Zenon Wasyliw

Ukrainian Oral History Project

Interview with: Zenon Wasyliw

Interviewed by: Grace Palumbo and Dillon Eggelston

Transcriber: Grace Palumbo and Dillon Eggelston

Date of interview: 10 April 2016 at 12:00 pm

Interview Setting: St. John's Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Johnson City, NY

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Start of Interview)

Dillon Eggleston: Good afternoon, it's Sunday April 10th, 2016. I'm Dillon Eggleston.

Grace Palumbo: And I'm Grace Palumbo.

DE: And we're interviewing --

Zenon Wasyliw: Zenon Wasyliw, or Zenon Wasyliw.

DE: And we're at Saint John's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Johnson City, New York and we'd like to begin our interview. So Professor Wasyliw, could you tell us when and where you were born?

ZW: I was born not far from here on the north side of Johnson City. My parents came from Ukraine.

DE: Can you tell us where in the Ukraine your family comes from?

ZW: Well my father came from Stryi, which is in the Galician or Halychyna part and my mother came from the Volyn region, which was more in the northern part and that's where the both of them met and actually lived before living is in the Volyn region, in the northern region of Ukraine.

GP: When did they come over to the United States?

ZW: They came in 1948, along with my brother who was born in 1946. They lost three children before coming here. Two daughters died in a carpet bombing and a son who had died in a refugee camp. And so I'm the American- I was the American in the family because I was born here.

DE: Did your family first settle in Binghamton or was this a later move?

ZW: No, they first settled in this area.

DE: In Johnson City?

ZW: Well first in Binghamton, the area of Downs Avenue. And then they worked at Endicott Johnson and bought an Endicott Johnson house, an E.J. house. You've heard of that?

DE: Oh yes yes, I had a maternal grandmother who worked for EJ as well. Did your family consider elsewhere before leaving the Ukraine?

ZW: What's interesting is, though my dad came from a very poor family, to finish his education he went to a religious seminary but never got ordained. But he made a number of friends who told him they were leaving for the United States and that they would help sponsor him if he ever wanted to leave. And so it happened and they had become priests, Basilian Fathers, and so they filled out the paperwork and he was brought to Binghamton to be a choir director at the Ukrainian Catholic church. And so it was kind of a link of former friends.

GP: Did you have any relatives here when your family came over?

ZW: No, nope. Almost all the relatives stayed behind in Ukraine. An aunt and uncle did settle in Chicago.

DE: You mentioned that your father was at the Ukrainian Catholic church.

ZW: Yes.

DE: But today we're at an Orthodox Church.

ZW: Yes.

DE: Can you tell us a little about that?

ZW: Sure! You know in Ukraine, even now, it's very pluralistic religiously. You even have three Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions. And so my mother was born Ukrainian Orthodox but became Ukrainian Catholic and I grew up in the Ukrainian Catholic church. But there's always this pull, you know, with the Ukrainian Orthodox and I was hired at Ithaca College in 1989 and another lovely person was put into my office who became my wife -you met her in the social hall- and a very good friend of ours, he was the chairperson of the communication department and was also a Greek Orthodox priest. And so we decided to become Eastern Orthodox and it was important to maintain the heritage. And so we joined this parish. But I grew up with friends with both churches. But I kind of like with this parish, how can I put it, it's-- not to be unfair to the other parish, but it's a little less nationalistic and very accepting. I mean you have, most of the parish have, you know, non-Ukrainian spouses. We have people who aren't even of Ukrainian background who are members, the Parish president, Brian Baxendale. So in a way, it was a number of things, a very good friend of ours being an Orthodox priest, but also leaning toward -we had our issues with the Catholic Church too. And granted, and so we joined the parish, and then when our daughter was born in 1995, she was baptized here. And we would take the one hour drive almost every week, and she went to religious instructions, and it was a very warm and accepting parish. So I don't know if that explains part of it, but yeah I mean, there are other issues too, where you have congregational control of finances, for example and a little bit more of a democratic spirit. But my brother still goes to the other church, I have many friends.

DE: Have you visited the Ukraine since your family has come to America?

ZW: I have. My area is East European history, Soviet history, and I first went in the summer of 1984 with a group of Canadian educators. And it was the first time, I met all of these distant, even you know, cousins, uncles and aunts, they gave me a very nice welcome. I had never met them before, but I used to write letters to my aunt and uncle in Ukraine. But I have a much larger extended family, and so that was really very, very interesting. But then I returned again in 1986 to do dissertation research and so I was at Moscow State University and Kiev State University. And then I returned in the 90s and 2000s, but to be honest since my mom passed away - my dad passed away '86 and then my mom passed away about ten years ago- I really haven't kept up with the family.

DE: Can you tell us what it was like to meet these people for the first time? You had mentioned you had correspondence with them.

ZW: Yeah, I had correspondence, more with my mom's side of the family, but less so with my father's. And they all started crying and you know they were us telling stories, it was a rough life. And my mom had actually visited there back in 1977, but you know when she told them about losing three kids and surviving and-- I mean it was. I had one uncle who was in the Soviet Army, who died and never found out where he was. I had another uncle I met, who was in the Red Army, in the Soviet Red Army. He was captured by the Germans, he escaped. He was a part of the French Resistance but then he got arrested because he was in France. But then he was a veteran, and then I had another uncle who fought for Ukrainian liberation. But you know, a number of them were taken away as slave laborers by the Germans as well. But they got me drunk a number of times. So it was interesting, it was more intentional, in 1984, type of stuff so. I should have been better in keeping in touch with them, so.

GP: Was it difficult to get there because they were under Soviet rule at the time?

ZW: Well, by 1984 things had opened up and I just didn't want to go as a tourist. So I went together with a group of Canadian educators, I was the only American in the group. And it was Ukrainian language and literature seminars in Kiev University, and then traveling around. I was still a member of the other parish and people had thought I'd become, you know, that I'm betraying whatever, but in a way it made a big impact, traveling there. So I learned a lot too and I picked up more of my language and became very fluent and kind of got a real flavor for it. And then in 1986 I was there from 86 into 1987, living in a dorm at Moscow State University, surviving on 350 Rubles a month, and it was after Chernobyl. And so I was in Kiev in December, but I'm glad I did it both times, because now when I teach, I have these great stories for my students. In terms of how my experiences, staying ahead of the authorities when making photocopies of documents or microfilms because I had a faculty mentor, who was from SUNY Albany, whenever I would make copies, he would take them from me and take them to the US embassy. And it would take them for a while to find out what I was photocopying. They would start restricting it and then I would go to another place to make microfilm and stuff like that. And my faculty mentor did the right thing because the materials were sent out by diplomatic pouch, 'because the authorities would never look at the stuff. So it was interesting.

DE: Quickly, what was 300 Rubles, how much would that be in today's, do you know?

ZW: Well, the problem at the time was, there wasn't stuff to buy using Rubles. But they did have specialty stores, for hard currency, but I didn't want to do it. And you know, to be honest, there were other people who were on an exchange who came from more affluent backgrounds. I was from SUNY, I didn't have, I did not have disposable income and so I tried to live like everyone else did. And so, I survived. In Moscow my uncle and cousin came up and they brought me dried fish and goods and stuff like that, which was an experience, which was nice. But you know, there were people that differentiated by us too. If you were a member of the party you were pretty well off. I made a number of British friends who were doing research, and we found out that one academy of sciences library archive had a good cafeteria. We would go there for lunch, I could go on and on. I tell my students these stories.

DE: Do you have a strong sense of Ukrainian identity, despite being in the US and do you feel as though that's a different identity than the Catholic Church, which you mentioned was more nationalistic?

ZW: Well, I mean, there are people related, distantly, between the two parishes. You know, I've lived in Ithaca where we're a very progressive community and for example the revolution that took place in Ukraine I see as very, very positive. Because it deals with building a civil society and an identity based on citizenship, not on nationality. And so in Ukraine, you could be Ukrainian background, you could be Russian background, you could be Jewish, you could be Muslim and you're a citizen of Ukraine. And so for me it's really a cultural identity. And you know, the more the merrier. And in a way this parish really represents this because it's more identity based and kind of sharing a culture, you know, if you've looked at the hall, you've looked around here, people are very proud of their heritage. Even though there isn't a strict lineage of Ukrainian, you marry Ukrainian. But to me it's more of a cultural affinity. And my wife is not of Ukrainian background but she really likes the parish, she's a member of the sisterhood, I sing in the choir, can't make it every Sunday. But our daughter, you know, loves this parish. Her name is Victoria, she decided to take her Ukrainian name, Vika, V-I-K-A. She's a third year student at Northeastern, electrical engineering major. Pat and I are historians, but to her, the identity is really important, and people from the parish send her letters. You know, they give little scholarships for college students from here. And so it's a nice -do you see what I mean? It's beyond just identity, but it's a community, centered around this cultural identity that's still very important to people.

GP: How long have you spoken Ukrainian?

ZW: Since I was born. It's an interesting situation, where my parents would start talking to me in English, but I refused to speak to them in English. I would speak to them in Ukrainian because to me, I knew that was their native language. And so we had the Giant Market, you remember the Giant Market?

DE: Yes.

ZW: They would start talking to me in English and I would respond to them in Ukrainian. It was probably why I became a historian, kind of a contrarian type of person. Of course when I was in Ukraine, I really worked on picking up more of the literary language, so I'm pretty fluent in it.

GP: Does your daughter speak Ukrainian as well?

ZW: Oh she's angry at me that I didn't teach her any. I started to, but you know, she might pick it up. But do you see what I mean, identity is wide open. But you know it also comes up with January seventh is when we celebrate Christmas, Ukrainian Christmas and Easter follows an Eastern Orthodox calendar and you know, we do a number of other traditions as well.

DE: What smells remind you of Ukraine?

ZW: Cabbage.

DE: Cabbage?

GP: Cabbage?

ZW: Otherwise known as kapusta. You know it's a very durable food, that and potatoes. Actually when I was living in the dorms, back in the 80s, there was always plenty of cabbage and potatoes, I mean, it's like the Irish. I don't know if you know a little Irish history, they had their famine, and everyone had to leave and they had to deal with the English. And with the Ukrainians it was the same thing, they had this traumatic famine, people had to leave, they had to deal with the Russian Empire. When they made food to sell they do cabbage rolls, and the pierogis out of potatoes.

GP: I was reading about that online, looked good.

ZW: Well, you should come.

GP: How do the cultural values of people in the US seem to differ from those of the Ukraine?

ZW: When you have a community like this, there's a sense of watching out for one another and even though, you know, we're not related by blood, there is this feeling of an extended family. And I think that's becoming less and less common in the US. People are kind of more atomized, kind of go off on their own, and so that I think is very nice. And in Ukraine it's more pluralistic and one of my areas of study is sociology of religion and in Ukraine there's Ukrainian Greek Catholic church, There's a Roman Catholic church, there are three different Ukrainian Orthodox churches, because we argue. I mean, do you see what I mean? It's more fluid. There's a strong Jewish community there. A Muslim community. The fastest growing religion is Mormonism. So, part of it is, because even with Poland, you have the Catholic Church, in Russia it's the Russian Orthodox Church under the Patriarch. And part of the Ukrainian culture is there's this strong identity and feel of attachment, but this kind of, probably why we haven't had political independence as much. Because you kind of have this real diversity of thought and attachment. I hope that makes sense.

GP: Yeah.

ZW: And in a way Ukrainian Orthodox, Ukrainian Catholic, and there are Ukrainian Protestants in the area too. Pentecostalists.

DE: So, you mentioned that your wife wasn't Ukrainian but she's since been accepted into the parish.

ZW: Oh very nicely.

DE: How has this differed from other marriages that have been within the parish itself?

ZW: This parish is very, very welcoming. I think most of the marriages are Ukrainian non-Ukrainian, actually. You read the liturgy; most of it is in English. But people still maintain the other traditions, I think it was a long term priest here, Father Lawryk and his wife, who really had this "Let's welcome everyone in but share the culture." So, you know, the deacon who was serving today, he's not of Ukrainian background, but he married someone from the parish. And then there's another example, I'm forgetting his name, his last name is Baxter, where as a kid, he kind of he got into trouble and one Ukrainian family kind of adopted him and he started going to dance and rehearsals and everything else. He became a Ukrainian Orthodox priest. Not one little iota of even Ukrainian background. So I mean it's this kind of fluid, more fluid identity, which is nice. But I think looking at community and having shared cultural values, and with this family you have these core families, larger families, and you know attendance can vary. When they all come together at Easter, the place fills up. Hope I'm not giving too long answers.

GP and DE: No, no these are the are great.

DE: Did your parents have trouble assimilating to American culture when they came over?

ZW: Well, in some ways yes, because the parish became the center of their life and you know, my father was the choir director and my mom volunteered a lot with preparing food and raising funds and with organization. But you know, they also had friends beyond the community as well, I think as time went on. And you know with my brother and me, that kind of bring things out, but clearly the focus -you know, what would happen is since many people at Sacred Heart had to leave quickly and many of their relatives stayed behind, you would have a system of Godparents. And so my Godmother, Yechyk, I became closer with that family. My mother was Godmother of Stephan and then my brother had -you see what I'm getting at? There are ways of kind of creating another form of an extended family. They're always going to feel like I'm a member of that parish, which is fine and I still stay in contact with them. So we kind of have this interesting cultural adaptation with Godparents and making those kinds of relations as well. I think in this parish -because this was formed in 1926- you're already getting into fourth generation members and a bit at Sacred Heart. You have a number of people who are interrelated as well but extended families are pretty strong here too.

GP: Are there any elements of American culture that you prefer over Ukrainian culture or vice versa?

ZW: Well, you know American culture is so different. I've lived in Ithaca since 1989, and we have our own culture there! And so both my wife and I were, Ithaca is a very caring and open minded community and so that's kind of our view of American Ithaca culture. And I think American culture is changing a bit and even in Ukraine it depends what region of Ukraine you go to you'll find differences as well. What I think is still important is this sense of having some kind of identity, having a community. I mean, when the parish puts on their Ukrainian Days Festival, it's amazing. Everyone just comes together, volunteers, no one gets paid. People come together, they volunteer, their time, the choir sings, there are dancers, you know they make $30,000 to $35,000 to help support the church. And so do you see it's kind of this volunteerism, caring for one another; people aren't really talking American politics here either, because that could be pretty lethal. That's the one thing missing at Ithaca, because you don't have these ethnic communities. There's so many university students. Sometimes we'll go to the Greek Church, but it's nothing like here. And so, in a way, you know, it's very accepting, but still it's nice to have a community and our daughter really benefitted a lot by it. Because you know, coming here every week when my mother was still alive, she got to see her grandmother. But it has this other alternative community that she can look forward to. And her friends don't always understand this. Members of the Sisterhood sent her a box of cookies and wrote her a personal letter, and she put it up on her bulletin board. She says "Look, people care." And so, I think that's a big thing. And you know, the communities can vary in identity, this is a far more assimilated parish because the founders, there are very few people who were born in Ukraine here. Then at Sacred Heart it's a different situation, but even they're kind of adapting and you know they have an English liturgy there too, so it depends. But I'm warped by it, actually I'm a little critical, I don't know if you've ever heard the term "ten square miles surrounded by reality." That's what defines Ithaca, and I just see these bumper stickers. And when you have an Ivy League university and Ithaca College, which is a private university, it kind of brings in a lot of wealth. And you can kind of live this lifestyle, believing you know a lot of stuff being out of touch with the rest of the world. I hope you understand what I'm getting at. And Universities can be real bubbles too.

DE: Can you tell us how you and your wife met?

ZW: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny because we were both grad students at Binghamton University, but she was Medieval and I did East Europe, so we knew of each other but then, we were both hired at Ithaca College at the same time and put in the same office, [laughter], and it was, in a way, what also happened is a lot of older faculty, but they really liked us. And that's the other kind of thing that there's less of, they would have dinner parties and we would be invited, and as I've mentioned, part of the group was a Greek Orthodox priest who later became a metropolitan, archbishop, but he loved to party. And, you know, we said; well let's have Gus perform the ceremony, so we kind of had our own little group as well. But since he was a good friend of ours, we had the wedding there [in Ithaca]. But there was a priest here, Father Myron, who I would stay in touch with and he kept sending parish bulletins, and when our daughter was to be born we decided, well, you know, we want to give her all of this, and it was the right move.

Now, in the mid-1990s, the latter part of the nineties, Ithaca College let go of a bunch of people, and my wife was one of them, but then she got a job at Cornell. She's an assistant dean for admissions and advising, but she does international admissions for the liberal arts school. So she's been to, just last year she's been to India for two weeks, through a full break, Armenia in the fall, Japan in January. She's been to Australia, then China a couple of times, different places in Europe, nice places in Europe. I laugh because, a little over ten years ago, as part of a grant that sent me to less favorable parts of Eastern Europe, not the capitals, but these other places, so we make the commute here, [to this parish], whenever we can. When our daughter was still going to classes here, and my mother was alive, we almost made it every week, but now it's more like once or twice a month.

DE: Was your wedding based in Ukrainian culture?

ZW: No, it was a Greek Orthodox ceremony in English, though my best man, Mike Lowa, did a few things in Ukrainian. He's belonged to three different parishes, but it was really a very, met a few Ukrainians from Sacred Heart, but it was professors, and family who was there, along with a few faculty members who were there. So, there weren't many [Ukrainians], that wasn't as important to us. It was important to have friends there, and friends performing the ceremony. And we had an open bar. [Laughter]. And it was all in Ithaca, which was neat.

GP: Do you think your Ukrainian heritage influenced you to become a historian?

ZW: Oh, definitely. You know, I had, because my grandparents were in Ukraine, I had replacement grandparents, and I heard so many stories from them, and they came from different regions of Ukraine. And, my dad and mom would tell a lot of stories, and a lot of people in the community would push for their children to get degrees in engineering, and medicine, and stuff like that, but they just didn't have people who would study history, because what do you do with a degree in history? But I was also thinking of going into high school teaching. Things just kind of-- you know how they can build, you know, here I am at Binghamton, okay, I'll become a History major, I'll get an MAT, though, I went to Harvard summer school when I was a junior, and they said you should keep getting a PhD, you know this stuff really well. And I said, well there so much work in a PhD, so instead I got an MAT to teach high school social studies, and I did that a little bit, but then people said you should keep on going and I got another masters, and then a PhD. And, in a way, I was trying to look at Ukrainian history form a larger perspective, and it was in the spring of 1989, we were going to Cornell to do some research, and we were passing Ithaca College. I looked to the right and I said, I would like to teach here. Two weeks later, a job opened up, and they hired me. So, it was meant to be. But, I'm always careful. My research was on Ukrainian history, and as when the Soviet Union fell apart, suddenly there weren't many people who knew about this part of the world, because the idea was, well, you study Russian history, because that's the "empire," and you didn't have as many people looking at other parts of the Soviet Union, in part to employability. But at Ithaca College, I really liked it; because I taught a variety of courses and then when they found out I had an MAT, they asked me to coordinate the social studies teacher education program. SO, I have this whole other community. We put out 3-5 people a year, and we have this closed Facebook group of graduates who are social studies teachers or administrators. And I was chair of the history department for six years, and interim director of the gerontology institution. So, I do a lot of different things, and teach different courses, but in a way, being interested in the family past, and trying to make sense of really tragic histories all around, and so, here we are.

DE: What was your thesis?

ZW: I was planning to do a dissertation on secular rituals, and to replace sacred rituals. But they hired a new dissertation director, and she was Heather's [DeHaan] dissertation advisor at Toronto, but her name was Viola, and what Viola basically said was, well pick a topic on peasants or peasants. And so, I decided to look at the status of the Ukrainian countryside in the 1920s. It was very interesting because, in the 1920s, with the Soviet history, they actually became much more liberal. They didn't have collective farms, and they had a policy of nativazation, where they were pushing, and teaching in native languages. And so in was in the 1920s that for the first time-- because during the Russian Empire, they banned Ukrainian-- they had a number of decrees where Ukrainian was not only not to be taught, but it was not even allowed to be written. And so, you could get in trouble. The portrait of the poet Taras Shevchenko on the right, [on the wall of the room], was a serf, and he was, his freedom was bought, and he started writing poetry. He was in St. Petersburg as an artist, but they sent him off to Siberia, and he started writing in Ukrainian. But his Ukrainian became kind of a social history because he wrote about the struggles of everyday people and stuff like that. And he was always repressed, and there was always this pressure on the language. The Ukrainian part that was in Austria, they were allowing for more. But then, in 1921, the Soviet government said, in order to convince people to be Communist, we have to teach them in their native language. And so a decree went out, 'everyone is now going to learn Ukrainian.' They also created a separate Ukrainian republic, Soviet Republic, and you had the first president of Ukraine, independent Ukraine, coming back and the danger was that in the Soviet Union, you had a very strong Ukrainian identity. People were speaking Ukrainian, and so I'm looking at this period where, suddenly, people are speaking in their native language, literacy rates are improving. But on the other hand, they're not taking on a Soviet identity, they're taking on more of the Ukrainian identity. And so, when Stalin takes power in 1928, all of this is just going to be crushed. So, to make a long story short, that's it. The areas that I'm studying, neither of my parents come from really, but I thought it was a good social history. So the challenges to get the voice of the people up, and very often, people didn't write, but it was a period of even Soviet history that was more relaxed, up until Stalin came.

GP: What were your parent's experiences in Ukraine, or in the USSR even?

ZW: Well, my dad was older, and he was born in what was the Austrian Empire. The memoires of that era were better, but, I mean, it was during the First World War, and as a child he remembers different armies coming and going and coming and going. And then Ukraine became part of Poland, which was kind of difficult, because if you were of Ukrainian background, you kind of couldn't really get jobs. My mother was a bit younger, but he grew up in a city, which was much different. And that probably impacted me too, because you had Poles and Jews living in the city, and so, she never learned how to embroider, she never did the Easter eggs. Do you see what I'm getting at? A lot of this [the culture] is still pretty much a village culture, and so, in a way, I may have been advantaged. My dad came from a very, very poor family, but at the time the Austrian government stated opening up gymnasiums, kind of schools, that carried on, and when it was time to continue the education, it was difficult. With thirteen kids in the family, my father couldn't afford it, and then he found out that you could go to school for free at a religious seminary, and so he went off, and finished his degree there. Then, he studied Latin, among other things. He never became a priest, but kind of came back and was pretty much unemployed. Eventually, he was hired to be a choir director, and stuff like that. When the Soviets came in, because he was literate, he actually got a job, helping edit a newspaper. People around here wouldn't like to hear that, of course, but, you know, there are different stories. Then, they asked him to teach because my father, by this time, knew seven languages. But, there was always this threat, they [the Soviets] would say, 'we know you have a religious background,' and that was always going to hang over his head. So, I think he was able to stay neutral when he was teaching, and then when the Nazis came in, he just stayed teaching in the school there. Aunts and uncles were taken away as forced laborers, Eastern workers, but he hung in there. Towards the end of the war he had to decide, 'do I stay, even though I have these friends in the United States who might sponsor me? Or, do I chance it with the state?' You know, he never held a gun. It's a very unique story, you would laugh. He was in the Soviet army for three days, and they kind of had him take notes on supplies, and then he was in the Polish army for three hours or something. But throughout the entire experience, he never was part of any military, which is very unique, I think. And so, trains were leaving for the West, and they had to decide, and they ended up going. And, they lost two kids in a massive bombardment. They ended up in a refugee camp, and then a son passed away. You know, it kind of reminds me of all of the stuff going on in Syria now. But, sure enough, they got to New York City. His friends from the seminary met him at the boat, at the dock, and then put him on a train to Binghamton. The people here were very nice, very supportive. What was interesting, when I got back in 1984, my aunt was telling me that the Soviet authorities kept bugging her to talk my dad into coming back. I mean, in a way that means he probably wasn't in as much trouble as others. But you know, you couldn't have trusted that. But, my aunt was very outspoken, and she said 'I told them, I wouldn't trust you, you guys are liars!' And her poor husband, who was a veteran, was like 'quiet, quiet, don't say anything like that!'

DE: Why didn't your parents stay in New York City?

ZW: Because part of my father's justification for coming here, was that they needed a choir director in Binghamton.

GP: Did your parents ever go back to Ukraine?

ZW: My mother did, in 1977. What happened was, when they got here, my father went to work at Endicott-Johnson, and my mother worked at Don McCarthy shoe factory. Much later, when my father worked in the factory, and he worked second shift, my mom worked first shift, so someone would be home. During dinner breaks, my dad would read books. So one day, his friend said 'Bill, listen.' He went by Bill because my parents were Visil and Maria, and when they got citizenship, they changed it to William and Mary, and my dad went by Bill. They gave me my name because it was very historic. But anyway, his friends would say 'Bill, you can be a teacher,' and towards the end, before he retired, he got certified to teach German and Russian, and he taught for a few years. And that kind of had an impact on my brother and I. My brother is ten years older, but he ended up going to SUNY Cortland, a PE major, but went on to get a PhD in anatomy, and a medical doctor, and just retired from practicing orthopedic surgery in this area. I mean, life is more complex, because you'll say 'oh, first generation college' and whatever else, but it's kind of muddled that way as well.

DE: What were the seven languages that your father knew?

ZW: Gee, well, we have Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, German, Latin, Greek, and I'm forgetting what other one. Because he knew the Slavic languages, he would've picked that up. But, you know, that would be the thing. There were other like him, who were educated, but in the US, people hear you speak with an accent and they think you're stupid. But that wasn't the case. But it's a nice community here, or at least it was. It's kind of scary when you now have this Islamophobia, and Dearborn, Michigan has a large concentration of Muslims, but they're very assimilated, and acclimated. People would come here because they saw opportunity. It's in Europe that the Muslims weren't as accepted as well. This area has had a lot of refugees come in. But one of the differences is that when my parents came, there was already an established community, and people were helping them out.

DE: Have your children been to Ukraine?

ZW: No. But at some point. You see, my wife's the good travel organizer, and she's looking to at some point arrange the right time. I have a step-daughter, who's older now and who just got back to Ithaca recently. She has a library science degree she got from Michigan. She was working at SUNY Potsdam and then met a web developer who's at St. Lawrence University. To our great fortune, he got a job at Cornell, and she got a job at Ithaca College as a librarian. Our younger daughter is at Northeastern, and they require three six-month co-ops, and that means she works form January until the end of June. This summer she's off to Italy, taking two four-credit classes. So, it's a matter of timing and money, as to when we'll go there. But, you know, I have a conference in New York, Association for the Study of Nationalities, and my wife has already planned out, there are a number of Ukrainian restaurants. And, you know, we visited the Ukrainian museum, and we support the church as well, so, kind of aligned, but we're not professional Ukrainians. I mean, it's important, but, it's part of our multi-faceted life.

GP: What's your favorite Ukrainian recipe?

ZW: My wife a great cook, but being in Ithaca, I prefer more vegetarian options, so the cabbage rolls with either rice and mushrooms, or buckwheat kasha. When I was over there, other Americans who were in Russia or Ukraine couldn't handle the buckwheat kasha, and I love that stuff, so I think that's also differentiated. But there's a lot of foods that I like. We had pierogies last night, and what's nice is that, when they make them here, if there's leftover dough, they let people take it home. So my wife made some potato pierogies. But usually I like the sauerkraut filling.

DE: Can you tell us about Ukrainian music?

ZW: Oh, yeah. It's lyrical. Often, Ukrainian will be compared to Italian. It's a very kind of lyrical language; it's kind of a sing-song language. I sang in the choir in the basses today and, you know, acappella is the way the liturgy works, and everything is sung. Although at Sacred Heart they recite more often now. But, you know the choral music is nice, the folk music as well. It's a very, very rich musical culture. They had a priest and his wife here for decades, who did a really nice job in terms of all of the folk arts that were here, and putting in a folk choir, and stuff like that. But you know, in Ukraine, they have reggae, Ukrainian reggae, and other types of similar music. I don't' know if you've heard of 'Gogo' or there's another group as well, with very kind of a blend of new age and folk music. So there's a lot of different varieties. But I do admit, I like singing in the bass section of the choir.

DE: Would your parents have listened to the reggae Ukrainian music, or was that not around yet?

ZW: They didn't know what it was. So, I mean, you hear different musical styles, but I'm a reggae fan, or old music.

DE: I think we've got a lot of information so thank you so much.

GP: Thank you so much.

ZW: You're welcome.

(End of Interview)