Becoming the Hyphen: The Evolution of English-Language Ukrainian- Canadian Literature

This article explores the evolution of Ukrainian-Canadian literature written in English over the last fifty years. It begins by outlining how early Ukrainian-Canadian English-language literature posits a sense of ethnicity that is multiple as part of a marginalized Canadian underclass. I then argue that post-1980 there is a shift in the representation of ethnicity to depend upon identifiable Ukrainian elements. I advance this argument, first, through an analysis of pre-1980 literature by Vera Lysenko, Maara Haas, George Ryga, and Andrew Suknaski in contrast to post-1980 works by Haas, Ryga, and Suknaski. I include an analysis of other post-1980 Ukrainian-Canadian writers to show a shift away from representing ethnicity as undifferentiated and class-based to codifying Ukrainianness as a specific kind of ethnicity focusing on the nation. I conclude by attributing this shift in focus to the growing rhetoric of Canadian multiculturalism. While my analysis focuses on Ukrainian-Canadian literature, the dynamics are those common to other ethnic literatures in Canada.