Can you recall a time when you were able to “read” the emotions in a room?

Maybe you sensed the unspoken tension when someone began a controversial discussion or stated an unpopular opinion. Perhaps you even felt the pressure to diverge away from the topic, to politely hint at the speaker to go in another direction (or stop speaking altogether). The most notable example in my own life happened when I was 19 years old, during a Global Studies presentation at my university. The assignment was quite broad and allowed for creative freedom, so most of us gravitated towards subject matter that was personal to our own life. Some discussed their travels and interactions with other cultures, while others discussed their own ethnic identity. Yet one overarching point we all made was the notion of personal experience versus outward, societal perception.

At this time, I did not yet know I had Rusyn ancestry. I only knew that my grandmother’s parents had lived in Eastern Slovakia. So like many others in our community, this led me to identify simply with the Slovak-American label for some time. It would not be until I finished college that I would learn of my Rusyn origins. Needless to say, genealogy was much more black and white to me then, compared to now. That is, I truly did think that geographic location equaled ethnicity.

In my presentation, I discussed the experience of being an American whose family had maintained Old World European traditions, mindset, and identity. I focused specifically on my mother’s “Slovak” (actually Rusyn) side, as she had grown up in a very ethnically homogenous environment that in turn, reflected on me. I talked mainly about the expectation to assimilate fully, and refuting the assumption most people hold: that Americans of European descent no longer adhere to the beliefs or traditions of their ancestors. I admit that I held a much more naive attitude about the kind of reception I would receive at that time. I believed that I would find allies in other groups that felt similarly, or would somehow be met with understanding, regardless if others related personally or not. To say I was wrong would be an understatement.

The first glimpse of this was the way people spoke among themselves throughout the presentation. One person even rolled their eyes when I mentioned, “European cultures are no longer celebrated in the US.” This sarcastic and self-righteous behavior was unfortunately not limited to one or two audience members. It was clear by people’s facial expressions, that the subject matter was not being taken seriously. And based on what I already knew of my classmate’s worldviews, it was clear they were hinting at, “She is just playing up her ancestry for ‘oppression points’ or identity”. 

Before I overanalyze this experience any further, I should note that part of the problem was the age group of myself and my classmates: barely 18 or 19 years old, probably not a single person over 21 in the room. This is not to stereotype all college freshmen as ignorant, but rather to recognize that our life experience and ability to argue without significant emotional involvement was limited. While my classmates probably did not know how to cast their own views aside, I was also, as I stated previously, very naive in choosing the topic at hand. The truth is, most audiences are neither academically nor emotionally prepared to discuss the potential that some European-American diasporas might actually have difficulties that the mainstream does not.

Unfortunately, this opinion is not limited to one Global Studies class in the spring of 2017. In fact, more and more people seem to be adopting the view that all European-Americans who identify with their ancestry are over exaggerating it for some external benefit. I believe that these assumptions prove the life experience of the persons who adhere to them. It is usually that they didn’t grow up with a European influence in their household, and therefore are not able to imagine this kind of dynamic. In their mind, if they haven’t seen it in their own lives, the only “logical” explanation is that it doesn’t exist at all.

I was able to pick up on this attitude by noticing the way people phrase these types of opinions. There is oftentimes a cynical undertone, which seems to have less to do with the actual topic, and more to do with being right and having something to virtue signal about. I once heard a person remark, “Celebrities in the 1950s had to play up their so-called ‘exotic’ ancestry”. They were specifically referring to a number of Italian-American entertainers such as Sofia Loren, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra. With phrases like this, you have to read between the lines to understand what the person actually means to say. In this case, what the person really meant was “they took advantage of their ancestry in order to earn money and establish a successful persona”. I find it strange how seldom people actually stop to think, maybe certain individuals did in fact grow up with a European culture and expressing it was already natural to them. That, perhaps, it has nothing at all to do with the outside world.

I have seen these same arguments arise in regards to Slavic identity as well. This has become more of a “hot topic” in recent years, as more Eastern Europeans adopt a pan-Slavist mindset, and more Americans gravitate towards interest in Slavic culture. I witnessed one woman claim, “A person from a smaller Slavic country might say they are Russian in order to sound more interesting.” Not only was I insulted by this, as someone with both Rusyn and Polish origin, but I could not find one reason as to why someone would actually do this. Imagine you are raised in a culture your entire life, on a day-to-day basis, that is what you know. Not only this, but this culture has been your lifelong source of comfort and familiarity: bonding with people who share the same language, music, food, religion, and so forth. Are you really going to “claim” another identity when you are already secure in your own?

It is certainly a more “American mindset” to make such claims, as the misleading idea of “not belonging to a culture” is one that is inherently North American. We should also keep in mind that the average North American is going to be much less familiar with smaller European cultures (such as Rusyn) than those with larger populations. That being said, we can safely assume that these types of remarks are because the person themself knows nothing about the smaller culture, therefore it isn’t “interesting” to them, because they have no exposure to it. How can one take a genuine interest in something that has not personally affected their life, on some level?

That is not to say that these experiences do not shape the way we perceive our identity. For me, the Global Studies presentation marked a change in my life: I recognized that just because an experience is complex or meaningful to myself, does not mean that others can perceive it on their own level. They may actually perceive it as something one-dimensional or self-seeking. It was from that point that I became more selective as to the settings where I discussed my identity. Fortunately, at that point, I was mature enough to understand that too much outside commentary can tarnish one’s self-perception. So I naturally gravitated away from these situations and began to cultivate my identity in a more independent sense. However, had I been a bit younger or more sheltered, I do think I would have been more vulnerable to these types of criticisms. 

Therefore, this discussion is not as simple as “yeah, people say things, we need to forget about it”. Such statements are not accurate representations of the average social interaction, but rather what we’d like them to be. The reality is that people are affected by issues personal to their identity, and few can have such discussions without some sort of emotional interference. This is not a sign of low resilience but rather something characteristic of human psychology. We need to understand how to navigate these types of interactions, as they are unavoidable. When a person looks from the outside, then, reacts to our personal views of self, they are also reacting based on what is personal to them. If they relate, they fulfill the primitive need for belonging to a group. If not, there’s a high possibility they will react defensively and claim they are secure in themselves because they “developed their own theories” as to why the other person’s self-perception is flawed in some way.

However, we should ask ourselves, to what extent are we actually responsible for educating the outside world? Do we need to take the time and effort to explain our culture to people who already have such a limited view of other, larger cultures? If the question of “exaggerating” our ancestral origins even has to be asked, perhaps this is a sign that we’ve reached the entirely wrong audience. I have personally stopped telling the average person that I am of Rusyn, or even Polish or Hungarian descent completely. These statements only go as far as the other person interprets them. While we can expect a more informed discussion from our community on the topic of Rusyns, when it comes to the cultural mainstream, we are actually just fueling their misconceptions – therefore wasting our own time. We should instead begin to determine what we are getting from the cultural mainstream that we are not getting from within our own community.