I went to a political meeting the other night at a local Ukrainian Orthodox Church and found some interesting material on their bulletin board. I must confess to not usually frequenting churches. Lately it has been mainly funeral homes.

In addition to notices advising that a special service would be held to commemorate the Stalin induced famine of the 1930’s, there was a request that certain people fill out a questionnaire and be willing to be interviewed as to their experiences integrating into Canadian society. The target group was defined as those whose parents had fled Ukraine during or immediately after the Second World War. The study was being conducted by a graduate sociology student at one of the local universities. The notice touched a chord with me and I wondered if anyone had ever done something like this about Estonian society. I now live outside the greater TO area so I’m not plugged in to what may be happening there.

Ukrainians of the older generation survived the same horrific events as Estonians excepting the famine which killed millions. Otherwise the recent histories of the peoples seem fairly similar, Stalinist horror, followed by Hitler’s horror, an exodus, another half century of communist horror and finally freedom.

My own experiences would fit into the study and are probably typical. Who can forget their first day in school not knowing a word of English or having to translate for their parents at parent-teacher nights? Remember the reaction when you opened your lunch bag and hauled out a piece of dark rye bread and part of a pig’s ear, pig’s knuckle, or salt herring? Most of us found the annual Remembrance Day school auditorium both awkward and somewhat confusing because we had been raised with the notion that it was a point of honour to have had a father or uncle serve in the German armed forces, particularly the Estonian SS division, preferably as an officer. Everything bad that happened in the world could be blamed on communists. Even bad weather occurred because of Soviet nuclear bomb testing. Your standing in Estonian society was to some extent determined by how many of your relatives had been deported or better yet, shot outright, since mainly the elite were targeted by the Soviets. The horribly smelly outhouse at the summer camp was popularly referred to as “Siberia”, a situation that the smaller kids sometimes had problems with when they were told that people had been deported to Siberia from Estonia. The liquor laws at the time were so archaic that you couldn’t even have a beer in your back yard, never mind the bottle of LCBO alcohol at the St. John’s Day picnic which your father had to buy with a ration book. Remember the commotion when the OPP showed up in the early years?

Well, most if not all of us integrated into Canadian society nicely unlike some more recent immigrant groups from warmer climates who are too often ready to blame their problems on systemic discrimination based on racism. Our parents, many of who arrived here almost penniless, worked hard and indoctrinated us with the value of education. Most of us took advantage of the opportunity, received higher education and became solid middle class citizens, many in the learned professions. For most families and particularly those from the poorest part of the country, Saaremaa, the North American dream came true. I personally never felt discriminated against because of my background and almost all of my experiences with Canadian society have been positive. Even when we were referred to as “DeePees” to our faces (outdated slang for displaced persons popular at the time) there was no malice to it because that’s what we had been.

It would be informative to find out through a scientific study how the second generation, fared overall. Our parents left their legacy in the many books they wrote about their early years as new immigrants. They also left significant real communal property such as Estonian House and the summer camps. Our generation has hit middle age and the “boomer echo generation” is coming on strong. As well, we have started receiving a trickle of new people from Estonia. Cultural and linguistic assimilation is as prevalent as ever. It may be difficult to track down and include those numerous individuals who simply “dropped out” for various reasons, to ensure that the study group is truly representative.

If some enterprising graduate sociology student somewhat has not already done so, perhaps it is time.

Märkmed: