Turning the pages back... June 30, 1947 (06/29/03)

Turning the pages back...

June 30, 1947

On June 30, 1947, the front page of The Ukrainian Weekly ran a piece called "The New Arrivals" about relations between the Ukrainian American community and the new wave of Ukrainian immigrants. The piece provides a striking parallel to the current state of relations between the two groups.

In a quote that could easily have come from a newspaper today, The Weekly wrote, "There is, for instance, a steadily growing number of complaints from the new arrivals that our Ukrainian American life is not what they think it should be, that it is not Ukrainian enough, that it is rather shallow, that so many of our younger generation do not or care not to use Ukrainian in their speech or in their writing."

Just as today, The Weekly also noted complaints by the new immigrants regarding the type of Ukrainian used by the Ukrainian American community. The Weekly wrote, "In fact one of the new arrivals went so far as to criticize young American-born characters taking part in the 'Kozaks' Reply to the Sultan' scene in the Rally Festival because, of all things in reciting their lines in Ukrainian they used the "Halytsky" (western Ukrainian) accent and not the eastern Ukrainian accent!"

In response to what it viewed as the complaints of the new Ukrainian immigrants, The Weekly, from the Ukrainian American point of view, wrote, "Actually most of these complaints are based on a general misconception of things." The Weekly even wondered, with a hint of condescension, whether the new Ukrainian immigrants could integrate themselves into American and Ukrainian American society, writing, "The question is now whether it will be an influence on Ukrainian American life - or a collision with it."

"We hope and believe that it will be the former, that the new Ukrainian immigrants - for that is actually what they are - will gradually adjust themselves to the realities of our way of life and contribute their share to its development - which is based on sound American democratic principles and a devotion to the cause of Ukrainian national freedom."

Fifty-six years later, the immigrants who were the subject of the piece in The Weekly, and their children, find themselves on the other side, playing the role of the established Ukrainian American community. As history repeats itself, the concluding paragraph of "The New Arrivals" seems prescient: "It is all a question of adjustment. We to them, and they to us. Understanding and tolerance, as well as good faith, are required of both sides."

Source: "The New Arrivals," The Ukrainian Weekly, June 30, 1947.

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