It was a Thursday evening, and red leaves had begun to fall outside my window in the inner city. As I drained some pasta in the kitchen sink, I listened to the audio message from a friend, two hundred miles away in rural Indiana. The conversation had turned to literature, a subject not uncommon for the two of us to discuss – her being an aspiring novelist, while I mainly write poetry in my spare time. We were discussing the state of current Young Adult novels, and how they’ve seemed to capitalize on tragedy and melodrama. My friend and I both agreed that while tragedy is certainly characteristic of life, its portrayal in young adult literature is not only unrealistic but puts young people at a higher risk of idealizing misery. 

Not only do my friend and I share similar creative pursuits and interest in literature, but we both happen to be of Eastern Slavic origin – she is Ukrainian-American, and I, of course, am Rusyn-American. Like many Americans who grew up with Eastern European influence, my friend and I were accustomed to specific challenges brought on by generational trauma. Our families had implemented within us the focus on community, instead of the individual. We were expected to pursue hobbies that would benefit us in terms of academia or career, not just for pure enjoyment. As a result, we were expected to grow up quicker than our more Americanized peers, and were discouraged from going through extensive phases of angst or attempts to be “edgy”. For example, when I was 20, and my friends still had blue hair, septum piercings, and wore band shirts, I honestly wondered why their families never discouraged them, even passively. These things were aesthetically pleasing to me, but I avoided them for the sake of keeping the peace in my household. Dressed in muted colors with natural, unstyled hair, I did feel envious to a degree, yet also hopeful in the belief that being “nondescript” would ultimately bring more professional opportunities my way.

In many ways, this attitude reflects what life was like for our immigrant grandparents or great-grandparents. For instance, my great-grandparents, Maria and Pavel Platko, settled in a lumber camp in Sheffield, Pennsylvania when they immigrated to the US as teenagers. Both spoke little to no English, and my grandmother recalls having to translate for her parents when they went shopping. When the children were of age, the boys were expected to pursue manual labor just as their parents had in both the homeland and in America. They also fished and hunted deer frequently as sources of meat, as grocery stores were limited. The girls were expected to be domestically oriented and did not pursue higher education, as was typical of Rusyn culture at the time. In addition to raising children, Rusyn immigrant women would sew and wash clothes by hand, tend the family garden, and prepare food. Some also worked as maids or domestic servants. Even when my mother was growing up in the 1960s, she recalls having to rely on a wringer washer, coal furnace, and ceramic glass heater. My family also got their water from a well, which would freeze during the winter and would require the use of an ax to break apart the ice. 

Given this framework, the idea of experimenting with and forming one’s own identity was simply not an option – one’s role was already decided. With the family focused more on survival and less on leisure, upholding a positive reputation in the community ensured that you and your family members retained connections to the institutions that kept them employed and offered support systems. This was not only limited to the immediate and extended family but also the church community and places of employment, both of which consisted largely of other Rusyns, often from the same village or town in the Carpathian region. Hence, one’s reputation was not limited to a single town in Pennsylvania, but extended as far as one’s native village overseas! That being said, it is hard to imagine these individuals analyzing their own lives from an existential perspective – it wasn’t worth the time nor the potential consequences. If one individual went astray, the community would suffer. 

It is important to remember that most Rusyn immigrants were in positions of significant disadvantage compared to their American counterparts. Many people assume “Well, at least they had the opportunity to immigrate and begin a new life”. This is a misconception. The problems of Rusyn immigrants did not end through the act of immigration itself. In fact, their employment opportunities were extremely limited and opportunities for education were next to none. Illiteracy was common (my great-grandparents could neither read nor write), and many had never received formal education at all. These factors made assimilation extremely challenging, even for the children of Rusyn immigrants who would have to navigate academia and other professional opportunities without any guidance. They were not only responsible for their community and reputation but also had to work much harder to compete with their American peers, who generally held economic and linguistic advantages over them.