"Ukrainian-American Citadel": from the pages of UNA history (Chapter 9) (12/19/04)

"Ukrainian-American Citadel": from the pages of UNA history

Following is part of a series of excerpts from "Ukrainian-American Citadel: The First 100 Years of the Ukrainian National Association," by Dr. Myron B. Kuropas, published in 1996 by East European Monographs of Boulder, Colo. The excerpts are reprinted with the permission of the author.

The book is available from the author for $25, plus $2.50 shipping, by writing to: Dr. Myron B. Kuropas, 107 Ilehamwood Drive, DeKalb, IL 60115. Also available is a newly released Ukrainian edition of the book; price: $25 (including shipping).

Chapter 9

The Golden Decade

Believing that the new immigration needed greater familiarity with the UNA, its history and its goals, Svoboda inaugurated a series of articles on the UNA beginning January 18, 1950. The articles ended on March 29 and addressed such topics as: the beginnings of the Ukrainian immigration to America and the beginning of organized Ukrainian life; the role of Svoboda and the birth of the UNA; the first UNA convention; the struggle for the national identity of the UNA; assisting the "old country" between two world wars; a Ukrainian content within an American context; and UNA reforms over the years.

In January, The Ukrainian Weekly called for greater interest from members in the upcoming convention and suggested that youth organizations in the Cleveland area, site of the 1950 convention, "play hosts to the hundreds of delegates, to show them how well organized they are and how much more active our younger generation is today."

The following month The Ukrainian Weekly once again requested that UNA branches pay more attention to their youth:

"Since the UNA is an organization with a potentially great future and since that future depends upon our younger, American-born generation, it is patently clear that at this time, when the older generation is gradually retiring from active organizational life, every effort should be made to elect as delegates to the convention as many young generation people ... as possible. ... Practically every branch has young members in it, and among them there is bound to be found one or two who could well represent it.

"To be sure, when an older person has far greater ability to represent his branch at the convention he should have preference over the less capable younger member.

"But where a young generation member has a good record or shows promise of one, he should be given preference."

... The new immigrants were different. They were thoroughly Ukrainian. Many came from larger urban areas. They had suffered through the war and had survived. Better educated than those who came before them, they quickly found jobs in a United States that was experiencing a post-war economic boom. Observing the relatively low level of education and economic progress that the older immigration had made, and the degree to which they and their children had been Americanized, many new immigrants came to look down on America's Ukrainian pioneers as country bumpkins. The new immigrants were determined to fight assimilation at every turn and not to "succumb to American ways" as they believed those Ukrainians who preceded them to America had. Since the older organizations were "contaminated" as it were - some even used the English language during deliberations - the new immigrants resolved to establish their own, "purer" Ukrainian subculture and to maintain that purity at all costs.

Most older UNA immigrants welcomed the new immigration with open arms. They wanted to help the new arrivals. They wanted to "educate" them in "American ways" so that they would fit in. They explained how tough life was during the Depression and how powerful the Communists had been. They expected the new arrivals to join the old Ukrainian-American organizations. When the newer immigrants resisted their advice and began to establish their own societies, many of which they merely transplanted from Europe, the older UNA members began to resent the so-called deepeesty (i.e. DPs). "They think they know it all," the older members grumbled. "They laugh at the way we speak Ukrainian. They ridicule our children who don't speak Ukrainian or speak it poorly. They have good jobs. They think America was always like this. They don't know what it means to stand in an unemployment line like we did during the depression. When they came here, everything had already been done. We had churches, halls, Soyuz, youth organizations, everything. They turned their noses up at all of that because they think they're so much better than we are."

For UNA executives, who wanted to unite and integrate all Ukrainians under the broad UNA umbrella, bridging nationalist and cultural differences between the two immigrations proved the biggest challenge of the 1950s. In an obvious effort to assuage fears of assimilation, The Ukrainian Weekly printed an article titled "What is Assimilation?" that suggested that although all immigrant groups take on some aspects of American culture - clothes, food, work habits, etc. - group solidarity could be preserved. "Barring exceptions, then," the author wrote, "the universal tendency to identify oneself, at least historically, with some national group means that assimilation, on the individual side, is seldom achieved for generations."

The Ukrainian Weekly also wrote about the problems of integration the previous immigration had and how long it had taken for the older generation and the American-born younger generation to come to terms.

| Home Page |