Fundraiser for Ukraine

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Since the 1800s, waves of Ukrainians immigrated to the United States. Although their ethnonational identity was often misunderstood, Ukrainians established thriving communities and nurtured a love for their culture and heritage. Today, over one million Americans of Ukrainian descent call the United States home.

Join us below as we honor their stories and their heritage. Proceeds from these books will be donated toward CARE's Ukrainian Relief Fund.


From the introduction to Ukrainians in Metropolitian Detroit by Nancy Karen Wichar:

"I was not born in Ukraine. My parents were not born in Ukraine. Still, this enormous feeling of ethnic pride consumes me. How did this happen?

My grandparents who emigrated from Ukraine to Detroit, certainly influenced me in many ways, especially my grandmother, Katherine Iwashkewych Wichar. I can still hear the sound of her voice as she put into words the chronicles of her childhood and then her journey to America, never to be reunited with her family or homeland. My parents, Stephen and Nadia Wichar, active members of the Ukrainian community in metropolitan Detroit, modeled a lifetime of commitment to Ukrainian culture and causes. This has become my legacy. I am grateful. When my grandfather Michael Wichar passed in 1967, my father, Stephen M. Wichar Sr., expressed his thoughts about his legacy in the passage below."

Silent Echoes of Heritage

As I begin this message, I become deeply moved by the death of my father. I strive to recall nostalgically some of the events in his life that had deep-rooted meaning other than that of a good husband and father. What were his thoughts in Rohatyn, Ukraine… in the village of Dybriniv where he made a decision to emigrate? I wonder what misgivings he had, knowing that he possessed only the barest of essentials in formal academic training, to embark on this adventure to a new land. Although the struggle for economic existence was difficult in a society that was indifferent and adversely hostile to “foreigners,” he was able to transmit his ideas to a foundation of cultural, social, and political life in Ukrainian community living. It was John F. Kennedy who said that American history can, in a general sense, be interpreted as a factual episode of the immigrant’s part in his own personal development of America itself. My father was such a man...

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Katherine Wichar and her husband Michael pose for a family portrait with their three children, from left to right, Eugene, Stella, and Stephen, in 1924. From Ukrainians of Metropolitian Detroit

...And with the “old country ways” that my dad taught me, I have been acutely aware of the vastness of the world and its many treasures… and although his approach and means of intellectual training was frugal, he was able to cohesively inject into my consciousness that Ukrainians are a nationality, a group that is specific in culture.

The passing of my father is perhaps just an incidental biological expectation… but to him, as to many other old immigrants who passed before him, my generation owes a lasting debt… a tribute to those who had the courage to build pillars of Ukrainianism in a foreign land. I am humble in my tribute to a father I knew so well.

Stephen M. Wichar Sr.

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Ukrainians of Metropolitan Detroit-$21.99


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Ukrainians of Western Pennsylvania- $21.99

Ukrainians began to immigrate to western Pennsylvania in the late 1800s. Attracted by the region's growing importance as an industrial center, they settled in cities and towns close to their work. Their dispersion among the hills and valleys of western Pennsylvania prevented the development of a highly centralized community, but it also preserved many of the unique aspects of a diverse people. Ukrainians of Western Pennsylvania chronicles where these hardworking people settled, the ways they organized community and personal life, the venues through which they presented their heritage, their contributions to the general community, and how their community has grown with the times.

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Ukrainians of Chicagoland-$21.99

Ukrainians arrived in Chicagoland in four distinct waves: 1900-1914, 1923-1939, 1948-1956, and 1990-2006. At the beginning of the 20th century, immigrants from Ukraine came to Chicago seeking work, and in 1905, a Ukrainian American religio-cultural community, now officially named Ukrainian Village, was formally established. Barely conscious of their ethnonational identity, Ukraine's early immigrants called themselves Rusyns (Ruthenians). Thanks to the socio-educational efforts of Eastern-rite Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox priests, some Rusyns began calling themselves Ukrainians, developing a distinct national identity in concert with their brethren in Ukraine.


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Ukrainians of Greater Philadelphia-$21.99

Ukrainians, originally known as Ruthenians, began arriving in the Philadelphia area at the end of the 1800s. Like all immigrants, they were not spared considerable hardships in their pursuit of the American dream. Theirs was a common purpose: to preserve in this new world their cherished customs and traditions. Thus their societies abounded with schools, choirs, bands, dance groups, reading rooms, and church and fraternal organizations. With time, more Ukrainians appeared, with the largest group arriving after World War II to escape the horrors of war-torn Europe and start anew. Ukrainians of Greater Philadelphia documents how each new generation of immigrants added to the kaleidoscope that became the Ukrainian community in and around the City of Brotherly Love.

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Ukrainians of the Delaware Valley-$21.99

At the dawn of the 20th century, the industrializing world provided Ukrainians an opportunity to immigrate to America to lead free and honorable lives. Ukrainians of the Delaware Valley illustrates the Ukrainians' ongoing saga, commencing with the late 19th century when they disembarked in the Delaware Valley and continuing to the present, as they gradually integrated into their American communities. The Ukrainians' common purpose was to preserve their unique eastern culture, cherished daily customs, and elaborate traditions embalmed in the mysteries of their eastern religion in new surroundings.


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