1}0 2NJ F UI•RAINIAN-AMERICANS: AN ETHNIC PORTRAIT Photographsby Donald P. Lokuta Text by David S. Cohen U I•A INI AN-AM E•.C AN AN ETHNIC PORTRAIT Photographsby Donald P. Lokuta Text by David S. Cohen JUL 2 4 'lug5 • -,rq' PUBLICATIONS Trenton New JerseyHistorical Commission 1982 Text ¸ 1982by the New JerseyHistorical Commission. Photographs¸ 1982by DonaldP. Lokuta. All rightsreserved Printed in the United States of America Libraryof CongressCataloging in PublicationData Lokuta, Donald P. Ukrainian-Americans,an ethnicportrait. "Thi•publication is partof a largerproject titled Hromada, Ukrainian folklifein New Jersey,which included a symposium-concert-exhibitionheld onMarch 27, 1982,at theNewark College of Artsand Science of Rutgers, theState University of NewJersey"--Acknowledgments. I. UkrainianAmericans--New Jersey--Social life andcustoms--Pictorial works--Exhibitions. 2. UkrainianAmericans--New York (State)--Sociallife and customs--Pic- torial works--Exhibitions. 3. New Jersey--Sociallife and customs--Pictorialworks--Exhibitions. 4. New York (State)--Sociallife and customs--Pictorialworks--Exhibitions. 5. Folklore--New]erseymPictorial works--Exhibitions. 6. Folklore--NewYork (Sta•e)--Pictorial works--Exhibitions. I. Cohen, David Steven, I943- II. New JerseyHistorical Commission. III. Title. FI45.U5L64 i982 779'.939'008991791073 82-12609 ISBN 0-89743-056-5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This publicationis part of a largerproject titled HROMADA: UKRAINIAN FOLKLIFE IN NEW JERSEY,which includeda symP•0sium-concert-exhibitionheldon March 27, 1982,at theNewark Collegeof Arts and Sciencesof Rutgers,The StateUniversity of New Jersey.Most of thesephotographs were first exhibitedin the Robeson Gallery at Rutgers- Newark. The projectwas cosponsoredby the RegionalCouncil in New Jerseyof the UkrainianNational Women'sLeague of America,the New JerseyHistorical Commission, Rutgers University, the Ukrainian National Association, and the Ukrainian Museum. The projectwas coordinatedby LydiaY. Hladky, TarasHunczak, and David S. Cohen.It was fundedby grantsfrom the New Jersey Committeefor the Humanitiesand RutgersUniversity. Alice Shapiroand JamesE. Young of RutgersUniversity, Cole Lewisand Anne Kuczewskiof the PrudentialInsurance Company of America,Steven Heller and Waiter S. Perkowskiof the New Jersey Bell TelephoneCompany, and AntoinetteRaider, Patricia Thomas, and Lee R. Parksof the New JerseyHistorical Commission were in- strumentalin producingthis publication. Photographicsubjects were suggestedby CamilleHuk Smorodsky, member,Governor's Ethnic Advisory Council;Lydia Y. Hladky, presi- dent, RegionalCouncil in New Jersey,Ukrainian National Women's Leagueof America;Taras Hunczak, professor of history,Rutgers University,Newark; and FatherJohn Nakonechnyj, pastor, Holy AscensionUkrainian Orthodox Church, Maplewood. Michael Adler, an undergraduateat PrincetonUniversity, contributed the interviews with BishopIziaslav and FatherSteven Bilak on SaintThomas Sunday. ZorianaTkacz, formerlyan undergraduateat Rutgers- Newark, inter- viewed her grandmotherabout ChristmasEve in Ukraine. The New JerseyBell TelephoneCompany designed this publication and set the type. The PrudentialInsurance Company of Americaprinted it. The photographsare part of a kravelingexhibition available throughthe New JerseyState Museum, 205 West StateStreet, Tren- ton, New Jersey08•z5. Introduction Forthe immediate world, everything is to bediscerned, for himwho can discernit, andcentrally and simply, withouteither dissection into science,or digesh'oninto art, butwith the whole of consciousness,seeking •o perceivei• asit stands.... That is whythe camera seems•o me, nex•to unassistedand weaponlessconsciousness, thecentral instrumentof our •ime. JamesAgee Let Us Now Praise Famous Men The writer JamesAgee describedhis collaborationwith the photographerWalker Evansto documentthe livesof three tenant farm families as neither art nor science but "an effort in human actuali- ty."• Latelythe assumptionthat photographycaptures social reality hasbeen questioned. In DocumentaryExpression and Thirh'es America, William Stottsays Agee realizedthat he and Evanswould fall shortof the ideal;Evans, he says,selected his photographs for theirpropagan- da value,omitting those that didn'tfit the socialpurpose of the book? The greatdocumentary photographers of the late nineteenthand earlytwentieth centuries--Edward S. Curtis,Robert J. Flaherty,Jacob Riis,Lewis Hinemcombined artistic expression with socialscientific in- terests.Critics recently have argued that in doingso these photographersdistorted social reality. Curtis dressed his North AmericanIndian subjects in costumesno longerworn in daily life and placedthem in romanticposes that reflected his view of a "vanishing race."• Flahertyhad an artificialhalf-igloo c•)nstructed for interior scenesof Eskimolife. • SusanSontag argues that the photographsof Riisand Hine arenot objectivedepictions of socialreality but political statementsagainst slum conditionsand child labor. She characterizes the photographstaken in the 1930sunder the auspicesof the Farm SecuritiesAdministration as "unabashedlypropagandistic." Despite "thepresumption of veracity"in the way we view photographs,Son- tagwrites, "the work photographersdo is no genericexception to the usuallyshady commerce between art and truth."• The trendsince the thirtieshas been to separateart from social science.Art photographyhas gone in the directionof personalexpres- sion.Some photographers, such as RobertFrank, Danny Lyon, and Bill Owens, have continuedin the socialdocumentary tradition, but their work, accordingto Howard S. Becker,"suffers from its failureto use explicittheories, such as might be foundin the socialsciences? Social sciencehas gone in anotherdirection. In anthropology,according to Sol Worth, the trend hasbeen away from "visualanthropology" and t•ard "the anthropologyof visualcommunication"; instead of study- ing the socialand culturalcontent of photographs,anthropologists to- day are moreinterested in photographsas a mediumof communica- tion.7 In folklore,fieldworkers with camerasgenerally do their own visual documentation rather than collaboratewith artistic,documen- tary photographers. BruceJackson, a folklorist-photographer,claims that photographs alone never tell us what we see in them. To know more about what is picturedin photographs,Jackson says, we mustknow moreabout the decisionsmade behindthe camera--decisionspertaining to selection, framing,and editing.• But thisepistemological problem affects every field of knowledge,not justphotography, and it neednot necessarily lead us to a positionof total relativism.If we asviewers look only at historicalphotographs, there is a limit to whatwe canknow about thesedecisions. But if we asfieldworkers are presentwhen the photographsare takenand help to makethe decisions,the assumption that there is little or no connectionbetween the photographsand socialreality need not apply. Inspiredby the collaborationof Ageeand Evans, Donald Lokuta and I set out to documentthe contemporaryfolklife of an ethnic groupin New Jersey.The ideawas to combineLokuta's vision as photographerwith mineas folklorist. Both the artistand the social scientistshould attempt to be true to the fieldworkexperience. We understoodthat all experienceis filteredthrough our own perceptions. What we wanted to seewas whether there was any necessarycon- tradictionbetween the pointof view of an artistand that of a social scientist. BecauseSlavic groups have highly visible folk traditions,we decid- ed to chooseone of them. So we looked in TheEthnic Directory of New ,lerse¾to seewhich had the mostorganizations. Clearly, it wasthe Ukrainians.The largenumber of Ukrainianorganizations reflects an intenseethnic identification, which seemsto derivefrom the feelingof manyUkrainians that they are a submergednationality in Europe; thereforewe do not claimthat the persistenceof folk traditions amongUkrainian-Americans is typical of otherethnic groups. Furthermore,although there was a cross-sectionof urbanand subur- ban, white-collarand blue-collarsubjects, we do not claimthat the subjectswe photographedare •ypicalUkrainian-Americans. We were lookingspecifically for "traditional"subjectswthat is, peoplewho have madea pointof preservingtheir ethnic,folk traditions.Furthermore, thepeople we photographedare all fromone region of theUnited States:the pictures were taken in northernNew Jerseyand at two Ukrainianresorts in the CatskillMountains, Glen Speyand Ellenville, New York.And oursubjects were recommended by membersof their owncommunity; it is always possible that such a methodof selection will tilt the balancein favor of "modelsubjects." Specificallywe wantedto showhow folk traditions have become symbolsof ethnicidentity. Here we wereinterested in communaland privateexpressions rather than what Richard Dorson, the folklorist, hascalled "public-presentational" ones.• That is, we werelooking for folk expressionsof ethnicity within the homeand the community,not in thefestivals that present folk music,folk dance,national dress, and ethnicfoods to the publicat large.For example, we photographedthe hahilka,songs and dances performed by younggirls on EasterSunday morningthat retain much of theirfolk flavoreven though they are rehearsed.But we didn'tphotograph the danceensembles that per- form at the GardenState Arts Center, becausethey are too choreographed. Furthermore,we were not lookingfor only the "pure"survivals of folk tradition.In hisstudy of Ukrainianfolklore Robert B. Klymasz arguesthat folkloristsshould