What does it mean to “Be an American”? If one asks themselves that question while living in the United States, they might assume that the American way to live is however they live. People often think this without a second thought, and so did I growing up. My baba, who raised me half of my childhood and homeschooled me through my elementary years would always tell me we were Carpatho Rusyn-American. With emphasis on the “American” part. I always thought the values I was raised with were the common American values every kid grew up with. Never being aware of any difference, perhaps due to my homeschooling, perhaps due to innocent ignorance. However, I would learn with time that there was something different with my family. An open secret that we were not like the others, a secret known, but never mentioned out loud.

 My discovery of this secret began when I was about 16. My German/Anglo-American partner and I went to the local Heritage museum. At the end of the walkthrough, there was a film featuring Slovak and Carpatho Rusyn 2nd generation Americans, they talked about the life they had experienced growing up. Having watched this film before, I knew that their stories mirrored my own childhood in a lot of senses. From facing guilt from family due to the desire to abandon proximity to said family in exchange for education. The necessity of taking care of your own, no matter the personal cost. All of this seemed normal to me, until, when I asked him what he thought of the film he said, “What a strange way to grow up”. This completely shook my internal view of myself, my identity, I began to question him on what he found strange, and later learned what he grew up to see as “Individualism” which to him was a positive American value. I grew up to see “Selfishness” in that. An evil trait. Where he was raised to go out into the world and travel, march to the beat of his own drum. 

I was raised to prolong tradition, maintain our “village” on Deyarmin Road. This consisted of my Baba, my Mom with her family, as well as my Aunt with an uncle that lived 5 minutes away, and another that lived further away. The farthest my family strayed was to Chicago. However this act was quite frowned upon, and this aunt still called home to Baba every day. My later desire to travel was seen as contamination by my other side of the family. My cousins and I, spawning 2 generations due to the fact Baba’s 6 children were born from 1969 all the way up until 1985, were all raised by various adults in the family. My aunts, uncles, and baba’s house were all sort of a second home to me as well as our house was to my cousins. This was not seen as a burden to anyone. Whereas in my later studies in psychology, I learned the “American” way to raise children strictly consisted of the nuclear family only parenting. Grandparents were not seen as “Core” family members. This shocked me, as well as learning that most European-Americans put their elders in a nursing home. And that taking care of your family members as they get old is seen as an “Asian or Mexican” thing despite the fact I knew from experience that it was a Rusyn thing as well. 

All these inconsistencies made me want to look for a “Why?” as I got older. Why did our nationality not match our culture in so many ways? l gained my answer, not directly, but from what I knew all along from my baba’s stories the title of “American” was something both aspired by and beaten into Rusyn immigrants. They were treated as subhuman by their industrial bosses in the steel mills and coal mines. Oftentimes coming home bleeding or not coming home at all. Perhaps they place blame on their “Un-Americanness” as the reason they were treated so harshly, so they did everything they could to ensure their family at least seemed “American” on the surface. With these thoughts leading them to change their clothes and language. However, it is much harder to change mindsets and core beliefs, especially when seeing the thing that you are supposed to change into and perceiving it as evil. Leaving these beliefs as the only thing to remain, an open secret.