment in the United States (not as we think it is, or as we would like it to be, but as it really is), what can we reasonably expect from our youth? 3) Once we have decided what we can reasonably expect, what must we do to fulfill our expectations?

In addressing the first two questions, I emphasized the need for realism over romantic fantasy ("we need to deal with what is." I wrote, "not with what we wish would be") and clarity over indecision ("we need to have precise goals so that we don't continue to muddle through").

It was my response to the third question that created the most controversy. "We need to accept acculturation as inevitable," I wrote, "and use it to combat assimilation." I defined acculturation as a form of bicultural adaptation which seeks to blend the best of two cultures in a way that enhances both. If our youth is forced to choose between their Ukrainian or their American heritages, most will opt for being American, I argued. It was far wiser, I believed, not to force a choice but to try to accommodate both. I pointed to the Jews as the masters of accommodation and of survival.

Despite the fact that at the time I was reviled for being an "Americanizer," "out of touch with the true Ukrainian spirit," and even a "traitor" to the Ukrainian cause, I have not changed my mind during the past 22 years. On the contrary, I believe that the major reason so many of our young professionals are estranged from our community today is precisely because our institutions have not adapted, have not acculturated, have not re-examined their missions and made them more relevant.

Like living organisms, institutions that can't or won't adapt, perish.

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