March 11, 2016

I’m Ukrainian American, not Ukrainian

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Dear Editor:

I read Denys Petrina’s letter (February 28) and admire his courage in taking a position that I am certain will bring him criticism from the “patrioty.” Like Mr. Petrina I grew up in Detroit, was in Plast, and knew both his father and grandfather.

Like Mr. Petrina, I served as an officer in the military and took the same oath of allegiance to the United States. I have a doctorate in materials science, a law degree and am a member of the D.C. Bar. I am 63, so my indoctrination in matters Ukrainian was much more fervent than Mr. Petrina’s. Like him, I bristle at the implication that my primary allegiance should be to Ukraine.

My views, however, are founded in a different set of experiences. In 1992, I joined a small company that was trying to identify technology at the various institutes in Ukraine, Russia and Lithuania that U.S. companies could license. This took me to Ukraine so often that I actually had an apartment in Kyiv. One night at the Dnipro Hotel cost the same as two months’ rent.

Perhaps the one incident that cemented my viewpoint took place on the night train between Kyiv and Lviv. If you travelled in the SV car (first class) and you left your door open, it was an invitation for people to drop in to talk, and share food and vodka.

Once a fascinating journalist from Lviv stopped by my compartment. After hours of conversation and shared vodka, he suddenly remarked, “Your Ukrainian is perfect, but something is not right.” After a few more minutes he exclaimed, “I know: your language is 50 years old, you use outdated words and expressions.” At that moment I realized that our émigré language had evolved influenced by German and English. The native Ukrainians’ language evolved influenced by Russian. We are not only different by cultural experience but also in language.

Most of all, I was unprepared to be a Ukrainian in America. When colleagues discovered my heritage, they often reacted with comments like “Ukrainians conducted pogroms and beat the Jews.” In Saturday Ukrainian school I never learned that during the brief Ukrainian government in 1918, two members of the Parliament were from the Zionist party or that Ukraine issued currency printed in five languages – one of them Hebrew. Are these the actions of a government set on persecuting Jews? I had to discover these and other facts on my own.

I value my Ukrainian heritage, but I also remember how my parents’ generation did not socialize with the prior émigrés, the “stari emihranty.” Similarly, I see that my generation does not socialize much with the latest wave of Ukrainian immigrants. We are separated not just in time, but by cultural perspective. We have a thread that unifies us, but it is only a thread. It is not a core value that would drive me to dedicate my allegiance to Ukraine. I am after all, a Ukrainian American, not Ukrainian.

Potomac, Md.

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