I was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a child of the fourth generation of a Slovak immigrant family. In the four generations prior to my birth, the Slovak culture that my great grandparents had brought with them from Slovakia (a region of Austria-Hungary at the time) had to a great degree been lost, transformed into a Slovak ethnic identity. By researching the process by which this occurred, I found that each progressive generation experienced this process differently. That is, each generation chose what aspects of Slovak culture to retain as part of being an ethnic Slovak, and what aspects to let fade away.
This interview was primarily a way for me to test my ideas about the process of culture loss and preservation in the third generation against a person of this generation; someone who grew up in Johnstown. My research suggested that the two primary factors affecting culture preservation would be the Slovak church community and ethnic holiday traditions. Therefore, I focused the interview on ways in which my informant’s Slovak culture was preserved through the ethnic nature of these institutions. I also tried to see whether there were any other factors affecting this process that I had not encountered in my research.
In the course of the interview I found that there was a division in the ways home and community served to preserve Slovak culture. So, in the discussion of the interview results, I will divide them into realms: the Slovak church community, the neighborhood and home life. The factors that affected the loss of Slovak culture lent themselves to be divided into the more discreet categories of loss of the Slovak language, change in traditional wedding practices, loss of holiday traditions, the impact of American patriotism and moving away from Johnstown.
Culture
preservation, church community, and home
The Slovak community in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was centered round the Parish of
St. Stephens (a Roman Catholic church). This was also the parish of my informant. The Slovaks, just like every other major ethnic group in Johnstown, had a church and a bar on each corner. It was through this parish that much of the Slovak culture of my informant was preserved. This took the forms of various events that the Slovak community held. One such event was the “Slovak days”: an ethnic festival with Slovak food, polka music and dancing. Another major role of the church was its parochial school. Like many in my informant’s generation, he attended his ethnic church's school. He described the school as “very ethnic”, using as an example the fact that at Christmas time the school’s boy’s choir sang Silent Night in Slovak. St Stephen’s church even held mass in Slovak for those who wished to attend it.
The Slovak community of Johnstown used the parish of St. Stephen’s to celebrate and preserve their culture in other ways as well. My informant told me that the things from his childhood that he thought of as ethnically Slovak were: “Christmas, Easter … things like first holy communion, confirmation and uh weddings”. Of these, weddings have played a large part in preserving Slovak traditions in his lifetime. While he was describing his own wedding to me, it was apparent that Slovak culture had left a stamp on the Johnstown wedding traditions. The most remarkable of these traits is the presence of the bridal dance, which according to my earlier research has been present in the Slovak communities since the 1890s. In addition to the bridal dance, traditional Slovak foods were served, topped off with a polka band and dancing at the receptions.
Through my interview, I found that several aspects of my informant’s home life and neighborhood helped to preserve his Slovak culture. The neighborhood that my informant grew up in was described as “very European, [people] basically from the Slavic nations, Polish, Czechoslovakian…” This ethnic atmosphere must have been very conducive to the generation of an ethnic identity marked by aspects of Slovak culture. In the home, one of the major ways in which Slovak culture was preserved was Slovak food such as pirogies, hulupki, huluski, and chicken soup. Holidays were marked by Slovak traditions such as opening gifts on Christmas Eve (as opposed to opening them on Christmas Day) and special food such as nut rolls. Although my informant cannot speak Slovak, he remembers hearing it spoken in his home between relatives and occasionally between his parents.
Culture loss
The issues of culture loss were discussed briefly in my interview, although not in as much detail as culture preservation. This discussion touched lightly on several areas in which Slovak culture was lost within my informant’s generation. The areas that stood out most were the loss of the Slovak language, change in traditional wedding practices, loss of Christmas traditions, the impact of American patriotism and moving away from Johnstown.
The fact that the Slovak language was lost to my informant is slightly surprising considering the fact it was spoken not only in the church, but also in the home of my informant. Despite this, he only knows a few Slovak words. My view is that the reason the language was lost is because speaking Slovak, like many of the other aspects of Slovak culture, was done only on special occasions. Slovak, according to my interview, was used by the second generation with the second generation. It was only spoken after church, at weddings and in polka music, and so, the children could not understand what was being said. Having Slovak only spoken to them when they were in trouble probably also led to its not being learned fluently. Since the language was not used by the third generation it was lost to them.
Wedding traditions, although mentioned several times as important, have also been lost and modified. Younger members of the third generation seem to have lost certain aspects of the Slovak wedding traditions. Country music and line dancing have replaced traditional polka music and dancing. My informant attributes this mostly to the influence of a non-Slovak spouse and to larger American trends in weddings. Along those lines of thought, Christmas traditions, as well as other traditions, seem to have faded from the households of his siblings that married non-Slovak spouses.
American patriotism also seems to have played a role in the shifting of Slovak culture into ethnic traditions. Americanism was “paramount” to my informant growing up, both at home and in school. He attributed this in part to the involvement of his parents’ generation in WWII and to his brothers’ and friends’ involvement in the Vietnam war. American patriotism is something he said “you have to live everyday” while ethnic traditions are something fun to make life interesting at events and holidays.
Moving away from Johnstown has also lead to the loss of some traditions of my informant. He describes e.g. the church he attends now as having “none, zero, zip” ethnic background. The neighborhood he lives in was also described as having no ethnicity to it. Since this is the case, there are no “Slovak days” to go to every year, and no polkas on the radio on Sunday mornings.
Conclusion
As the results of the interview indicate, the process of culture loss and preservation through ethnic identity is very complex. The preservation of Slovak culture in Johnstown focused mainly on the ethnic parish and the home of the individual. Culture loss, however, seems to be affected by a greater number of factors. My initial analysis, attributing generation factors to the process by which Slovak immigrant families preserve their Slovak culture, proved in this case to be true. However, these generation phases may need to be further explored in terms of same age cohorts within a generation. It is obvious that one cannot explain a phenomenon such as this based on only one interview even though it has been a useful part in understanding the process.
The interview itself was very productive and provided much of the information that I expected to receive from the questions. However, I think that this is due mostly to the verbose nature of my informant. He had a tendency to expand his answers more than the short questions I asked were intended to bring forward, so if I were to use these questions again, I would have to fine tune them and ask more direct and specific questions about ethnicity and culture preservation. Although I asked specific questions about wedding practices, in retrospect I realize that I should have also asked about funeral traditions, as well as confirmation and first holy communion traditions. In addition, I should also have explored the role of Catholicism in Slovak traditions and not just the role of the church community. Even considering the topics I did not explore, doing this interview was an excellent experience and I hope it sets up the ground work for me to further explore how this ethnic group (of which I in part belong) was developed and how ethnic identity acts to preserve Slovak culture.
Introduction
For my second fieldwork assignment, I decided to do a life history interview with my informant: Richard Voytko. Richard comes from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and is a third generation member of a Slovak immigrant family. Rick was growing up in Johnstown during a time when the steel mills and coal mines were at their peak. The population of Johnstown consisted of immigrant families who provided the labor for the steel and coal industries. This created an ethnic and culturally diverse environment to develop in. To understand Rick's life, we must take into account these various factors and how they shaped his experience growing up in Johnstown.
Upon examining the transcript of the life history interview, I noticed that one theme seemed to occur over and over again in Rick's life. This theme is a continual exposure to new and broader cultures. Initially he spent his early childhood with his Slovak family on their farm. Rick's elementary years were spent attending his Slovak catholic parish's school. During middle school, Rick was consolidated into a multi-ethnic catholic middle school, and his high school years were spent at an even more diverse public school. In the navy Rick encountered people from around the United States, and now, with IBM, people from around the world. Rick's life has been a blend of ethnicity and diverse cultures, much like the town he grew up in.
Summary of Life
History
Rick’s recollections from his childhood started with a description of times that he had spent at the family farm. The farm was owned by his mother's parents, who had immigrated to the Johnstown area from Czechoslovakia. The 103 acre farm was located outside of Johnstown off of Frankstown Road. From what Rick recalls, they raised about a half dozen hogs and some Guernsey cows for milk. Rick's time spent at the farm was split between playing in the fields and outbuildings with his siblings and assisting in the farm chores like bailing and cutting hay. The house on the farm was an expanded log cabin, heated by a potbellied stove in the living room. Although water to the house was supplied via a well, he recalls them collecting rainwater in a barrel to wash clothes with. Rick said that on Tuesdays his aunts and mother used to do their laundry with an old wringer washing machine. Although the house was heated by the potbellied stove, the kitchen of the house was equipped with a coal/electric cooking stove. Rick was both proud and sad when he informed me that he owned what was left of the farm: ¾ of an acre and the remnants of the house's foundation (the house burnt down due to a fire started by the potbellied stove).
Not all of Rick's childhood was spent on the family's farm. He grew up in a part of Johnstown called Cambria City. Rick described Cambria City as a ten-block segment of Johnstown nestled along the Conamaugh River, home to many of the steel mill workers. It was an ethnic neighborhood, home to Poles, Croatians, Czechs, Germans and Irish. Each ethnic group had their own church and bar on each street corner. From what Rick said, each ethnic group got along well, without “any fighting or bickering”. The major feature of Cambria City was the Conamaugh River and its river walls. These concrete embankments, set at a 10 degree angle, were built by Roosevelt’s WPA as a protective measure against the flooding of the Conamaugh. The Conamaugh River, and the environment around Johnstown were exceptionally polluted at the time Rick was growing up. The steel mills and coal mines, not to mention the cities sewage, all drained into the river. In addition to the river's pollution, the hills around Johnstown were also bare of trees due to the steel mills' constant venting of exhaust from their blast furnaces.
The next phase in Rick’s life was elementary school. For this he attended the parochial school of his parish: St. Stephens. St. Stephens was a Slovak catholic parish located in Cambria City. At St. Stephens the class size was huge by today's standards: 62 children in one class, most of whom were children of parishioners. Rick recalls that the nuns that taught at the catholic school had a very flexible attitude about instruction; in his words: “you didn’t have structure. They would teach you religion whenever they wanted, they’d teach you math whenever they wanted”. Around the time that Rick was in 7th grade, the catholic parochial schools of Cambria City decided to consolidate into West End Catholic. This signified a merge of all of the catholic ethnic parishes into one catholic school. Rick said “that was when I really started to grow up when I got in with the other kids from the other schools”.
Around this time Rick graduated 8th grade. This was a significant event in Cambria City since, according to Rick, many of the men that worked in the mills and mines, as well as some of the women, never attended school past 8th grade. This time was also important since a decision had to be made whether or not to continue to attend a catholic high school or to start public school. Rick said that his mother felt that the variety of the public school experience was important, so she encouraged her children to attend public school. Rick also eluded that going to the catholic high school was a bit elitist, and that the people that went there tended to be “snobs”. His new school Garfield Middle High School was in his words "a whole new variety of people ... both good and bad ... middle class, upper class, lower middle class and it was very interesting". At Garfield he was exposed to all sorts of new influences such as drinking and smoking, but what Rick seemed to recall most fondly was his "discovery" of girls. At Garfield the academic expectations were more stringent, classes were on a strict schedule, much in contrast with his days at West End Catholic.
Rick's time at Garfield was short since the greater Johnstown area community was opening a vocational technical school. This new facility was built on 90 acres and offered both technical and more academic classes. Rick got accepted to the electronics program even though his mathematical skills did not quite meet the requirements. Rick described the academic expectations of the VoTech as quite stringent, having 12 periods of classes per day, three of which he spent on his core subject: electronics. Nevertheless, Rick spent his last two years of high school there, receiving in the end an Associate's degree in electrical engineering.
Upon graduation, Rick decided to follow in his brothers' footsteps and enlist in the service. Two of his older brothers had joined the military during the Vietnam years; one in the air force, the other in the navy. Since the draft for Vietnam was still in effect, Rick decided to join the navy. His basic training was in San Diego, California, which he recalled "integrated [him] with a new crop of people once again". On completion, Rick furthered his knowledge of electronics through naval training in computer data processing. Rick was stationed in Bainbridge, Maryland, doing shore duty. At this time he was living off base in a trailer with a friend, spending his free time during the summers at the beach, and going back to Johnstown with his roommate. At his roommate's wedding, he met a young lady whom he eventually married.
About a year after Rick was married, he was 22 years old, unemployed, and his wife was pregnant. It was only shortly before his son was born that Rick found a job at Season All. Although the pregnancy was normal, his son was born with major medical problems and had to undergo surgery just eleven days after birth. During the interview Rick recounted how he "can remember sitting and looking at him [his son] and just crying, you wonder how you can love something so much that you have never seen". Although a bit tenuous at first, he and his wife eventually brought home their son, and in his own words "everything got to be hunky-dory."
The next phase of Rick's life was his being hired by IBM. At the insistence of his brother, Rick applied and was interviewed by IBM in Washington DC, but it was not until many months later that he got the job offer he had hoped for from Big Blue. Once Rick got the offer, he started right away with going off to IBM training at a school in Chicago. Rick recalls that it was not easy to be away from his wife and newborn son for the first time. Twenty years have passed since Rick was hired by IBM, and in those twenty years he has had many jobs with the company across the United States. As it stands now, he is a digital output consultant, working on a project that applies new scanning and printing technologies to reprint out-of-print books. In his own words, "that is pretty much the sum of my life to date."
Examination of Life
Decisions
Many of the decisions Rick has made in his lifetime were products of his childhood and adolescent experiences in Johnstown's culturally diverse environment. Through his life Rick has several times chosen to explore opportunities outside of familiar surroundings by attending public school, joining the navy and applying for a job at IBM.
Although Rick attended his parish's parochial school, following the cultural tradition of Slovak immigrant families in Johnstown, he (at the insistence of his mother) chose to attend public high school. For Rick, attending public high school provided him with exposure to people outside his own ethnic group. In the interview, Rick implied that this was both a cultural as well as an economic choice. His mother, who had likewise grown up in the cultural diversity of Johnstown, had passed on her understanding of the value of diversity to her son.
Likewise it seem that there were family and cultural pressures on Rick to join the service. From his family came the pressure of the fact that two of his brothers were in the military, serving in Vietnam. In addition to that, Rick must have also sensed a patriotic duty that was prevalent in Johnstown during this era. As Rick recalled, this pride in serving one's country was exhibited by a "monument" built in front of his school for all those brothers and sisters serving in the armed services.
This exploration of opportunities outside his familiar cultural surroundings also played a role in Rick's application to IBM. Even though Rick had some experience with computers in the navy, Rick's application to IBM demonstrates his desire to explore new cultural environments. This is best represented by the two places he applied to within IBM: Salt Lake City, Utah, and Phoenix, Arizona.
Conclusion
Overall, there is one theme that occurred repeatedly in Rick's life: a continual exposure to new and broader cultures. Initially this exposure took the form of circumstances of his youth (e.g. the ethnic nature of Johnstown and the consolidation of catholic schools) and later through active decisions (e.g. joining the navy and applying to IBM). Rick's experiences growing up in the ethnically diverse Cambria City, and his careers in the navy and with IBM, have given him an appreciation and understanding of different cultures. Overall, during this examination of the life of Richard Voytko, we have seen how the ethnically diverse environment of Johnstown has enabled Rick to succeed in the diverse cultural climate of today's corporate environment.
Upon doing the life history interview with my informant, I noticed an interesting decision he made in his life: joining the navy. By itself, joining the military is not that uncommon; many of my own friends joined after high school. What makes Rick's decision to enlist interesting was that he did so during the Vietnam War. This choice was really astonishing to me. I chose to look at this decision since I wished to understand why one would choose to join the military during a war, and subject oneself to the dangers associated with service at the time of war.
While conducting the interview, I discovered that the factors affecting how, and why, Rick joined the navy were complex and interwoven. A simple analysis cannot really reach the true depth of how they interacted at the time to lead him to his choice. However, what I hope to accomplish with this analysis is to clarify the main driving influence on Rick's choice as well as proposing how some of the minor influences he conveyed to me during the interview may have worked together.
In hopes to understand Rick's decision on the simplest of levels, these influential factors can be placed into three realms which allow them to be analyzed more readily. The first realm of influence I will examine are the options that Rick felt were available to him upon graduating high school, and how he evaluated these as possibilities for his future. These options were to work in the steel mills of Johnstown, go to college or join the military. Looking at the final option of military service, I will examine two major influences that lead Rick to favor this option. These two influences are his brothers' service in the military as well as the educational opportunities the military offered. Following that I will look at how several minor factors Rick informed me of may have worked in unison to support his final decision to join the navy.
To better understand why my informant joined the navy, we should first look at what he considered were his options at the time, and how he eliminated these options. At the time Rick was graduating high school, he saw his future in terms of three main choices, in his words: "you either go to work [in the steel mill], go into the military or go to college".
The first of these options, working in the steel mill, was out of the question for Rick. He had grown up seeing his father and other men of Johnstown working in the mills and he wanted no part of it. Rick's father had warned him against working in the mill, and that he should "never, ever have to come home in clothes like this, and have to do what I do all day long". With similar sentiment Rick told me that he did not "want to become what my father was and what I saw in my environment". So clearly, working in the steel mill was out of the question.
The next option that Rick considered was going to college, specifically Penn State. Here he would be able to "further [his] education in electronics". Rick did not so much eliminate this possibility but rather delayed it. Rick felt that his attending college "would have been a big burden on my family…[since] I had an older sister who went to college and all I can ever recall is how much it cost for loans and this and that". Rick continues to say that he felt that he did not want to place this financial burden on his family. Although that was the major factor to not attend college, Rick also did not feel that he was intelligent enough to attend. He expressed that he felt that "no one ever had any confidence in me [and] I thought … I [didn’t have] enough intelligence to go to college". For those reasons Rick decided that attending college was not an option until he could pay for it himself.
So, the only option that was left for Rick was to enter into the military. This decision, however, was not made by simply eliminating the other two options. It was a product of many factors that lead him to choose the military as his future path. Of these factors, I will look at the two major factors and the interrelationship of some of the minors ones.
Rick indicated to me several times during the course of the interview that his main reason for joining the military was because of the influence his two older brothers had on him. This influence took several forms, but in his words "the main reason I joined is because of the attention they [his brothers] received from family members". Rick continued to say that "coming from a large family, its hard to receive attention for anything". This desire for attention was Rick's primary reason for joining. In addition, he also desired not to be talked down to by his brothers about their experiences, and joining the military, he felt, would put them on equal footing. Rick did not fear being sent to Vietnam. He felt "that if they [his brothers] could do it I could do it". This strong desire to be like his brothers comes across as the main reason Rick joined the military.
Secondary to the attention Rick wished to receive, he also saw a great practical value of joining the military. Rick saw the military as a way to continue his education without placing a financial burden on his family. Of all the branches of the US military, Rick chose the navy for the combination of educational opportunities it provided. This took the form of the GI bill for college after he had served his enlistment and the knowledge that "they [the navy] had jobs that would be practical, that I could use later on". So Rick saw the navy as a stepping stone of sorts, providing him with skills he could use in a career outside of the navy.
Thus, the two major reasons Rick joined the navy was to receive the attention he desired from his family and to spare them the burden of paying for his college education. However, this is not the whole picture. During the interview Rick directly and indirectly indicated that several other minor factors lead him in his decision to join the navy.
Several of these minor factors played together in Rick's decision to join the military during the Vietnam War. There was almost a tradition of service in Rick's family. Both his father (navy) and uncle (army) had served in the military during WWII and later his two bothers (navy and air force) served during the Vietnam War. This tradition combined with a sense of patriotism Rick felt at the time: "it [serving in the military] was a part … something you could do for your country". This type of thinking was supported by the community of Johnstown, which, according to Rick, was of a pro-military attitude. At the time "there was a pride that they [the people around Rick] felt that I was going, there was more of a pride at that time that I was going into the military I think than if I went to college".
Another way some other minor factors also worked together to affect Rick's decision is how the military fed Rick's desire to get out of Johnstown. This came across in the interview directly, since Rick felt that serving in the navy would provide adventure and experience as well as allowing him to "do something with [his] life". His sentiment is expressed in his statement "I would say for 99% of the people who went into the military all went in for the same reasons that I did … adventure, they came from towns where it was boring … That's the way it was, people from larger cities had their adventures probably fulfilled more". So Rick's choice to serve fed this desire for youthful adventure.
When I take a step back and look at the total picture of how all the factors worked together in Rick's decision to join the navy, I see that they come from all aspects of his life and worked in unison to lead him towards his choice. The social pressures Rick faced played out in his family and the competition with his brothers. This, coupled with expectations from his family and community to both make something of his life and to serve his country, served as social pressures that pushed Rick in the direction of the military. Economics also played into his choice. The navy provided for Rick's career directly by training him and employing him as well as providing for his further economic advancement via education and the GI bill. Finally, serving in the military offered to Rick the means by which to leave Johnstown and gain the adventurous experience he desired.
In my view, these are the very images, values and ideas that the US military is using to this day in its recruiting techniques. If I think about all the commercials and propaganda that I have been exposed to, these values keep reoccurring. To do something with my life is in a nut shell "to be all you can be". Just recently I can recall an army commercial where the happy family is attending their son’s college graduation; the proud father is patting his son’s back, with the announcer reminding us that the GI bill made it all possible. All the branches of the military have used commercials in which they show the "career opportunities" provided by the military, and for three years after I graduated high school I kept getting calls from the same recruiter telling me how the generous US military would pay for my college education if I would just enlist. These ads also tap into the value of the "proud to serve my country" mindset. It is very interesting that the majority of values Rick conveyed to me as his reasoning to go into the military are used by the military to promote its enrollment.
The decision analysis interview was a good technique for understanding Rick's decision to join the military. This technique did generate a few challenges. The first was the difficulty to spontaneously generate unbiased interview questions. On my informant’s part, it was often hard for him to recall the how and why of his decision without the use of retrospective hindsight. However, I think that the interview did generate a lot of good information about how and why Rick made his decision as well as some insight into how current strategies of recruiting take into account the motivational factors that lead people to join the military.
Appendix of
Transcripts
What is your Name?
Richard James Voytko
Where were you born?
Born in Cambria County , That’s Johnstown Pennsylvania.
How long did you live
there?
I lived there for approximately 18 years
Ok, How would you
describe your parents ethnically?
Ethnically both of my parents were Czechoslovakian, both of their parents came from Czechoslovakia, therefore they kept intact all of the Czechoslovakian traditions. Likewise we were a Catholic family, there was catholic traditions such as Christmas dinners, opening gifts on Christmas eve rather than Christmas day..uh.. Easter dinner, in regards to both those dinners they were all ethnic food and we carry those same traditions on today in our families, by that I mean my brothers and sisters and even us.
Ok, How would you
describe yourself ethnically?
Ethnically, I'm a pure Czechoslovakian ..if you will uh because I am a direct descendant from my parents uh who were both Czechoslovakian whose parents both came from Czechoslovakia uh.. I maintain a the a beliefs if you will and the traditions of the Czechoslovakian people on at Easter and Christmas with my own family.
Is your family Chech
or Slovak?
My family is Slovak. Prior to the Chech republic and the republic of Slovakia it used to all be Czechoslovakia, they came from the Slovakia part of Czechoslovakia therefore they speak Slovak and not Chech
Speaking of language,
Growing up what language was spoken in your house between your parents and you
kids versus your parents and their brothers and sisters (your uncles and aunts)
and maybe older friends of your family?
Of course my mother and her brothers and sisters did speak English uh but however did speak Slovak. my mother and father spoke Slovak on occasion uh more my mother however, uh I'll give you an example, my aunts used to come down on Tuesdays, every Tuesday and uh the conversation would be for the most part Czechoslovakian simply because they didn’t want us kids to understand however we did have a small understanding of what was being said and of course uh when they got mad at us they spoke in Slovak as well.
Were their any other
times that you can remember your parents or relatives speaking Slovak, like
were their any events with the church or?
Absolutely, because we lived in a neighborhood uh that was pure European and that included people from Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Ukraine all over Europe… or the Hungarian nation if you will uh neighbors would speak in Slovak on Sundays after church they would speak in Slovak, uh of course my grandparents spoke English but yet they would speak Slovak my mother in fact grew up learning Slovak before she learned English.
How would you
describe the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood you grew up in?
As I said earlier the neighborhood was very European, basically from the Slavic nations, Polish, Czechoslovakian, and as a matter of fact the area I grew up in had a church and a bar on each corner each church as I said I could go back to a German church on one avenue a Slovak church on another Hungarian on another, Ukraine on another, uh every church on every street had a different ethnic church.
Which Church did you
attend growing up?
I attended St Stephens which is a uh Slovak church which was built in the late 1800s finished around the turn of century, it was built by a priest who was from Czechoslovakia, by the name of Father Martin therefore the church itself was a Slovak church the people who attended the school as well were all of Slovak decent if you will many of the masses were uh it for instance on Sundays you would have a uh 11 o'clock mass in Slovak in only for the people who didn’t understand English.
So you would describe
it as a Slovak ethnic church?
Absolutely, to this day it still is.
So the Slovak
community did sort of center around the St Stephens church?
Absolutely, as far as get-togethers, even till this day they have a Slovak picnic uh every years, they have Slovak days every year, so its uh very ethnically oriented.
So what kinds of
things happen at those Slovak days?
UH, Number one you would always have traditional dishes, dishes such as hulupki: which is a cabbage roll, sometimes referred to as pigs in a blanket, we'd have things such as kolbasi or kilbasa, we'd have pirogies which I would say is a Czechoslovakian burrito, there is also cakes things such as aroshki that they would also have at that but it was always ethnically oriented there was never anything that strayed away from that the only thing that I would say that was American was chicken but I understand they ate a lot of chicken in Czechoslovakia.
How about music, what
kind of music did they play?
Music was always uh polkas, polkas in both in Czechoslovakia and in Poland are very big, even to this day on Sunday you can hear polkas on the radio from approximately 9am to 2pm in the afternoon in both Slovak and Polish.
Did you attend a
public or parochial school?
I attended a parochial school that was ok that was also St. Stephans.
Would you describe
the school as ethnic?
Very ethnic, as a matter of fact at Christmas time I was in the boys choir as were many of the other boys for instance we would sing uh songs in Slovak, one of them being Silent Night.
So are there any
other, besides the festivals the Slovak festivals, the Slovak days were there
any other Slovak events such as parades?
Not really, not in the area I grew up in, uh there was nothing of that nature mostly like I said Slovak days, church bazaars, church picnics but nothing outside of that.
What kind of foods do
you remember from your childhood?
Specifically I remember, one would be one I mentioned earlier hulupki, pigs in a blanket. a mixture of rice and hamburger wrapped in cabbage that’s hulupki, another one would be huluski, huluski is basically dumplings with either cabbage or veal, if it was cabbages it was called huluski cupusku
[Interview interrupted to move cars in the driveway]
You were talking
about foods your remember from childhood……
Yes I mentioned hulupki, and another one was huluski I also mentioned that it was nothing more than dumplings with veal or cabbage. If it was with cabbage it was huluski cupusku with veal it was huluski with veal. Pirogies were another one, which is kind of like a dumpling if you will it would be a pieces of dough that is pressed out and potatoes with cheese is put into it or sauerkraut or prunes their boiled and of course you can eat them like that or you can have them with onions with butter or fry them and have them with onions and butter. Another one is poppy seed and nut rolls once again its dough that is rolled out and filled with poppy seed or walnuts or cottages cheese and apricot and that is a nut roll if you will. There is also and its called kalatichi some people call horns they likewise have poppyseed, walnut or apricot in them.
How often did you
have those foods growing up?
Growing up I would say that we would have each one of those things at least once a month the cakes such as the nut rolls were holiday type cakes, they typically, you didn’t typically have those on a regular basis. And chicken soup, chicken soup was a very big part, as a matter of fact we had chicken soup in our household every Sunday with chicken. Fried chicken on the side.
What do you remember
of your grandparents?
I remember.. on my mother’s side my grandmother uh very well and my grandfather. My grandmother was the first to die I was only five years old when she died uh but I do remember her speaking mostly Slovak, but I understand her English was very good since she went to an English speaking school here in the united states to learn to speak English. uh she was short, what I remember most was that she had long hair that was always up in a bun uh uh she always wore a blue dress with white poke-a-dots uh to this day I kinda' of have a thing for blue dresses with white polka-dots. My grandfather on the other hand, uh was a little older than my grandmother not much just a few years uh he was tall, mostly spoke Slovak uh uh we of course called our grandparents zedo for our grand father and bubba was our grandmother. But uh my grand father was a very hard working individual and uh so I did spend time with them, he had a farm and of course I would cut hay and he had animals and we would do different things together but he likewise died uh when I was 12. my fathers parents uh my grandparents on my fathers side never did get to meet, they died prior to me being born.
So thinking back to
your family and grand parents came over… how many generations has your family
lived in the United States?
Well the first generation which of course our, my grandparents, uh coming directly from Europe, uh uh my mother and father and uh myself, uh I guess I would be considered second generation.
What things from your
childhood do you associate with your Slovak ethnicity, food events?
I think that holidays is a big one, uh Christmas time, Easter, not thanksgiving at all.. uh things like first holy communion, confirmation, uh weddings , those type of things were very ethnic, weddings of course were always the majority were polkas it was an opportunity for everyone uh uh in the families to get together so there was uh a lot of uh Chech influence, a lot of people speaking Slovak, uh church on Sundays, they spoke Slovak quite a bit, the different picnics growing up uh and the different bazaars uh your could tell just in the air the people we of Chech decent not by any means your could identify, it was just a feeling they all felt comfortable as well.
Along those lines was
your own wedding ethnically Slovak and if so how?
Uh, yes, uh in a way it was, uh my wife was not Slovak, she is ore of an Heinz 57 variety being of German and English decent and a Irish influence. Uh but our wedding was of course uh we tried to have it as traditional as possible uh along the lines of which I grew up where we would serve the Slovak dishes we would have the polkas and the various traditions such as the bridal dance. Uh never a groom dance that is not a tradition uh that’s only an American tradition but we would have those types of uh things were during the bridal dance the uh groom myself was not allowed to be present but was held uh in the background were I couldn’t see what was going on after my wife or bide was done dancing with everyone uh the people would circle around her and uh I had to literally fight my way through, not fight but force my way through the lines, and it was symbolic of the fact that the you should always uh uh fight for your wife ok, it’s a matter of uh love that you should hold for your wife and so you want to always fight and they make it difficult for you to get to her and its it’s a thing that you should remember throughout your life and I do.
What kind of music
did they play at your wedding?
The music uh, was typical seventies music of course, uh and then there was a lot of polkas.
Like what portion of
the music was polkas versus….?
I would say it was 50/50.
What about the music,
was it a DJ or was it a band?
I had a live band, a live polka band.
Umm like your
brothers and sisters how were their weddings as compared to your own?
Their weddings were almost identical, uh another chance my older brother, we were the first two to the be married he was married several years before myself, we ended up picking out the exact identical same tuxedos, it was never planned that way, it just happened that way, but their weddings were very much the same uh as mine.
What about your
niece’s and nephew’s, your brother’s and sister’s children, how would you
describe their weddings now?
Well my youngest brother , the youngest of the family uh just married about four years ago, his wedding was very different in the fact that uh he lost much of the tradition that have been passed along as a matter of fact it was quite disappointing uh rather than to have polkas they were playing country western music and people were doing line dances, I think they played two polkas all night long, uh it was of course a DJ uh there was no band and uh from my perspective I don’t think it was as much fun and I think it lost, a lot was lost uh uh in my eyes from a traditional standpoint and uh and when it came to my niece’s weddings I was unable to attend a few of them but um just recently I attended uh my eldest brother’s uh uh oldest daughter just recently married her wedding was much more traditional than my brother’s uh and I think that’s because of how uh one keeps the old traditions alive with in the family, so she grew up holding those values where my younger brother uh was more influenced by uh his wife.
Was it just the music
or was it the atmosphere?
It was both, the music was one uh the atmosphere was lacking as well. I think it may have been uh trend thing to one point and uh it may have been a generation or age thing at the same time, so uh that’s how I feel. I have a sister who got married too uh her wedding was likewise not quite so traditional as the rest of ours, once again I think that’s purely influenced by the spouse more than anything else uh when you have people coming from outside uh an ethnic background they don’t hold to the values you do, therefore I think it lost some of its pizzazz.
What about your
nieces’ and nephews’ generation are they, do they seem to be more interested in
their ethnic heritage now as opposed to your generation?
Uh on my brother’s side I would say yes, and one of the reasons being I think is my brother as I says being second generation uh Slovak his wife likewise is pure Slovak too both of uh her parents were Slovak and of course their parents came from Europe as well. so uh you have that influence on both sides therefore that influence is passed on uh by both parents and the children take more of an active part in it and its very common, you can see that in uh his family whereas my two sisters who are married, once again one marred someone who was Serbian one married who was German, they didn’t keep any traditions at all uh in their families where we had and in both my sisters families they don’t hold true to the traditions except for the Christmas, opening gifts on Christmas eve for my one sister and the other is just a Christmas day. so right there, that to me is a big loss in traditions itself.
So how do you try to
preserve your Slovak ethnicity now and do you feel that you passed on the
culture your inherited from your parents on to your children?
Well I personally said that I do hold on to my values as someone who is Slovak. Not put anything down that its American because uh I am an American at heart and nothing will ever change that, uh but I think that there is part of us ok that uh we have to maintain as whole and that’s our background, our ethnicity if you will, uh I grew up with these traditions and I likewise want to pass those traditions onto my children, just to give you an example, uh our Christmas dinners are identical if not even more uh close to uh the traditional Slovak Christmas dinner. Likewise we continue to open our gifts on Christmas eve which is not only a Slovak traditions but a European tradition uh I want my children to learn that there are things such as breaking bread which I passed on to my children as well and some of those such as my son who married someone from Europe uh it likewise helped in the fact that opening gifts on Christmas eve uh was very close, but it is also evident by seeing his relationship with his wife uh that those things that we held close are being quickly lost because of her influence from another country.
You mentioned before
about patriotism, was American patriotism important while you were growing up
in household, school and community?
I think patriotism um uh to myself and to my family was uh when growing up in my fellow students and fellow men if you will uh was paramount, unlike what it is today, things have been taken for granted uh today and people don’t understand what freedom really means, and what you have to do to attain freedom, they haven't lived through the trials and tribulations uh that maybe myself and my family has and of course I didn’t live through them all uh but yet they were always evident in conversations I did live throughout the Vietnam era and understand it better than most people will ever understand it being that I had two brother uh go into Vietnam and friends alike, friends coming home and friend that didn’t come home. the thing that people need to realize is that this country is free for one reason and that is because the people who make it free once we lose our patriotism we will begin to lose our freedom.
So do you think your
Americanism is more important that your Slovak culture or do you think they
balance out?
No I think they are two totally different things, ok uh holding true to a culture that you know because of your ethnic background is is only a tradition ok, where as patriotism is something you have to live everyday. Uh the people who came from Europe and other countries realized that because they were suppressed by the communists, Czechoslovakia, Poland all those were held under uh communist rule where as when they came to United state they were free and many of those same people, in a sense those people uh were a really big part of world war II.
How about growing up,
was there any sort of Slovak patriotism either with your grandparents of with
your parents?
Well there was always a patriotism, uh and I don’t think it was a patriotism to Czechoslovakia but more uh something you didn’t want to forget about since it was part of your past, uh it never in any sense over shadowed being American or being a patriot of this country it was more keeping alive uh something that you cherished and nothing more than that. it made live fun to an extent and you wanted to pass on that fun on to your family.
Would you describe
just briefly the ethnic make up of the neighborhood you live in now as opposed
to the one you grew up in?
The ethnic neighborhood I live in now has no ethnicity if you will, uh in fact uh were just a , the melting pot if you will, quite honestly I don’t think a lot of the people who live around me uh even know their background, maybe because many of those uh were of native decent uh from this area I think that’s a big background uh a big part of this background uh so were more that melting pot here and all the traditions in one family or another has faded away.
What about the church
you attend now, would you describe it as ethnic?
No, the church I attend now has absolutely no ethnic background, none, zero, zip, and likewise its evident in the times they get together for a picnic uh when they get-together after church there is a big loss of uh of uh I'll call it la family, the family uh there is a loss their and its only because people have been shuttled away uh from the things that were that they held true to in the past, they just faded away, that uh that one of those things.