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Hispanic American Historical Review 84.1 (2004) 5-36



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Family Photos, Oral Narratives, and Identity Formation:
The Ukrainians of Berisso

Daniel James and Mirta Zaida Lobato


Diasporas always leave a trail of collective memory about another place and time and create new maps of desire and attachment.
—Arjun Appadurai

In the 1920s, several hundred immigrants arrived in Argentina from the Carpathian Mountains, the steppes of Ukraine, and the villages of Poland. Many of them established themselves in Berisso, an industrial suburb of La Plata in the province of Buenos Aires, where they became industrial workers in the Swift and Armour meatpacking houses. In Berisso they set up their representative organizations and molded their identities. Julian Zabiuk was one of those immigrants. He arrived in Berisso from Solone (Zalizchyky, a village near Lviv in Eastern Galicia), worked in the packinghouses, and lived in the community until his death. 1 Julian Zabiuk's passage through history only held meaning for his family and friends. However, Julian did place his family photos into two albums, which his son Bogdan preserved. These photos found Julian a place in history when we, two historians interested in Berisso's past, came across their story. Julian's transformation into the subject of history, however, depended on our finding meaning in these images and the narratives that we had collected in Berisso. The albums challenged us to discern how those without professional training in historical interpretation may have used them.

We will analyze the web formed by oral narratives and photographic images in the formation of Ukrainian identity in Berisso. This process was not a single or homogeneous movement. On the contrary, it emerged from conflicting memories and competing narratives reflected in certain strands of collective [End Page 5] memory—immigrant workers in the packinghouses, the harmonious world of labor under Perón, the peaceful coexistence of different nationalities, religions, and political philosophies. Such elements were transmitted not only through the spoken word but also through objects such as photos, letters, and monuments, and events such as ceremonies, theater, and fiestas.

This essay centers on the family photos of Julian Zabiuk, which speak to a history of family uprooting and reconstitution and demonstrate the tensions surrounding the construction of Ukrainian identity in Argentina. The meaning of these photos varies with our analytical perspective. If the analytic lens closes in, we can see Julian Zabiuk's own history—at least partially—within the wider picture, through family photos from Ukraine and the diaspora. When we pan out the analytic lens, the history of the ethnic community appears. By thus adjusting the focus, the meanings of Julian Zabiuk's personal and ethnic history take on a density that runs parallel to our own apprenticeship in reading the clues contained in these stories and images.

Traces of the Past: Narrative Symptoms and Signs

In 1987 Juan Ciuper sat in his house and spoke slowly of his experience as an immigrant laborer. Only much later did many of his observations about Ukrainians acquire significance for us. These narrative passages were like the "minuscule singularities" of which Carlo Ginzburg speaks, which were slowly transformed for us into trails, traces, and signs of the cultural relationships and transformations of the Ukrainians of Berisso. 2

Let us look at some of the symptomatic fragments of this narrative:

My great-grandfather was German, but he became Ukrainian. . . . I came in 1930. I was 17. . . . From the Carpathians, the most important city at that time was called Stanislavia. At the present, it's a very strategic city for the Russians because of its army base. . . . My mother emigrated so that I could study.

. . . I was 12 and entered the national grammar school (in Ukraine), as it was under Polish domination. The Poles didn't look kindly on us—they interfered with our studies in all sorts of ways.

. . . In our Society [Prosvita], anyone who showed themselves sympathetic to Lenin's doctrine found no sympathy from us—we excluded [End Page 6] them. . . . Our Society was plainly cultural—its goal...

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