Mixed Messages

By Volodymyr Kish

Two separate events this past week in very different contexts once again brought home to me the essential reality of ethnic cultural assimilation in Canada.  The first was a conversation with a young lady whom I have been informally mentoring at work.  She is single and in her late twenties, and despite a charming personality and good looks, she has had a difficult time establishing a serious relationship.  Part of the challenge has been that she is Italian and values her culture, family ties and traditions.  This has posed more challenges than she expected whenever she has dated non-Italian boyfriends.  Inevitably, getting them to accept and feel comfortable with the Italian part of her life has proven to be more problematic than she had anticipated.  Despite the fact that Canada is a very multicultural, diverse and tolerant country, the practical reality is that different cultures do not mix easily and effortlessly once you get beyond surface social relationships.  Recently, more by accident than design, she has been seeing an Italian boyfriend and she was somewhat surprised with how much easier it was to manage the dynamics of their relationship when there was so much common ground and affinity in terms of culture, traditions and values.  The interesting aspect to all this is that neither she nor her boyfriend speaks Italian beyond a very basic level.  Nonetheless, the ethnic cultural influence remained strong. 

The second event was a long letter I got from one of my regular readers who is Ukrainian and who has been married for many decades to a non-Ukrainian.  He expounded at long length on the difficulties he has had with Ukrainian organizations of all kinds over the years, who despite second, third and fourth generation linguistic demographics, still insist on conducting their affairs and events exclusively in the Ukrainian language.  It is an all too common complaint of countless Ukrainian Canadians who, though still wanting to participate and be part of the Ukrainian community, have run into all kinds of obstacles because they have little or no fluency in the Ukrainian language.  Sadly, most Ukrainian organizations for ideological or other reasons have chosen to ignore this sector of the Ukrainian community.  The results have been catastrophic, with the vast majority of Canadian- born generations of Ukrainians having assimilated into the Canadian, primarily Anglo mainstream. 

Although census numbers tell us that there are some 1.2 million Canadians of Ukrainian origin, it would probably be safe to say that a million or more of these participate minimally, if at all, in Ukrainian affairs, be they religious, political or cultural.  Of the remainder, I would hazard a guess that there are probably no more than five or ten thousand that are truly active in Ukrainian organizations of some kind and who are responsible for creating whatever Ukrainian identity and activities still exist in this country.

The argument over the status and usage of the Ukrainian language within Ukrainian organizations in Canada continues unabated to this day, though since Ukraine became independent, one important factor has changed.  When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and undergoing severe state pressure to Russify linguistically, the Diaspora could justify that they needed to take all steps to preserve the Ukrainian language here, because it was being seriously threatened in its homeland.  Now that Ukraine is an independent state and in control of its own destiny, linguistic responsibility now falls primarily on them.  The Diaspora should no longer carry the responsibility for keeping the linguistic “holy flame” burning.  By all means, Ukrainian organizations here in Canada should support and foster all educational efforts aimed at teaching the Ukrainian language to those who are motivated to do so.  However, they should not make language a quid proquo for being accepted and active in Ukrainian community affairs.

We should get away from insisting that you must speak Ukrainian to be a true Ukrainian, and move to a more realistic program of encouraging people to learn the language and providing the tools, resources and opportunities to do so, particularly to adults.

Ukrainian organizations in Canada should be fully bilingual.  Meetings, events, publications and materials produced should be in both Ukrainian and English or French, depending on the geographical context.  Trying to maintain linguistic purity will only serve to drive away the overwhelming majority of Canadians of Ukrainian descent from any involvement in the Ukrainian community.  This would also inevitably lead to the extinction of all Ukrainian organizations, as the number of fluent Ukrainian speaking members shrinks into insignificance.

Let’s accept the reality that you can legitimately and without shame call yourself a Ukrainian Canadian without necessarily speaking the language.