By Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group
Generations of Ukrainian immigrants have helped shape southeast Michigan. Now, a new exhibit in Hamtramck is bringing their stories into focus.
On Sept. 24, the Ukrainian American Archives and Museum (UAAM) in Hamtramck opened its newest exhibit titled, “The Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan.” The exhibit highlights how Ukrainian immigrants have contributed to civic, cultural and artistic life in metro Detroit.
“Ukrainian Americans have made tremendous contributions to Michigan in almost every single sphere, in economics and education, in culture, in the arts, and politics. They have immersed themselves in that throughout the time they’ve been here, and so their history is the history of Michigan,” said Donna Voronovich, co-curator of the exhibit.
An exhibit from “The Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan” on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)
The exhibit features displays of traditional Ukrainian wedding dresses, artwork, hand-woven textiles, folk dresses and historical archives and documentation. The exhibit is free to the public and planned to be on display for a year.
It also tells the story of prominent Ukrainian Americans in Michigan, including Mary Beck, who was the first woman on the Detroit City Council, and John Panchuk, who served as Michigan’s assistant attorney general.
The collection includes personal memoirs and oral histories from Metro Detroit residents. A recent addition to the exhibit is an oral history corner with microphones where guests can record and share stories of their families or self-journeys of immigration from Ukraine.
An exhibit from “The Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan” on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)
The museum is organized around five different waves of Ukrainian immigration to the United States. The first wave begins in the late 19th century and runs through two world wars. The final, fifth wave, beginning in 2014 with the Russian invasion of Crimea.
“The story of Ukrainian immigration parallels the story of a lot of other immigrant groups,” Voronovich said. “They were seeking better jobs and a better quality of life.”
An exhibit from “The Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan” on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)
Michigan’s Ukrainian immigrants had to assimilate into the culture of new country while holding onto their own, and that push and pull between the new world and the old world is something that many U.S. immigrants experienced.
“They couldn’t just leave everything behind and come and instantly fit in here. It’s that navigation of assimilation and preservation of cultural identity that we tried to tell here in our exhibit. We tell it through the Ukrainian lens, but I really do believe that it’s a universal story for every immigrant group, certainly in the United States,” said Voronovich.
An exhibit from “The Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan” on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)
According to museum curators, much Ukrainian American history involves Hamtramck, where the museum is today.
To organize the newest exhibit, curators partnered with community groups to obtain old records, photographs and cultural artifacts that are displayed at the museum, including St. John the Baptist Church in southwest Detroit.
“Father Dumich gave us a whole big box full of historical photographs,” said Olga Liskiwskyi, executive director.
An exhibit from “The Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan” on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)
The museum also partnered with Wayne State University and Michigan Technological University to create a historical data website. WSU anthropology students conducted excavations in Hamtramck to unearth artifacts at sites such as the former Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Church on Grayling Street.
“They created six or seven different digs within that property, and as students catalog their findings, they then upload them,” Liskiwskyi said.
An exhibit from “The Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan” on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)
The archival data is on display on a tablet where visitors can move around the city and look at different photographs of artifacts.
Today, an estimated 30,000 residents of Ukrainian descent live in Metro Detroit, the most in Michigan, which ranks ninth nationally for the largest Ukrainian American population.
The museum received a $48,292.78 state grant from America250MI, a committee for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence established by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and led by the Historical Society of Michigan and the Michigan History Center.
An exhibit from “The Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan” on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)
The America250MI program awarded 99 grants and distributed around $2 million total to local organizations across the state.
The exhibit is currently in Hamtramck but is expected to travel to Grosse Pointe and other Michigan locations in the future.
The museum is generally open on Fridays and Saturdays, but it is recommended that guests check the website before visiting. The museum will host a Christmas market from Nov. 27 through Dec. 30 featuring local Ukrainian American artisan gifts.
We had a lot of people come in who were looking through photographs, and they were recognizing family members or friends of their parents,” Voronovich said. “That’s the kind of experience that we’re trying to promote, for people to come in and say, ‘I remember that day,’ or ‘I remember that event.’ ”