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| Yours truly yesterday |
Yesterday the Berkeley Finnish Heritage Society held it's Annual Finnish Independence Day Celebration (Finnish Independence Days is actually tomorrow, December 6). Below you will find my keynote speech from that event. I'm happy to say it was well-received.
Last Sunday we had a run-though here at the hall. As I was walking here I noted that I’d be arriving right on time or perhaps early, as Finns do. A joke occurred to me, four Finns agree to meet someplace at noon. The fourth of them arrives at exactly twelve o’clock. The other three ask him: why are you so late?
As it turned out when I got to the hall on Sunday I noted that it was exactly 1:00 and I had been the last to arrive. Life imitates art and jokes.
And now for my prepared remarks: When Berkeley was a Finntown, a Short and Personal History.
Too much is liika, (liika is Finnish for too much) my maternal grandfather Emile Kurki often said in the unique mixture of English and Finnish that he and other transplanted Finns regularly employed.
Emile emigrated from Finland at the turn of the century eventually meeting and marrying Jenni Pulkkinen, another Finnish emigre. First they settled in San Francisco then in the early 1920s they moved to Berkeley which was developing a reputation as a Finntown not so much for their large number of Finns who lived here but for their visibility.
By 1920 648 of the 7,000 Finns in living in California resided in Berkeley, with many more in neighboring communities such as Albany and El Cerrito.
The first church offering Finnish language services in Berkeley had been built in 1901 on Channing and 10th streets and another was erected in 1912 at Alston and Bryon. There were Finnish services every Sunday in Berkeley at least through the 1960s and to this day there’s still one on the first Sunday of every month.
The Finnish Brotherhood was established in 1911. Four years later it merged with the sisterhood thus forming the Finnish Brotherhood and Sisterhood Lodge 21. As a mutual benefit society, the Lodge provided sickness and burial benefits for its members, while also honoring and celebrating Finnish social and cultural life. In short it was a haven for Finnish emigres. There were stage plays, concerts, dances, an orchestra, choruses, and films and — significantly — celebrations of everything from Finnish Independence to Vapppu to Juhannus. Visiting Finns of any notoriety were feted here. This Finn Hall was built in 1932 with Emile Kurki among those who volunteered labor. With it Berkeley became even more of a hub for Finns from all over the Bay Area. The Bay Area was one of several spots in the United States that Finns emigrated to along with New York, parts of Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Seattle. Finns were among the immigrant groups who most prospered in the U.S. proving to be hard workers who, while maintaining their cultural identities, assimilated easily and happily. While some Finns faced relatively mild cases of discrimination, the Bay Area was already a place that was accepting of “others.”
In Berkeley in particular, Finns were active in local politics, usually supporting left-leaning candidates and the Hall hosted many political meetings. Of course there was a rival red Finn hall on tenth street which still stands today. It was not spoken of in my family and I imagine that for many other area Finns the red hall was a taboo subject, particularly during the height of the Cold War.
In 1938 Finns became an integral part of the Consumers Cooperative Grocery store, or Co-ops. Which had several stores in the area, eventually three in Berkeley. We were members and I remember it as something of the scandal that my Aunt Millie shopped at Safeway instead, all other Finns — it seemed — bought their groceries at one of the Co-ops.
As one researcher put it, the period between the early 1930s and late 1950s was the golden age of Berkeley’s Finntown, although it seems to me it remained strong through the 1960s only beginning to fade in the seventies as Finns stopped emigrating to the area and those who had been here in the early days started to die out or join the white flight to the suburbs.
One long time member was my father, Aimo Hourula, who was born in Nivala in 1916, after fighting in the Winter War he took to the seas in hopes of seeing the world. That he did, but he also saw German planes strafe two of the ships he was on and a Japanese sub that sunk his Liberty ship in the Arabian Sea. He eventually settled in New York where he met my mother, Kerttu Kurki, a UC Berkeley graduate who was getting her Master’s at Columbia.
They moved back to Bay Area in 1946 and like virtually all Finns in the area became active members of the Finnish Brotherhood. My brother Robert, or Roope, was born in 1947 and I came along seven years later. I remember coming here frequently as a child for a variety of events, my favorite being the annual visit by Joulu Pukki (Santa Claus) in early December for a pre-Christmas gift. My parents often attended the New Year’s Eve party at the hall and we made many a ski trip to the Finnish lodge.
My grandparents lived on Sacramento street between Cedar and Rose as they had since moving to Berkeley. Around the corner was an older gent called Maki Kalle, not far away was another Kalle known as iso Kalle. (Iso is Finnish for tall.) There were so many Kalles they needed nicknames. There were Finns all over Berkeley and they all knew each other. Those weekends in which there were no events at the hall were often taken up by ski trips, barbecues, picnics, fishing expeditions and parties.
Meanwhile my father’s move to the US inspired his younger brother Unto to follow him along with his cousins Laura and Reijo. Other Finns like my Aunt Elsa’s sister Sylvie followed. My dad often credited himself — quite accurately as a matter of fact — with causing a mini-migration from Finland to the Bay Area.
Every month we’d get the Brotherhood newsletter which was filled with member’s birthdays, announcements of coming nuptials, memorial services, who was sick and various activities and functions involving local Finns, not to mention Brotherhood-sponsored events.
It was a fine thing to grow up Finnish-American in Berkeley during the fifties and sixties. As a child I enjoyed the benefits of living a middle class life in the US at a time when unions were strong and a carpenter like my father could easily support a family of four, own a home, two cars and have enough left over to invest. But I had the added benefit of being part of the Finnish-American community knowing and spending time with many fellow second generation Finns and others like my Dad and grandparents who hailed from the old country. I grew up hearing Finnish, English and the merging of the two Finglish which gave the world such word as traffiky, for traffic and rosseri for groceries.
Those Berkeleyites who weren’t fortunate enough to be Finns themselves, knew a Finn. We were everywhere though especially in the construction business, like my grandfather, dad and uncle. If you went by a construction site anytime through the sixties chances were there was a Finn working there if not a whole crew of them. Finns were also ubiquitous at the Berkeley wharf, often taking off for or returning from a fishing trip.
Your presence here today shows that the legacy of Berkeley’s Finntown lives on. We owe a great debt to those early Finnish pioneers. It is up to us to honor them for as much as we are celebrating Finnish Independence, the mere fact of our gathering here today is a testimony to the indomitable spirit of those early immigrants who made Berkeley a Finntown. They gave each other support and succor, maintained their culture and left a legacy — including this very hall — we can all be proud of.
As my father would have said, again mixing languages. Niin se on, thats the way it is.
Kiitos kaikille ja hyvä Suomi! (Thank you to everyone and good Finland!)
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