Austin Ukrainian American community alive and kicking deep in the heart of Texas (08/31/03)

Austin Ukrainian American community alive and kicking deep in the heart of Texas

by Chrystia Wynnyk-Wilson

AUSTIN, Texas - Deep in the heart of Texas, in the capital of the Lone Star State, thrives a small but ever growing Ukrainian American community known as "Austin Ukes." We all found each other several years ago thanks to The Ukrainian Weekly editorial section. Ever since that initial contact, our group has grown into a social and cultural club that preserves language and tradition.

More and more Ukrainians keep finding each other in central Texas. The U.S. Census says there are over 1,500 citizens of Ukrainian descent in this region of Texas.

Membership spans several generations ranging from immigrants from the post-World War II era to young professionals in high tech industries and academia, and includes children of all ages. We even had a Ukrainian high school exchange student amongst us. What we have in common is our love of our Ukrainian heritage, language and traditions.

We host several annual events that truly bind us together and help preserve our customs and traditions. Some of our events include Sviat Vechir, complete with the full 12 courses and koliady, and the traditional blessing of the Paska at Easter time.

Maintaining and promoting our traditions is especially important for the children because they assure the future continuation of the Ukrainian heritage in our families.

Additionally, our students present paskas to their teachers at Eastertime, present them with Ukrainian woodwork at Christmas time and write papers about the Famine-Genocide in Ukraine in order to educate their schools' teachers and students about their Ukrainian heritage.

We even donate books on Ukraine, Ukrainians and Ukrainian history to our school libraries.

Some of the children have started being home schooled in "Ukraino-znavstvo" (Ukrainian studies) because it is too far to make the eight hour roundtrip to Houston every Saturday.

One of the goals that some of the children have set for next year is to convince Gov. Rick Perry of Texas to commemorate Ukrainian Independence Day and try to bring representatives from the Houston, Dallas and San Antonio Ukrainian communities to Austin for such an event.

Austin Ukes are letting fellow Ukrainians know that we are here and we are proud Ukrainian Americans.

To keep up with the Austin community's activities, please visit our website at http://www.angelfire.com/folk/austin_ukes or contact the Austin Ukes at [email protected].

| Home Page |