The Carpatho-Rusyn Society's Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter held its 9th Annual Genealogy Conference at Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, on Saturday, October 11th, 2025.
The formidable program of speakers included the following:
- Karen Uslin – “Discovering my Rusyn Roots; Embracing Tradition in Modern Life”
- George Pawlush – “How Professional Sports Helped Carpatho-Rusyns Assimilate Into America”
- Christine Hrichak – “Crowd-sourcing Carpatho-Rusyn Places in the U.S.”
My talk was “Why Don’t We Have Rusyn Food Festivals? Carpatho Rusyns in NEPA and Their Identity Crisis.” Provocative? Possibly. I did have to give a bit of a disclaimer that it wasn't my intention to embarrass or shame anyone if I used an example of something that they personally worked on. But that was in a room of about 60 people. For the possible audience of this blog / post, I'm going to censor myself a bit for a few things/events of very recent vintage. Nonetheless, if I've still hit a nerve with an example not well anonymized, you have my advance apology.
That said, here is the bulk of my talk and slides.
Good afternoon, everyone – it’s great to be back in the beautiful Wyoming Valley.
A few words about me. I grew up almost NEPA-adjacent [NEPA=Northeastern Pennsylvania], in the heavily Pennsylvania Dutch country of Lebanon County, living with my transplanted western PA-native parents. I’m thrilled that my Carpatho-Rusyn mom is here with me today. Mom is the daughter of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants, and I was blessed to have her mother, my baba, in my life until I was about 8 years old, and in the years that followed, I became more and more interested in where she and my grandfather came from.
