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Faithful to the Commandments: Ukrainian Americans Preserve a Way of Life
| Article
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20686 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1992 |
2,860 Words |
| Author
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Thomas E. Graves
Thomas E. Graves, a free-lance folklife consultant and
photographer, has worked with Ukrainian artisans for the last
ten years. His articles on Ukrainian culture examine the
strength of and the reasons for active Ukrainian-American
ethnicity. He has written and lectured extensively on
several different ethnic groups, including Pennsylvania
Germans, Lithuanians, American Indians, and Gypsies. His
last contribution to The WORLD & I was on German Powwowing in
Pennsylvania and appeared in the January 1992 issues. |
Although Ukrainians have immigrated to the United States since before the American Revolution, it was only in the 1870s that they began arriving in large enough numbers to form stable and permanent communities. First, they settled in the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania, then in industrial centers such Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and finally in the cities of the Midwest. Members of the Ukrainian diaspora went in large numbers to other countries, too including Germany, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil.
These people brought their culture, language, and religion with them. The strength of their desire to maintain their culture has varied from community to community as well as over time. It often has been said that the first wave of Ukrainian immigrants, in the late 1800s, was the most eager to assimilate into American society. Yet it was these settlers who brought over the first Orthodox and Eastern Rite priests; who started the first Ukrainian-American social, fraternal, and beneficial societies; and who set up the first Ukrainian-language presses in America.
If some of the material aspects of their culture, the crafts and dress for example, were lost or hidden from view, the part of their culture that was most important to them was retained. Over the years, those things deemed to be important about the culture changed and the reasons for keeping the culture alive changed, so that--especially since the Second World War--there arose a conscious attempt to preserve, and even spread, the traditional culture. An epitaph on one gravestone at St. Andrew's Ukrainian Orthodox Memorial Church cemetery in South Bound Brook, New Jersey, reads:
Traveler, someday when you arrive in Kiev, tell that we, faithful to the commandments of our fatherland, are resting here.
Why did they leave? The hope of a better life, economic depression, cultural oppression, escape from mandatory military service, escape from war-torn lands, and the hope of religious freedom are among the hope of religious freedom are among the various reasons that Ukrainians left their loved ones and homeland and moved to other lands over the last century. Many immigrants left so they could earn extra money to send home, or so they could save up and return home again. Many stayed in their new homes because of the appealing life-style they found, or because conditions back home had changed and they could not return.
In the 1960s and '70s, the rise of ethnic consciousness
...
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