Identity

When I meet people, and they ask me “What are you?” I tend to throw out “Ukrainian.”
One time, I was at the Ukrainian Sports Club on Second Avenue, a few blocks away from St. Marks place and St. George’s Church, the former epicenter of Ukrainian immigration to Manhattan. I was introduced to a friend of a friend from Chernivtsi, Ukraine. I extended an arm for a handshake, but he told me his hand was dirty.  Ignoring the gesture, I continued talking to him in English, and minimally in Russian, which seemed taboo.  Once I left, my friend Bogdan explained that the Chernivtskian implied that I was dirty – Americanized, Russian speaking, and from “Odessa.” Supposedly, Odessa is an Oblast tainted in guilt due to its Soviet conformity.  If Ukrainian identity is not solvent, then I am not Ukrainian. To say the least, I’m Slavic, as my name suggests. Like many others, who immigrated to America, I have “diluted” my identity, yet it is the newly acquired one that is enriching, endowing me with a more fluent and tolerant scope.