My mother was a first generation American who was born in the United States in 1941. Both her parents were Ukrainian immigrants who emigrated to the USA (separately and meeting later) when they were each 18 years old. As a child, my mother started her life in an inner city Chicago household that primarily spoke Ukrainian; she originally was a non-English speaker. My mother did not fully learn the English language until she attended public school. She later also learned Latin while attending Catholic high school.

My mother grew up in an ethnic neighborhood in the 1940’s and 1950’s. In 1940’s Chicago, if a person spoke a foreign language or had pierced ears they were labeled a D.P. which meant displaced person. I suspect the term or something similar was and still is used in other cities as well. This was not a term of endearment but rather one used for bullying and harassment which had a profound impact on my mother. She told me that once she was in school she learned English as quickly as she could and stopped speaking Ukrainian altogether so she would fit in and stop being harassed. The impact of her childhood experience remained with my mother thru adulthood; she did not pierce her ears until she was 45 years old. She later told me she regretted giving up her native language. Another factor in her childhood was that my Grandfather died unexpectedly from lung cancer when my mother was four years old. Had he lived, I believe my sisters and I would have been raised bi-lingual.

As I was growing up, my mother always emphasized that we should choose our words carefully because all words have meaning. She also advised caution when putting anything into writing and/or signing one’s name. A lesson I would learn the hard way when passing notes in 8th grade, but that’s a story for another time. My grandmother was illiterate; left alone on the streets to raise herself at age four, she never had the opportunity to go to school while growing up in Eastern Europe. To say the least, my matrilineal line took education very seriously. When Paul Simon released the song Kodachrome, my mother went ballistic because the lyrics mocked education. Growing up I was regularly encouraged if not indoctrinated to get a higher education. There was no doubt that one way or another I would be going to college. When I completed my formal education, I dedicated my Master’s Thesis to my grandmother.

In the last few years I’ve become increasingly aware of how people communicate. How loosely and thoughtlessly they use their words. Not only in speech but in other forms of communication, like music, as well. The incredible use and misuse of words all dismissed in the name of semantics or some generational ideology. This power and misuse of words has unfortunately intensified with the popularity of social media and the labeling of “fake news.” As my mother would say, “words have meaning, choose your words carefully and with intent.” Somewhere along the line it seems society has lost sight of this. After our recent experience with political divisiveness and the purposeful intent to incite emotions that divide our country. It is my hope that people will pause, even ever so slightly, and think carefully before choosing and using the words they put out into the universe.

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