Becoming American Becoming Ethnic

Coming to Terms with My Heritage

Tanya Mlodzinski (SUNY Binghamton 1989) Coming to Terms with My Heritage Growing up in Yonkers, New York, during the 1950s and 1960s, I had always scorned my Finnish heritage because it was so different within that environment. I remember being the subject ofmuch teasing due to my "funny" name-Tanya Kaartinen-and the even more peculiar ones of my parents-Toini and Onni. Many of my peers had never heard ofFinland. Yet a few elementary school projects elicited some pride in my nationality; my parents were very education minded and it was a way to impress my teachers. Our Yonkers neighborhood was largely one of Italians and Poles; my mother and father never truly assimilated thereuntil recently, 95 percent of the people with whom they associated were Finnish. In fact, the only reason they settled in that city shortly after World War II was because my father was asked to join the editorial staff of a Finnish newspaper there. My parents were excited at the prospect ofthis essay because in the last few years, after their first trip to Finland, they have attempted some worthwhile research into their own family histories. Sadly, until now, I have not shown much interest in their findings. Additionally, I have given my own three children virtually no impetus for interest in their Finnish heritage. We practice no Finnish customs, attend no Finnish activities (though they are prevalent in the Finger Lakes area), and have no Finnish friends. My sisters and I each married non-Finns and, as far as I know, their relation of family history to their children and their ethnic practices are minimal. I guess this stems from the fact that we have always been slightly perturbed 21 Coming to Terms with My Heritage by our parents' apparent inclination toward exclusive Finnish associations. Everything they have done has had ethnic influence. It is my observation that this is true for all the Finns of their generation, and the observation of historians that it was also true of those before them: "As soon as they came to America, Finnish immigrants sought each other's companionship. . . . Next they developed their companionship into formal organizations. . . . Then with messianic fervor they endorsed mental improvement and proclaimed that organized minds were power. By seeking mastery oftheir own minds through the organizations, the immigrants finally found their America and intellectual independence from Finland."l Both my parents, in their histories, have related organizational activities and ethnic "enclavity." Eloise Engle attributes this to sisu, which means "something like solid-even stolid-obstinance [sic], patience, bull-headedness, guts."2 I add tenacity. My forebears have certainly exhibited these characteristics. Each set of grandparents was part of the exodus of the 360,000 Finns who immigrated to North America between 1864 and 1920, incorporated within the "new wave" of immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe .3 Alfred Kaartinen,. son of Finnish peasants, came to Ironwood, Michigan, in 1903. His future wife, Lili Herlevi, came at approximately the same time, apparently alone, to Minneapolis. Why they came is unclear , though economic betterment is most likely; Alfred was the eldest of twelve children in a poor family. Married in Ironwood in 1906, they operated a small restaurant for a time, in addition to his work in the mines there. The first two ofeight children were born there, my father in 1910. In 1911 the family moved to a tract ofland in a railroad stop-DeFer, Wisconsin , about six miles from Hurley. Here they attempted small farming and various kinds of industry. According to my father, Alfred tried to "keep up with the times." He experimented with new crops, was the first in the area to buy a car, and installed carbide lighting in their home; he also promoted joint projects for the purchase of modern farm machinery. Because the farm did not prosper, despite his efforts, he also conducted rentals and purchases, singly or with neighbors, ofstands of timber to be felled and sold to sawmills. He also managed a cooperative store and cooperative creamery at different times. The idea of cooperatives was important to Finns for economic reasons, but also because it allowed them to shop in places they could call their own and where they could conduct business in Finnish. By 1916 there were about seventy Finnish co-ops in the United States.4 22 Tanya Mlodzinski Though their first farm community was entirely Finnish, both quickly became u...