Political Advocacy in the Ukrainian- American Diaspora
Abstract
The Ukrainian- American Diaspora has been populated by four major waves of immigrants, the last two of which occurred after World War Two and the fall of the Soviet Union. Despite the 50 years and political events that drove the groups from Ukraine, they were concurrently responsible for rejuvenating the existing diaspora- particularly in their fight for democratization and the lifting of political repression onset by the governments of the USSR and Russia, respectively. Although the political goal for their country was the same, the two waves experienced different levels of success in their efforts, with the second wave being the more involved of the two, because of the increased access to the internet and social media. Diaspora theory has been separated into two schools; the first asserting that diasporas serve only as ethnic and cultural webs, loosely connecting groups with their shared linguistic or traditional habits and those that argue that diasporas are coordinated units capable of political activism and advocacy in the name of their real or imagined homeland. This research aims to strengthen the argument that the Ukrainian-American diaspora is a cohesive political unit that has been strengthened by the information age, using information about political advocacy tactics from archival research and information about the 2013 Euromaidan to solidify the theory.
Political Advocacy in the Ukrainian- American Diaspora
The Ukrainian- American Diaspora has been populated by four major waves of immigrants, the last two of which occurred after World War Two and the fall of the Soviet Union. Despite the 50 years and political events that drove the groups from Ukraine, they were concurrently responsible for rejuvenating the existing diaspora- particularly in their fight for democratization and the lifting of political repression onset by the governments of the USSR and Russia, respectively. Although the political goal for their country was the same, the two waves experienced different levels of success in their efforts, with the second wave being the more involved of the two, because of the increased access to the internet and social media. Diaspora theory has been separated into two schools; the first asserting that diasporas serve only as ethnic and cultural webs, loosely connecting groups with their shared linguistic or traditional habits and those that argue that diasporas are coordinated units capable of political activism and advocacy in the name of their real or imagined homeland. This research aims to strengthen the argument that the Ukrainian-American diaspora is a cohesive political unit that has been strengthened by the information age, using information about political advocacy tactics from archival research and information about the 2013 Euromaidan to solidify the theory.