POTPOURRI by BURMA-CAPELIN (10/10/93)

POTPOURRI

by BURMA-CAPELIN

Reprinted below is one of the earliest columns/social commentaries by Burma-Capelin (pseudonym of Dr. Stephen Mamchur) to appear in The Ukrainian Weekly. This one, on "Immigrant Control and Second-Generation Organization," was published on September 12, 1936.

Second generation Ukrainian organizations, or "Ukrainian Youth" organizations as they are sometimes styled, are, despite claims to the contrary, in greater or lesser degree under the control of the organizations of the first of the immigrant generation. While to some extent this is inevitable, it is enlightening to inquire into the reasons for this control, the effect it has on the policies or programs of the youth organizations and what might possibly be done - in a general way - to make these or new organizations effective in alleviating the problems which are genuinely those of second generation youth.

Every individual of the second generation has problems, and he or she feels them; these range all the way from satisfactory economic adjustment of some sort, marriage, education, to ways of utilizing one's leisure time. They are all accentuated for the second generation because in its attempts to solve them it finds Ukrainian ways (as represented by the parents whose Ukrainian views change very slowly, or by immigrant leaders) conflicting with American ways. What is a fact, however, is that, though the second generation may be inarticulate or may be unable to understand its real problems, it feels these and at least unconsciously knows just what they are. It might organize, then, under intelligent leadership to direct effects to alleviate these problems. But at once it faces two facts: Organization which would bring results requires finances and competent leadership. The second generation can find these resources within itself only in a very meager way. Typically, the second generation is composed of individuals who are as yet but "getting a start in life," and hence but few are economically independent. Most of those that are, are also fairly successful in American life, and have become so adjusted to American culture that their associations with Ukrainians are sporadic and interests in Ukrainian problems ephemeral. The second generation, then, cannot draw on this group either for the financial support or for leadership.

It is left at the mercy, as it were, of those who claim they can help and are willing to do it in their own way.

This group is the first generation in its organizational aspect, the first generation organizations. It is perhaps unnecessary to stress the fact that it is these upon which all Ukrainian youth organizations are, in varied degrees, dependent. Without the resources, of various kinds, which the immigrant organizations put at the disposal of youth these youth organizations could not exist. This support, varying with the specific organization, means, as a corollary, varied degrees of control of the activities and policies of the youth organizations. While the parent organizations might be lauded for the support they give, the corollary control they have exercised has not been, excepting some cases, for the benefit of youth. This is because they do not understand or appreciate the peculiar problems of the second generation.

The main general consequences of the immigrant organizations' control over youth organizations - whether that control has been exercised overtly or covertly - is that most of the activities of these organizations have been Ukrainianization rather than Americanization activities. The attempt has been, in almost every instance, to inculcate Ukrainian culture or Ukrainian ideals - whatever the tinge may be, religious, nationalistic, socialistic or something else - into the second generation. While in itself this may be neither good nor bad, it is a luxury, if you please, which the second generation cannot afford. The really vital problems of the second generation have always been interpreted as lying within the old world Ukrainian organizational structure. The immigrant organizations cannot reconcile themselves to the fact that the organizations including the church, which have served the immigrant tolerably well, are as ill-adjusted ("out-of-date") to the second generation as a horse and buggy is in our motorized urban life. The second generation simply cannot fit into the scheme of thinking, the way of behavior, and the organization of the first generation. By virtue of having been born in America, its fates and fortunes lie within American conditions, and it is harmful, not to say silly, to try to fit it into organizations which are based on Ukrainian culture abroad or that aspect of it which can yet be conserved even by those who have emigrated. Ukrainian youth organizations, if they are to achieve anything more than volatile speech-making or paper publicity, must recognize that it is American not Ukrainian conditions to which, primarily, the second generation must adjust. From this point of view, the entire ideology of the immigrant organizations as to what is "good" for youth may be scrapped without any remorse, and the sooner, the better. The only solution that seems practicable at the moment is for the immigrant organizations, if they do have the welfare of the second generation at heart, is to give the youth organizations unconditional support, that is, support with no control. The youth organizations should be left entirely free to frame and prosecute their own policies, however distasteful these may be to the parent organizations. This is perhaps too much to expect, a sort of a utopian hope, if it is that, then it logically follows that Ukrainian youth would do better with no organizations at all rather than those which are the offspring of the immigrant world. There has been much more harm than good done to Ukrainian youth carrying over the old world elements of dissension, the old world philosophies, into the youth organizations. The one common basis on which Ukrainian youth can meet is that of being the second generation of Ukrainian descent in America; it is in this sphere that its problems really lie; all else is not of importance to youth, even though, for the immigrant organizations, it may mean the difference between existence and desuetude.

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