My name is Kateryna, and I am from Ukraine. And often people see me as a foreigner, as "other", as an immigrant with an accent. But I am not "other", I am a part of your society. I pay taxes, I work here, I'm writing articles and making videos that making a difference.
Some of you may even find out that you also have Ukrainian roots in your family tree. Very often I meet people, who don't know where Ukraine is on a map and don't know that there is a war going on in Eastern part of Ukraine and that Crimea (a peninsula located near the Black Sea) is being annexed in 2014. Yes, in the 21st century other countries can just take away parts of other countries, crazy right? But this is what is going on in Ukraine, in Georgia, and in many other countries across the globe, and some of you might not know about it.
And you can ask me, why you should know about it, or care about it? You should, because all those threads connect at a certain point, and one day it can affect you personally, and today those threads are affecting your country too. Because the political situation and war in Ukraine is a part of an important political strategy, and your country is included in it. Ukraine is one of the biggest countries in Europe, and you can't just ignore it.
But let's re-group. Do you like this style of clothes?
Or this one?
Basically, Bohemian Hippie style looks pretty much like a variation on Ukrainian traditional clothes, that was created centuries ago. And you might wear Ukrainian-style clothing even without acknowledgment.
Also, I wanted to tell you about the "Melting Pot" referral, that I hear a lot from Americans. I love the idea, that diverse nationalities can live peacefully in one country and speak one language in order to communicate. But I feel that the idea of "melting" is wrong, because when cultural identity melts, we all losing our culture, and wipe it out. Your grandparents or great grandparents probably came to the U.S. from Europe or South America in the early years of immigration waves. And your parents probably do not speak languages of their ancestors, right?
Because it was easier to "melt", to give up their language, to be as everyone, to be the same, to be neutral, to be "free" of a culture that is "different". That's why you might not even know if you have any Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, German, Italian, French, etc. roots in your genealogy. But do you think it is good to "melt" unique culture, and lose it completely? Is that culture is not important? Would you like to know more about your roots? Would you like to know more than one language?
And finally, did you know, that if an immigrant refuses to melt her/his culture completely, it would be difficult to find a job, to find friends, because this is how our society is built. If someone is "different", there would be a definition of "others" and you. And until we have this separation, we will face more and more problems.
