UKRAINE: UKRAINIAN AMERICANS

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• published: 21 Jul 2015
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English/Nat US President Bill Clinton's visit to Ukraine is not just about economic reform and nuclear issues - it is an acknowledgement of the political power of the new Ukrainian state and of the one (m) million American voters of Ukrainian descent. But the Ukrainian diaspora community in the United States may begin to shrink - as young Ukrainian-Americans begin to return to the motherland. Marta Kuzma is one of the thousands of young Americans who have come to the former Soviet Union to find interesting work and take part in the massive transformation underway there. But Marta did not learn her Ukrainian in college - she absorbed it in the kitchen and around the house at her home in Philadelphia. She grew up there with her two Ukrainian-American parents as one of the largest diaspora communities in the United States. It was an island of Ukrainian tradition and culture that remained proud and intact while the Russian language and culture became dominant in the Soviet Union. Bill Clinton's visit to Kiev today did not make her schedule - she had a more important meeting. "Papoo" is in Kiev for a visit. Born in Western Ukraine in 1924, her father Gregory didn't see his native country for almost 50 years until the fall of the Soviet Union and the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991. And now, he has an especially good reason to keep coming back regularly. Marta moved here three years ago. It was supposed to be a temporary move. SOUNDBITE: "When I first came to Ukraine I came with my husband and I thought that this was sort of an experience. We left New York and we wanted to get a different kind of experience for two or three years and it wasn't drived by any sort of ethnic discovery, driven by our ethnic backgrounds. It was really just sort of going to a different place and Eastern Europe was opening up and former Soviet Union. But after having been here for over three years, and having gotten so close to the people, I can actually see myself living here for a very long period of time, which is a turn around from what I would have said maybe, one year ago." SUPER CAPTION:Marta Kuzma, Ukrainian-American living in Kiev Gregory was active in the Ukrainian nationalist underground when he lived in Soviet territory occupied by invading German forces during World War II. Even though the Soviet Union was desperate to defeat Hitler, his Ukrainian nationalist group was suppressed, because the Soviets feared that Ukrainians would demand independence. He left Ukraine when Soviet forces were about to reclaim the lost territory in 1944. Just over 50 years later, he finds himself confronting a different Ukraine from the one he idealized when he was away. SOUNDBITE: "The fatherland was a dream and as a dream has different counters. Now when it became reality, the counters are different slightly, they don't fall into as the dream was." SUPER CAPTION:Gregory Kuzma, Ukranian-American This new reality suits his daughter just fine. SOUNDBITE: "I find that our parents, and I think a lot of people share this view, come back to visit and they still have a very sort of moulded view about what Ukraine was...and it's quiet different. Kiev is a very cosmopolitan city, it's made up of all different types of nationalities. People speak Russian, they don't speak Ukrainian. Some people speak Ukrainian but it's only just starting. And there must be some sort of tolerance on the part of the community I think, the Ukraine community in America, in understanding that this is a multi-cultural city and multi-cultural country." SUPER CAPTION:Marta Kuzma, Ukrainian-American living in Kiev You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/9b387f99cb18884aaf6d23b859fdc9f6 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork