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29 March 2024
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By the end of the book, author Daiva Markelis discovers

Her own way to be both
Lithuanian and American.

Daiva Markelis interviewed by Ellen Cassedy

Daiva Markelis's memoir, White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American Life (University of Chicago Press, 2010), tells the story of her growing up as the daughter of postwar Lithuanian immigrants in the 1960's and '70's near Chicago.

The book alternates between the story of Markelis's youth – especially her struggle for cultural identity – and a series of touching later scenes with her octogenarian mother.  

We see Daiva and her sister begging for real American Halloween costumes and a plastic Christmas tree, while the parents insist on speaking Lithuanian and holding true to their traditions.   The descriptions of Catholic school, Lithuanian scout camp, and the family resort owned by Valdas Adamkus (who later returned to Lithuania and became its president) are tart and funny.  

Markelis reveals a culture as well as a personal history.  She writes affectionately about the streets, the buildings, even the tackiest billboards of her home town - while, at the same time, not shrinking from frank portrayals of racial tension and alcohol abuse.   The portraits of her parents are filled with a lovely tenderness, even as she pokes fun and reveals some of their failings.  

This tale of seeking cultural identity within an immigrant community comes to an uplifting conclusion. By the end of the book, Markelis has discovered her own way to be both Lithuanian and American.

Daiva, the title of your book comes from a riddle that your father posed to you when you were a child:

                Black sheep on a white field;
                He who knows them, leads them.

The answer is "letters on a page."  You are truly a "shepherd of words" – an eloquent, elegant writer.  Your love of both languages shines throughout your memoir.

Thanks for the kind words, Ellen. I'm going to start listing "shepherd" as my occupation!

I've always thought being bilingual is an advantage in so many ways. Growing up in a heavily Lithuanian culture and speaking Lithuanian as my first language have given me a different lens through which to observe American life. This has enriched me as a writer and as a human being.

My parents encouraged reading, both in Lithuanian and in English, and that has probably had the biggest impact in my wanting to be a writer and a teacher of literature.

A particularly touching part of the book, for me, was the brief section called "The Alphabet of Silence." You describe how, near the end of your mother's life, she presented you with a set of silverware that had been given to her family for safekeeping by a Jewish doctor, who then perished in the Holocaust. 

You challenge your mother, asking why the fate of Lithuania's Jews was not mentioned in the community when you were growing up.  On the verge of tears, she asks you to reassure her that she was a good mother. 

Your handling of this scene is so subtle and beautiful that I'm reluctant to ask you to say more.  But can you?  Is such a conversation between mother and daughter a common one in Lithuanian-American homes?

I'm so glad you liked this section, Ellen. I wanted to write more about the many silences I experienced growing up in a Lithuanian household, but I wasn't sure how to go about this. I didn't want to alienate Lithuanian readers, many of whom are still reluctant to discuss what happened during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania. In retrospect I think I was being too subtle.

I was very close to my mother. We had many interesting conversations about a variety of topics – religion, politics, even sex. I think many Lithuanian-American daughters are close to their mothers – sometimes I think our mothers felt a bit lonely and misunderstood, and thus turned to their daughters for companionship. Of course, I thought my mother was special. She was a very outspoken, funny, and intelligent woman.

How has the book been received within the Lithuanian-American community?  How do you respond to people who worry that you've shown too much dirty Lithuanian-American laundry in public?

I've received many letters, emails, and phone calls from Lithuanian-Americans saying how much they loved the book. I really wasn't expecting that! The most positive responses have come from individuals my age who grew up in Chicago or Cicero, thanking me for writing a memoir that chronicles experiences they've gone through with parental expectations, Lithuanian Saturday School, and even drinking at the bars on 69th Street in Marquette Park.

Lithuanian-Americans from an earlier generation--those whose grandparents immigrated to this country at the turn of the last century--also seem to like the book. Friends tell me that some Lithuanians are angry that I emphasize drinking so much. But I wrote what I observed and lived through, and drinking was a part of that. As I grow older I care less about what people think--I tell my students that a growing indifference to the judgments of others is one of the advantages of aging.

Also, the idea of "dirty laundry" is, to some extent, subjective. I'm sure that some Lithuanians feel I've revealed too much. Yet one friend said that I held myself back too much. And non-Lithuanian friends and critics who've read my book have remarked on how strongly the emphasis on education and culture in Lithuanian life comes through.  

Books about the Lithuanian-American experience are few and far between.  Why do you think this is?

There aren't that many of us out there, at least compared to the Poles, who've written much more widely about their experiences as immigrants and children of immigrants. Also, Lithuanian-Americans of my parents' generation encouraged their children to go into practical fields such as engineering and nursing. Perhaps surprisingly – because there are fewer of them – Lithuanian-Canadians have led the literary way. Antanas Sileika's first novel, Buying on Time, is a wonderful and very funny book about growing up Lithuanian-Canadian. And Irene Guilford's The Embrace examines the complex relationships between Lithuanians in the homeland and the diaspora. Both authors have influenced my own writing.

 

 

ELLEN CASSEDY

Ellen Cassedy traces her Jewish family roots to Rokiskis and Siauliai. Her new book, We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust, was published in March and will appear in Lithuanian soon.  She lives in Washington, D.C. Visit her website at www.ellencassedy.com.

 

 

 

 

DAIVA MARKELIS

Born in 1957 in Chicago to Lithuanian immigrant parents and raised in Cicero, Daiva Markelis has found unexpected contentment amidst the cornfields of Central Illinois. She is an associate professor of English at Eastern Illinois University, where she teaches creative writing, composition and rhetoric, women’s memoir, and myth and culture. She is a cofounder of Past/Forward, a memoir-writing group open to the public that meets twice a month and consists of ordinary people, many of them retired, writing moving, insightful, often humorous life stories.

 

Daiva received her doctorate from the University of Illinois at Chicago in Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric. Her dissertation deals with the literacy habits and oral traditions of Lithuanian immigrants; chapters have been published in the journals Written Communication and Lituanus, and in the edited volumes Ethnolinguistic Chicago and Letters across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants. Daiva has presented her research at the Modern Language Association, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, and the National Council of Teachers of English. She has also written several academic papers in her native Lithuanian.

 

Her master’s degree is in English with a specialization in creative writing, also from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Daiva’s short stories have been published in Cream City Review and Other Voices. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in The Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, The Chicago Reader, Crab Orchard Review, Writing on the Edge, Women and Language, Mattoid, Agora, and Fourth River. Mongrel Tongue was a finalist in the 2007 Arts and Letters competition in creative nonfiction. The Lithuanian Dictionary of Depression was a runner-up in the 2009 American Literary Review creative nonfiction contest. The Review published the essay in its Spring 2010 issue. 


Daiva is married to Marty Gabriel, a retired social worker for the Chicago public schools and a top-ranked Scrabble player. Marty and Daiva have appeared in Scrabylon, Scott M. Petersen’s documentary about tournament Scrabble.

 

Daiva cheers for the White Sox. She loves to knit, scrap-book, read, and listen to music, everything from Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms to bebop, bluegrass, Brel, the Band, and the Black Eyed Peas. Her favorite color is red, her spirit animal is a polar bear, her astrological sign is Capricorn. She wants a puppy for Christmas.

 

Category : Culture & events



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