{"id":492531,"date":"2026-10-11T11:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T11:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/492531\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T11:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T11:00:13","slug":"ukrainian-american-museum-unveils-new-exhibit-the-oakland-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/492531\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian American Museum unveils new exhibit \u2013 The Oakland Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group<\/p>\n

Generations of Ukrainian immigrants have helped shape southeast Michigan. Now, a new exhibit in Hamtramck is bringing their stories into focus.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 24, the Ukrainian American Archives and Museum (UAAM) in Hamtramck opened its newest exhibit titled, \u201cThe Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan.\u201d The exhibit highlights how Ukrainian immigrants have contributed to civic, cultural and artistic life in metro Detroit.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkrainian 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\u2019ve been here, and so their history is the history of Michigan,\u201d said Donna Voronovich, co-curator of the exhibit.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn exhibit from \u201cThe Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan\u201d on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s assistant attorney general.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn exhibit from \u201cThe Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan\u201d on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story of Ukrainian immigration parallels the story of a lot of other immigrant groups,\u201d Voronovich said. \u201cThey were seeking better jobs and a better quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AnAn exhibit from \u201cThe Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan\u201d on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n

Michigan\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey couldn\u2019t just leave everything behind and come and instantly fit in here. It\u2019s 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\u2019s a universal story for every immigrant group, certainly in the United States,\u201d said Voronovich.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn exhibit from \u201cThe Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan\u201d on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n

According to museum curators, much Ukrainian American history involves Hamtramck, where the museum is today.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cFather Dumich gave us a whole big box full of historical photographs,\u201d \u00a0said Olga Liskiwskyi, executive director.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn exhibit from \u201cThe Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan\u201d on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey created six or seven different digs within that property, and as students catalog their findings, they then upload them,\u201d Liskiwskyi said.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn exhibit from \u201cThe Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan\u201d on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n

The archival data is on display on a tablet where visitors can move around the city and look at different photographs of artifacts.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn exhibit from \u201cThe Ukrainian American Story: The Immigration Experience in Southeast Michigan\u201d on display in Hamtramck. (Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n

The America250MI program awarded 99 grants and distributed around $2 million total to local organizations across the state.<\/p>\n

The exhibit is currently in Hamtramck but is expected to travel to Grosse Pointe and other Michigan locations in the future.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We had a lot of people come in who were looking through photographs, and they were recognizing family members or friends of their parents,\u201d Voronovich said. \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of experience that we\u2019re trying to promote, for people to come in and say, \u2018I remember that day,\u2019 or \u2018I remember that event.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Mallory Waligora, For MediaNews Group Generations of Ukrainian immigrants have helped shape southeast Michigan. Now, a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[15,181,23,1268,795,100,143,904,145,144,420,796],"class_list":["post-492531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-macomb-county","tag-michigan","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-wayne-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}