Small solutions, not grand illusions: Harvard symposium focuses on diaspora-Ukraine relationship (05/25/03)

Small solutions, not grand illusions: Harvard symposium focuses on diaspora-Ukraine relationship

by Yuri Shevchuk

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - "Diaspora and Homeland in the Transnational Age: the Case of Ukraine" was the focus of the first Petro Jacyk Memorial Symposium, which took place on March 20-21, at Harvard University and brought together sociologists from Canada, the United States and Ukraine to discuss the current state of the Ukrainian disapora in North America and its relations with independent Ukraine.

In a certain sense, the fact that the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) was holding a symposium on such a topic was in itself symbolic since the generous financial support of the Ukrainian immigrant community had helped establish HURI in 1973. Now, 30 years later, HURI offered the same community an opportunity to look at itself as if in a kind of mirror, to analyze its present dynamics and consider its prospects for the future.

New undertaking

The symposium was a new undertaking in more than one way. It was the first biennial symposium organized by the HURI. In 2001 HURI's Executive Committee, wishing to honor the late philanthropist Petro Jacyk of Toronto, a longtime friend and generous supporter of Ukrainian studies at Harvard and other universities in Canada and the United Kingdom, amended the terms of the Petro Jacyk Distinguished Fellowship, charging all future recipients of the fellowship with conceiving and organizing a symposium during their research tenure at the institute.

In his opening address at the symposium, Dr. Wsewolod Isajiw, HURI's 2002-2003 Petro Jacyk Distinguished Fellow, noted that, while the history of Ukrainian immigration to North America, in particular to Canada, has been quite well documented and relatively better studied, the sociology of Ukrainian immigration had remained largely outside the scope of researchers. The symposium sought to remedy that situation and offered some very interesting findings that are certain to draw the attention of scholars, politicians, community leaders and the society at large.

The international character of the symposium emanated from both the geography of its participants and in the global perspective from which the Ukrainian diaspora and its relations with the homeland were discussed.

This global perspective immediately took center stage with the keynote presentation by Prof. Mary Waters, chair of the department of sociology at Harvard, titled "Transnationalism and Diasporas." It laid out a general theoretical framework for the analysis of the Ukrainian diaspora community in the era of digital revolution. "Transnationalism," specifically, sustained long-term economic, political and socio-cultural activities across borders, became a new defining dimension of today's diasporas, including the Ukrainian diaspora. The structure and thematic distribution of panels reflected those issues that are most topical for the Ukrainian diaspora in North America.

The four symposium sessions discussed, in turn: "The View of the Diaspora from Ukraine", "Diaspora and the New Wave of Immigration from Ukraine," "Diaspora and Ukraine: Transnational Influence" and the concluding roundtable "Transnationalism and Diaspora: What's Next?"

Ihor Zielyk, professor of sociology at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, presented results of a survey on perceptions of the American diaspora in three Ukrainian cities: Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv and Lviv. The survey revealed a variety of attitudes towards the diaspora displayed by respondents of the three cities: romantic in Dnipropetrovsk, cautiously pragmatic in Kyiv and critical in Lviv.

Diaspora waxing and waning

Diaspora communities pass through stages of development and decline, noted Wsevolod Isajiw in his paper dedicated to cycles of growth and decay of the diaspora. Over the years since Ukraine regained its independence, the life of the diaspora has been marked by two contradictory factors: increasing transnationalism accompanied by a growing wave of immigration from Ukraine, and a noticeable decline of the organizational life of the already established Ukrainian diaspora community in North America, as well as an aging or dwindling of its membership.

Some 110,000 thousand new immigrants to the United States and 20,000 to Canada in the period between 1991 and 2001 provided the much-needed "new blood" for the aging and increasingly assimilated diaspora. At the same time, the new immigrants exposed the diaspora's weakness and lack of preparedness for new challenges.

A successfully functioning diaspora, argued Dr. Isajiw, maintains a balance between two principal types of activities: instrumental and expressive. Instrumental activities are aimed at adapting the ethnic community to the broader American/Canadian society, by seeking to improve the conditions of community members (through increased rights, economic opportunities and benefits), or to help fulfill the community's goals in relation to the outer society. Expressive activities are oriented inwardly to the community itself; they cultivate social relationships among its members, and purport to maintain the community's culture and identity through traditional churches, schools, cultural societies and social clubs.

In Dr. Isajiw's opinion, the balance between instrumental and expressive activities in the Ukrainian diaspora has been tilted too far towards the expressive end - much to the detriment of the diaspora's influence in the larger American and Canadian societies. Instrumental activities, such as professional lobbying, providing economic aid, or participating in the respective country's institutions have been insufficient.

Dr. Isajiw also noted the mixed effect the independence of Ukraine has had on the diaspora. It has strengthened its Ukrainian identity, while at the same time it has caused among the descendants of the post-World War II immigrants the feeling that their obligation to their ancestral homeland has been fulfilled and now it is up to Ukrainians in Ukraine to build up their independent nation.

New immigrants

Over the last decade a new stream of Ukrainian migration, usually referred to as the "Fourth Wave" has flowed to North America. For a long time though very little has been known about its numeric characteristics, or its make-up in terms of its geographic origins in Ukraine, language, ethnic, educational and occupational profiles, religion and other features that in their totality will define the face of Ukrainian diaspora community in the future and its interaction with the home-country.

The papers that offered to fill in this dearth of data arouse a particularly keen interest at the symposium. Oleh Wolowyna, president of Informed Decisions Inc. (U.S.), and Victor Satzewich, professor and chair of the department of sociology at MacMaster University (Canada) each reported the results of their separate studies of new Ukrainian immigrants coming to their respective countries. Dr. Wolowyna focused on levels and characteristics of the recent migration from Ukraine to the United States, while Prof. Satzewich discussed some typical patterns of the immigrant adaptation in Canada.

According to Dr. Wolowyna, over the last decade, of all the Western nations the United States has attracted the greatest number of legal immigrants from Ukraine. Between 1991 and 2001 there were about 56,000 such immigrants of Ukrainian ethnicity. If one were to consider all the legal migrants from Ukraine during this period, this number would increase to 135,000, with Jews constituting a large component of the migration stream.

If one added to the 56,000 ethnic legal Ukrainian migrants the ethnic Ukrainian temporary visa-holders who stayed over, the total number of the Fourth Wave can be estimated to vary between 100,000 and 120,000. Since 1996, immigrants' median age has fallen from 40 years old to 25.5 years. The largest category of migrants are refugees, followed by the "green card lottery" winners.

Today, in a departure from the precedent set by the third wave, the newcomers do not necessarily settle in such traditional Ukrainian areas of the United States as Greater New York, Philadelphia or Chicago. Rather, they tend to gravitate to the western states of California, Washington and Oregon, increasingly choosing cities with more lucrative job opportunities. Curiously enough, the organized Ukrainian diaspora community has an "almost non-existent effect" on the new immigrants' choice of settlement areas.

Prof. Satzewich's study of the recent Ukrainian immigrants to Canada revealed some specifically Canadian peculiarities of the Fourth Wave. Nine out of 10 came to Canada as independent immigrants selected on the basis of their educational and professional qualifications, language fluency and other merits. The proportion of asylum-seekers was much smaller, even though Canada, with its liberal refugee protection system, is by far the most preferred destination for asylum seekers from Ukraine.

Among the greatest problems of adaptation encountered by Ukrainian immigrants in Canada Prof. Satzewich noted difficulties in transition to a different job market (the greatest for teachers, engineers, medical personnel, and the smallest for computer and information technology specialists), lack of social connections, and of specifically Canadian work experience, as well as inadequate command of language.

Diaspora and Ukraine

The symposium's session "Diaspora and Ukraine: Transnational Influence" analyzed a subject that touches a raw nerve of many activists in the Ukrainian diaspora community. The relationship of diaspora with the homeland is multi-dimensional, complex and often emotionally charged.

Dr. Hryhoriy Nemyria, director of the Center for European and International Studies at the Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University and chair of the department for European integration at the Ukrainian Academy of Public Administra-tion, offered a theoretical analysis of actual and possible patterns of influence exerted by the diaspora upon Ukraine at national and sub-national levels in such areas as politics, elite behavior, civil society, identity formation, education and culture.

It is in education and culture that Dr. Nemyria saw the most promising investment the diaspora can make so as to influence the formation of Ukrainian nationhood in a positive way.

To complement theory with practice Vera Andrushkiw, director of the Community Partnerships Project at the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, brought forth a specific case of diaspora's positive influence upon Ukraine, namely as a facilitator between the greater American society and Ukraine. The foundation is a success story and a heartening example of an instrumental organization that has reached out beyond the diaspora to the American community at large, tapping into its political, intellectual, cultural and financial resources to facilitate democratic development, market reforms and enhance human rights in Ukraine.

The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation's programs have included the Parliamentary Development Project to develop institutional mechanisms of the Verkhovna Rada; the Constitutional Court Project to inform people in Ukraine about the Ukrainian Constitution; the Economic Development Program to facilitate links between Ukrainian and U.S. entrepreneurs, promoting small businesses, the Cultural Revival Project to assist artists that are not yet well-known, the Humanitarian Assistance Program; and the Community Partnerships Project.

This USAID-funded project partnered 14 Ukrainian and U.S. cities and created five regional training centers in Ukraine to reach out to all cities and villages in Ukraine for local government development. The motto of the project, "Small Solutions, Not Grand Illusions," sounded very much like a welcome self-correction and reality-check by the diaspora that too often in the past had been unrealistic and impatient in its expectations towards its newly independent homeland.

What's next?

One common denominator of the two-day discussions was a sober and critical examination of the current state of the relationship between the Ukrainian diaspora in North America and its homeland. The spirit of constructive criticism was clearly manifest in the concluding session "Transnationalism and Diaspora: What's Next?" - a roundtable moderated by Dr. Isajiw with the participation of Roman Szporluk, Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of History (Harvard); George Grabowicz, Dmytro Cyzevskyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature (Harvard); Michael Flier, Oleksandr Potebnja Professor of Ukrainian Philology (Harvard), and Dr. Nemyria.

Applauding the organizers and participants on the success of the symposium, HURI Director Szporluk expressed the hope that this symposium would be a forerunner of future scholarly forums that would include in their programs such issues as the involvement of other diasporas - for example Jewish, Polish, Tatar - in the making of modern Ukraine. In Dr. Szporluk's opinion, an important implication of the symposium for students of history was that today Ukrainian history is being made on the world stage, and somebody in Palo Alto, Calif., or Wellington, New Zealand, can be its active participant.

Prof. Flier fittingly brought into the discussion an issue that had largely been left out by the symposium, specifically, the diaspora and the Ukrainian language as the touchstone of Ukrainian identity. The best way for Ukrainian to succeed is "not so much by trying to undermine Russian, but by doing things well, by bringing forth attractive, interesting artifacts of culture that will draw people to it," he said. "Good fiction, TV and radio programs should be written in Ukrainian, interesting newspapers printed."

This is where, in Prof. Flier's opinion, the diaspora could help - not by projecting a romantic past, but by firmly placing its feet in the present and recognizing that Ukrainian as a language is much more than its Galician variety, by promoting projects to create quality dictionaries, manuals and grammar books that would strengthen the position of the Ukrainian language.

Of particular importance in this respect is translation into Ukrainian of the Western classics. This not only presents the great ideas of Western culture to the Ukrainian population as a whole, but also shows unequivocally that Ukrainian is a multivalent language capable of expressing the highest thoughts and opinions of the Western civilization. "You can't buy any better advertisement than that," he said.

As a scholar who has long had a personal involvement both with the Ukrainian immigrant community and with Soviet and then independent Ukraine, Prof. Grabowicz voiced his criticism of the diaspora's record in Ukraine. "There are those in the diaspora, "he said," who see themselves as supporters and cheerleaders of independent Ukraine and who are willing to ignore the manifest failings of that state. There are also those who are becoming more and more attuned to the needs of getting involved in the process of reform and change. This should be an issue of discussion, especially at a similar conference in the near future."

One of the pitfalls of the paradigm of helping Ukraine, he said, whether in terms of state-building or in terms of building civil society, is that "we end up trying to do what the state should be doing, but not individuals or even institutions. The Ukrainian diaspora needs to have a consensus on its priorities in Ukraine."

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