NEWS AND VIEWS: Summits of organizations and the future of the Ukrainian American community (07/13/03)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Summits of organizations and the future of the Ukrainian American community

by Oleh Wolowyna

The Ukrainian Engineers' Society of America, in collaboration with several other associations, organized the 2003 Summit of Ukrainian American Organizations, which took place at Soyuzivka on March 28-30. The theme for the summit was "Demographics and Communication in Ukrainian American Society." I was invited to talk about the demographic dimension, and I would like to share my views on the topic, as well as make some comments about events like the summit.

My presentation was on the latest 2000 data on Ukrainians in the United States, and these data were used as the basis for some comments about the future of the Ukrainian community in the United States. According to the 2000 census, about 893,000 persons declared "Ukrainian" as their ancestry. This information is based on the census question "What is this person's ancestry or ethnic origin?" As the United States is a country of immigrants, in order to capture the consequences of intermarriage, one could write in one or two ancestries. Thus the concept of "Ukrainian" in this case is one of self reporting; the respondent could declare any ancestry he or she wanted.

Although information on the number of persons who declared only "Ukrainian" as their ancestry (i.e., no other ancestry besides Ukrainian) is not available yet, data from the 1980 and 1990 censuses suggest that in 2000 less than half declared "Ukrainian" as their only ancestry; that is, more than half of Ukrainians in the U.S. are descendants of mixed marriages.

Another relevant census question is: "does this person speak a language other than English at home? If yes, what is this language?" This allows us to estimate the number of persons who speak Ukrainian at home. The number of persons of Ukrainian ancestry who speak Ukrainian at home is also not available yet for 2000, but, based on 1990 data, we can estimate this number at 116,000 (13 percent) for 2000. Besides these 116,000, there are Ukrainians that speak the language but for a variety of reasons do not use it at home; thus this number does not include all persons who speak Ukrainian. However, it is safe to assume that if a person speaks Ukrainian at home, he is quite committed to the language and the culture, and these 116,000 constitute the core of non-assimilated Ukrainians.

The first conclusion from these numbers is that, if we use language as a necessary criterion for being accepted in the community, we are likely to eliminate about 85 percent (760,000) of potential members for the community and its organizations. We know that there are quite a few active members of the community who do not speak Ukrainian at home or do not speak Ukrainian at all, and thus the total number of active Ukrainians in the U.S. is probably higher than the 116,000 of Ukrainian speakers. The total number of persons who participate to some degree in the organized community is unknown, but it is unlikely that it is more than 200,000. This leaves close to 700,000 potential members who are not included in the community.

When Ukraine declared its independence, the Ukrainian diasporas in the West focused a large proportion of their attention, priorities and resources on Ukraine, and local issues, problems and priorities were neglected. This situation has continued, to some degree, until now. In recent years we have witnessed repeated attempts in the community to address this problem and to find a new framework for Ukrainians abroad, as the previous framework became obsolete after Ukraine's independence. Several high-profile meetings and many articles have been devoted to this topic, but the search continues.

Census data provide some guidance for the formulation of a new framework for the Ukrainian diaspora. First, it is important to recognize the sociological and historical fact that any diaspora, without a periodic influx of new immigrants from the mother country, will assimilate in time and eventually disappear. This process can be slowed down but not stopped. The recent migration wave from Ukraine is likely to revitalize the community and slow down the assimilation process to some degree, but this will only postpone the inevitable. As periodic immigration from Ukraine is not a long-term option, the only viable option is to develop a strategy that will assure a longer life for a viable community. This strategy should be based on a clear definition of the role of the diaspora and the desirability of its existence in the long term.

The desirability of having a viable diaspora has two components: internal and external. The internal component is the desire of persons of the same culture to maintain to some degree elements of that culture and develop social networks of persons with similar cultural backgrounds. The external component is the desire to provide active support to the Ukrainian nation and its people. For the internal component large numbers and significant resources are desirable but not absolutely necessary. Of course with large numbers and resources the community can slow down the assimilation process and be more effective. For the external component, on the other hand, large numbers and significant resources are much more necessary.

A basic issue that the Ukrainian community in the U.S. needs to settle is whether its members consider themselves Ukrainian Americans or Americans of Ukrainian ancestry. Some members will feel strongly about their allegiance to their ethnic heritage and would prefer to be considered Ukrainian Americans, and they should have a place in the organized community. However, if we want to have a strong and effective community, it needs to be on the basis of Americans of Ukrainian ancestry. This model has been quite successful in Canada, although the policy of multiculturalism made this approach more viable in Canada than in the U.S. In the U.S. the accepted terminology is "Ukrainian Americans" (or Polish Americans, Chinese Americans, etc.), and the label "Americans of Ukrainian ancestry" may turn some people off. The label used is not that important, and we can continue using the more accepted term Ukrainian Americans; what matters is what is understood by the community about itself.

If the Ukrainian community wants to be successful in the external component, it definitely needs to take as its basic premise that we are Americans of Ukrainian ancestry. We need to be fully integrated into American society and exercise our rights as American citizens, with the added element of "Ukrainian ancestry." With this approach we will be able to change our contribution to Ukraine from a marginal to a full-fledged, broad position. Instead of continuously milking our scarce internal resources for all kinds of causes, we need to take advantage of the large government resources spent every year for foreign assistance and the resources of American civic societies that make significant contributions in many countries of the world. We need to establish closer contacts with persons of Ukrainian ancestry in high positions who, although not actively engaged in the community, may be willing to use their influence to help Ukraine and its people. Two very successful examples of this kind of approach by two American ethnic communities are: a) the favorable legislation for Irish immigrants; b) the clearly pro-Israel American foreign policy.

With the independence of Ukraine we have the opportunity to broaden the assistance to Ukraine from a narrow nationalistic agenda to a broad, professional perspective. For example, we can suggest to our non-Ukrainian colleagues opportunities for research, business and charitable work because of some unique characteristics of Ukraine that make work in Ukraine attractive and useful for its own sake. Examples of assistance to Ukraine based on this premise are multiplying in many areas, from health care to archeology.

The basic premise of acting as American citizens of Ukrainian ancestry also has advantages for the internal component. One of the legal reasons for taking a census every year is that government entities at all levels (from federal to municipal) are compelled by law to make decisions about allocations of funds based on ancestry and immigration data, and the census is the primary data source on which many of these decisions are based. For example, ancestry is used by federal agencies to enforce provisions under the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, sex and national origin. At the community level, state and local agencies develop health care and other services tailored to meet the language and cultural diversity of the elderly. (The Ukrainian social services organization in Philadelphia used census data to document the number of poor elderly Ukrainians in the city and obtained funds from social welfare services for this purpose).

Examples of activities based on this premise have been multiplying in recent years. New organizations have been created responding to different needs within the community, and individuals in the community have come up with innovative ideas based on this premise. (For example, organizations like the Rotary Club could be enlised to help collect and ship computers to Ukraine). However, these are isolated instances, and this philosophy has not yet permeated our organized community as a whole. Our community leaders need to refocus their way of thinking from a ghetto mentality to a mentality of American citizens taking full advantage of the opportunities and resources to which they are entitled, leveraging the vastly larger resources of American society.

If we assume that the estimate of 200,000 persons somewhat active in the community is reasonable, the challenge is to tap into the potential of the 700,000 outside of the community. It would be unrealistic to hope that many of them will join our existing organizations, spend endless hours in meetings, take part in patriotic acts (akademiyi), or attend Ukrainian church services every Sunday. We need to rethink the philosophy and structure of our organizations, and devise ways in which some of these 700,000 "Ukrainians" could be attracted. Some might be interested in contributing to some causes if they were aware of the needs; some might be able to make a tremendous contribution with just one well-placed phone call or an article in a newspaper. We need to be creative and flexible.

One problem is to find these people, and here census data can be useful. We can produce tables with the number of persons of Ukrainian ancestry (as well as persons born in Ukraine), along with zip codes and census tracts (several blocks in a city). In zip code areas with relatively large numbers of Ukrainians, it may be worthwhile to spend a few dollars to mail specific material to all persons in these zip codes. Another option is to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Internet. Quite a few Ukrainian websites get many daily hits, and tracking software allows us to capture the characteristics of these persons. Well known marketing techniques can be easily added to these websites to gather e-mail addresses of these persons and provide them information via e-mail. Finally, we need to be attuned to this goal and be on the lookout for potential persons of Ukrainian ancestry. We can discretely inquire about the ethnic origin of the persons we work or interact with, look out for Ukrainian names, etc.

One corollary of this discussion is that Ukrainian organizations need to realize that, in order to be able to work effectively, any organization needs information. The census has a lot of data that can be used to study in depth the characteristics of Ukrainians in the U.S. We have: a) basic data like place of residence, age, sex, marital status, education, income, occupation; b) immigration data, both international (we can analyze the characteristics of the recent immigrants from Ukraine) and internal (we can document the dispersion of Ukrainians from large communities to states with no organized communities); c) data on veterans from all wars. We have detailed housing data like: type of housing, if rented or owned, monthly rent, monthly first and second mortgage payments, year house built and value of property, number of rooms and bedrooms, number of cars and telephones, etc.

As we have data on ancestry and language for the last three censuses (1980, 1990 and 2000), we can study trends in language assimilation, intermarriage, social mobility. Besides providing us with a detailed profile of Ukrainians in the U.S. and in larger cities, the data provides useful information to organizations publishing Ukrainian newspapers (how many potential readers are there?), credit unions, veterans organizations, etc. Census data is basically free, but it needs to be processed and analyzed in order to be useful. The cost of this is relatively small, and our organizations need to understand the importance of it to invest in this kind of information. Businesses and government agencies invest large sums in information because they consider it a good investment. Besides retooling our basic premise from a ghetto mentality to a mentality of Americans of Ukrainian ancestry, we also need to modernize the way our organizations work, including the use of information for better decision-making and the use of the Internet for communications and marketing.

This modernization requires us to switch as much as possible from volunteers to paid staff in our organizations. Only then will we be able to have effective organizations. This brings up the issue of resources. If we manage to expand the base of members in our community by tapping into this potential of 700,000 persons of Ukrainian ancestry and are successful in obtaining more funds from government and American civic organizations and businesses, then some of the internal funds can be channeled to hire paid staff in our organizations. Another resource is the creative use of students and retired persons for specific tasks, with modest levels of remuneration.

Finally I would like to say a few words abut the summit. This was a great idea, and the Ukrainian Engineers' Society of America should be commended for having organized this event two years in a row. The participation in both events was somewhat limited and consisted mainly of attendees from the New York area. This event deserves to be expanded to a national level, with active participation by all our main organizations. I found the two days of presentations and discussions very stimulating, and such an event, if institutionalized and expanded to a national level, would be extremely useful for improving the quality and effectiveness of our organized community. Who knows, it may become a Ukrainian Davos (the world economic summit in Switzerland) or a policy Renaissance Weekend at Hilton Head Island, made famous by President Bill Clinton.

Dr. Oleh Wolowyna is owner and president of the counsulting firm Informed Decisions, Inc., in Chapel Hill, N.C. He has worked as a consultant in the international development field (population and health). He has also done extensive demographic and sociological analysis of Ukrainians in the United States and Canada, as well as demographic analysis of the situation in Ukraine.

| Home Page |