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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИСТОПАД 2018 WWW. UNWLA .ORG 1 9 New Mexico Ukrainians Celebrate Ukrainian Independence Day Ukrainian Americans of New Mexico and their families and friends celebrated Ukrainian Independence Day in Albuquerque on Sunday, August 26. An Executive Order/Proclamation, issued by Albuquer- que’s Mayor Tim Keller, was read and the following recollection was presented by Stephanie Chopek Sydoriak . Mrs. Sydoriak, 9 2 , is origi- nally from Boston, Mass., but has lived in Los Alamos, New Mexico, since 1948. She was named Living Treasure there, largely for her Ukrainian pysanka - making classes, displays, and talks about Ukrain- ian customs and history. She has written two books: An Ocean Be- tween : 100% American - 100% Uk rainian ( a book about her fam- ily’s immigration ) and a book of poetry titled Inside Passage. On this anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, I remember back to 1990, when I, and several of my family members, visited our relatives in Ukraine. We went be cause this was the very first time we could actually visit our parents’ little town. Formerly, relatives had to come to a hotel in the nearest large city in order to see visitors from America, always under the supervision of an agent of some sort. Our rela tives told us lengthy stories of the horrors of living in the Soviet Union. In fact, a couple of family members were not invited to these meetings because they might tell the communist authorities about what they said. After we left them, we went to do so me sightseeing in the nearest large city. One morning, we heard that Ukraine had declared its ‘intention’ to become a free and independent Ukraine, and that a celebratory rally was going to take place in the city arena that evening. We made plans to attend . During the day, we saw many little groups of people gathered on street corners, gesticulating ex- citedly. Little blue and yellow flags flapped outside of many windows. We were puzzled to see them, be- cause when we were visiting our relatives, they had tol d us that it was a punishable crime to own a Ukrain- ian flag. Over 10,000 participants attended the rally that evening. An open - air car swept around the track of the arena carrying an enormous Ukrainian flag. Many people in the stands waved smaller flags. When the speeches began, we were struck by the gratitude expressed in one of the speeches for how the diaspora Ukrainians, especially those from America, had upheld the Ukrainian language and the culture in their countries when Russia had tried so hard to wipe them out. The man was talking about my father, about us! We were the diaspora in America. A group of musicians followed the speeches, playing folksongs that we had been singing since childhood. We sang along happily. At the end of the event, when the Ukrainian national anthem was played, we sang it with tears streaming down our cheeks. Was the first line, always sung only with the faintest hope, “Ukraine Has Not Died Yet,” now to be really true? When the singing was finished, one of three elderly peop le next to us leaned over and asked, “How did you know the words of the songs? How did you know the words of ‘Shche Ne Vmerla’? We have been forbidden to ever sing them in public, and we have been afraid to teach them to our children, because the teachers in school often asked them what went on in our homes.” We could only answer that we had grown up singing these songs in America in our Ukrainian com- munities. They put their hands over their hearts then grasped our hands. What must they have suffered? Indee d, Ukrainians such as my father had held fast to their language and culture here in America without realizing that it was being destroyed over there. He came here as many Ukrainian did before World
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