Skip to content
Call Us Today! 212-533-4646 | MON-FRI 12PM - 4PM (EST)
DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
Search for:
About Us
UNWLA 100
Publications
FAQ
Annual Report 2023
Annual Report 2022
Annual Report 2021
Initiatives
Advocate
Educate
Cultivate
Care
News
Newsletters
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Join UNWLA
Become a Member
Volunteer With Us
Donate to UNWLA
Members Portal
Calendar
Shop to Support Ukraine
Search for:
Print
Print Page
Download
Download Page
Download Right Page
Open
1
2-3
4-5
6-7
8-9
10-11
12-13
14-15
16-17
18-19
20-21
22-23
24-25
26-27
28-29
30-31
32-33
34-35
36-37
38-39
40
“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛЮТИЙ 2019 WWW. UNWLA .ORG 13 An Ocean Between: 100% American — 100% Ukrainian Copyright 2011 by Stephanie Sydoriak. ISBN 978 - 1 - 105 - 39851 - 3. I started reading Stephanie Sydoriak’s 303 - page tome and had to interrupt the read after the first few chapters to educate myself on the context of what I was rea ding, not the fault of the author, but simply because I didn’t know enough about the Ukrainian immigration(s) preceding the 3rd wave, which included me, my parents, and most of the Ukrainians of the hromada I was raised in. Ours was the wave that came to t he United States some- time after WWII; it was a hromada comprising in- dividuals and families who mostly arrived here af- ter spending time in displaced persons camps in Germany or Austria or Italy, a tight - knit group that had survived similar adventures and ha rdships during the war and had reinvented life “na chu- zhyni” (on for eign soil) while holding on to each other and to the customs and culture and mores of the Old World. We had minimal contact with (and frankly not much knowledge of) those who had come earl ier — a group I recall was collectively re- ferred to as “stari imihrant y” (old immigrants). My initial concern about reviewing An Ocean Between was being uncertain whether the chapters I was reading pertained to the 1st im- migration or the 2nd, a problem I so lved by con- sulting Orest Subtelny’s Ukraine: A History (pub- lished in 1988 by the University of Toronto Press) and the entry on “immigration” in Volume 2 of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine (also published in 1988 by the University of Toronto Press) edited by Vo- lodymyr Kubijovyċ. Both confirmed that Mrs. Syd- oriak’s family included people who emigrated from Ukraine as part of that first and the second wave that came West (to Canada and the United States), with some returning to the homeland and others settling p er manently in the United States, becom- ing citizens and part of the melting pot that was their new home. Mrs. Sydoriak, her parents (Elias and Maria Chopek), and her sister Anna were part of the latter group. That distinction clarified, I be- gan to find conn ec tions and similarities between the immigrant life she describes and the immi- grant life of the third wave of immigrants that my own family was part of. An Ocean Between is a good read for all immigrants and compels musings about personal experiences that a re similar to or different from those experienced by the Chopek family. The first chapter briefly describes an assembly in a Boston school where the author’s father worked as a jani- tor. Nervously and awkwardly and at her father’s insistence, young Stepha ni e performs a Ukrainian dance and demonstrates the art of pysanka mak- ing, wondering why he had insisted on this when “neither I nor my elementary school teachers could find Ukraine on the map of Europe, and I some- times wondered if his vision of Ukraine wa s just part of a mass hallucination.” As I read this sen- tence, I was hooked because Stephanie’s comment reminded me of years of trying to explain Ukraine and my Ukrainian roots to non - Ukrainian class- mates and friends and neighbors and colleagues, to get th em to understand that Ukraine was not “a part of Russia,” an exercise that continued pretty much up until the time of the Orange Revolution, which evoked phone calls from near and far that were a belated but satisfying confirmation that non - Ukrainians were f inally beginning to under- stand a little something about Ukraine and Ukrain- ians. By the same (or similar) token, Mrs. Syd- oriak’s book has prompted me to look at the 3rd immigration in a different light, a prompt that re- surfaces with every succeeding chapt er . Section I of An Ocean Between in tro- duces the early family saga through stories told by the author’s parents: Tato’s stories always “ended in a lecture on Ukrainian history and American politics” and Mama’s stories “were simpler and homey and expresse d a yearning for the sweetness of the old country.” The introduction ends with a description of neighborhood bullies who taunt young Stefcha (“why dontcha go back where ya came from?”) and teachers asking “and just where
Page load link
Go to Top
1 
2-3 
4-5 
6-7 
8-9 
10-11 
12-13 
14-15 
16-17 
18-19 
20-21 
22-23 
24-25 
26-27 
28-29 
30-31 
32-33 
34-35 
36-37 
38-39 
40 
