Language Use among Immigrants and Refugees from Ukraine in North America

• In Event: Language Dynamics in Transition: Case Studies from Ukraine, North America, and Estonia

Abstract

Russia’s full-blown invasion in February 2022 upended the long-term impact of Russification
yet left some room for ambiguous and overlapping Ukrainian and Russian identities in the
Ukrainian diaspora in the US. While the political and social media keep reproducing strict
identity-based categories towards migrants from Ukraine and often give legitimacy to a binary
discourse about the use of Ukrainian, Russian, and English, in reality, personal narratives hold
contested attitudes and multiple opinions on the language practices outside Ukraine.

Author

• Svitlana V. Malykhina, Defense Language Institute