ASTORIA On a January morning, the sky is mostly November gray, although sometimes there is a splash of water and a glimmer of sun. Wind gusts sometimes get so strong that when walking against the wind, the eyeballs seem to sink a little deeper into their sockets.
Ilmankos Finns have felt at home here. But they didn’t come after me.
Located on the west coast of the United States in the northwest corner of Oregon, 6.5 kilometers from Washington State, Astoria was home to skilled lumberjacks and fishermen – i.e. Finns, Swedes and Norwegians – at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
A poster found on the beach says that Astoria was the largest center of Finnish settlement west of the Mississippi River, which runs from Minnesota to Louisiana, and was known both in Finland and the United States as the “Helsinki of the West”. The area of Uniontown, also known as Finntown, named after the cannery started by the trade union movement, was founded by Finnish immigrants in the 1880s and remained mainly inhabited by Finns until the 1940s.
It was so Finnish that you didn’t even need to know English. Even the Chinese postman learned Finnish.
We met and danced at Suomi Hall
Because Finnish immigrants came and stayed and later invited their relatives to live with them, many present-day Astorians have Finnish roots. According to a Washington Post story published 20 years ago, about a quarter of the city’s 10,000 residents are of Finnish background in some way.
Many of them, like their ancestors, spend time in Uniontown at the Suomi Hall – like now, when a group of people of Astoria’s Finnish background have gathered to share their stories with STT. Finns have met, danced and celebrated in the house for more than a century.
– My parents met at dances in that corner, says the president of the Friends of Suomi Hall association, born and raised in Astoria Karen Van Cleave pointing to one angle in the building’s ballroom.
In the old days, dances were a place for young Finns to get to know each other and meet newcomers. There was no bar, so the men reportedly went to the backyard parking lot to cool off – that is, to get encouragement from a bottle.
Other kinds of community meetings were organized in Suomi Hall, and Finnish was spoken among the group. In addition, the association helped members of the community with, for example, financial support if, for example, the head of the family who went to dangerous work did not return alive.
by Karl Marlantes in the historical novel Deep River, it is described how at the beginning of the 20th century, the whole of Finland seemed to have moved to Astoria. Even now, there is a sign in the parking lot in the backyard stating that parking is only for Finns. Others are threatened with towing.
Deep Purple won the Finnish hit
Not all Finns of Finnish background were interested in the Finland tours. Moved from Kalajoki to the United States with his family as a child Sirpa Duoos remembers how a – very well-known and since deceased – Finnish iskelmä singer came with his band to the family’s home for salmon soup in the early 1970s.
The members of the orchestra had asked the teenage girl if she was coming to Suomi Hall for a gig. He replied that he’s going to the beach for a bike ride and anyway he likes Deep Purple more than Ikkelm.
Now the iskelmä singer in question is one of the favorites of the retired Duoos.
– Do I regret it? Of course I regret, he says with a laugh.
Finnish affairs were commonplace at that time. There was a sauna next door to Suomi Hall, where many went, for example, with their grandmother on a certain day of the week. The opposite building still says Finnish Meat Market, although nowadays a coffee shop operates in the space. Plum tarts are a hit at events, and many people still cook rice porridge.
Decades ago, there were so many Finns around that it was not necessary to know English. Suomi Hall’s team starts listing names in Finnish and their jobs: in the tax office and in the Safeway grocery store, you could ask for help from an employee who knew Finnish, you could see a doctor and a dentist in Finnish, and you could get fuel and medicine from a Finnish-speaking customer service person. Dea Helligson you could buy Finnish delicacies in Finnish from the parents’ bakery.
Love letters from the old country
The story goes that even the Chinese man who delivered the mail in Uniontown learned the Finnish language. A man once brought a letter from Finland to Duoosi’s mother, exclaiming in clear Finnish that it was a “love letter from the old country”. After that, mother baked bread and buns so that there was enough even for the postman.
Van Cleave, on the other hand, says that his father spoke to the postman outside in Finnish.
– Later, the neighbor’s lady pointed out to dad that I didn’t know you knew Chinese!
The duo’s parents ended up studying English in evening courses, when they didn’t learn it in everyday life. Before that, help was asked from children who learned English at school and from friends.
– I was a teenager when my mother asked me to translate mortgage papers. I said listen mom, my skills as a translator are not enough for this.
Some Finns learn English quickly, and Finnish was not even spoken to the children. Both Van Cleave’s and Helligso’s American-born parents learned the language from their own parents, but the second generation was no longer taught the language or encouraged to study it.
Helligson regrets that he never learned Finnish.
– Some of my friends still speak Finnish to their children, and I envy them.
Leila Koskela Collier’s parents once made a different decision.
– They didn’t speak English to us children at all, because they didn’t want us to learn broken English. We learn English from neighbors, friends and from TV.
Finnishness interests me again
A Washington Post article from twenty years ago states that the traditions of the Finnish community are disappearing. According to the story, new generations are no longer interested in the background of their ancestors, and the Finnish language skills are constantly decreasing.
Those gathered at Suomi Hall say that every other meeting of the association started to be held in English in the 1940s, when until then the discussions had been held in Finnish. Today, English is used in all gatherings.
In the best years, there were thirty places like Suomi Hall on the west coast, and now there are only five of them. Many Nordic Lutheran churches have united, and services are no longer held in Finnish as often as before.
However, there is more hope than 20 years ago. More than twenty new members joined the association during the last year, and there are a couple of hundred of them in total. Last summer’s children’s summer school was so successful that those involved in the arrangements are moved to tears when they remember how the parents couldn’t bear to leave the Finnish lessons at all.
– We may have missed a couple of generations, but now we have started to deliberately reach out to young people, says Van Cleave.
Especially popular is the midsummer festival shared by the Nordic countries, where people come from the entire west coast. In addition, Independence Day and St. Urho’s Day are celebrated together. At member meetings, the future is planned and new members are welcomed with their ideas.
Koskela Collier thinks that one factor in the growth of the community is the internet and its changes. If before the connection to Finland via the internet seemed sufficient, now we are looking for genuine encounters via the internet.
– Before the internet was perhaps a distraction, but now it is a tool, he describes.
Digital treasures for researchers
Suomi Hall is also starting a new rise. The association has acquired the status of a charitable organization, which allows it to apply for grants for its activities. It has gone along Eric Williams, who does not have a Finnish background. He dreams of restoring the building to its old look.
In addition, Williams has taken it upon himself to search for and digitize history, such as issues of the Finnish-American socialist magazines Tover and Toverittare. In the future, the archives can be a joy and a benefit to both historians and genealogists, when names, photos and death notices that were already thought to be lost are recovered.
Williams says that he has been interested in history for a long time. And Astoria, of course, does not belong only to Finns: it is also about local history, which Finns have significantly colored. In addition to Suomi Hall, a monument to the Nordic countries will be erected in Astoria in 2021, and Erik Lindgren’s cottage with saunas and outdoor showers is located a good 15 kilometers from the city center, telling the story of the living conditions of immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century.
Stalin peeked out from behind the door
Living together wasn’t just dancing and love letters. The dividing lines of the early 20th century Civil War stretched all the way to Astoria. Some openly supported communism or socialism, some opposed with fury. Historian By Paul Hummast according to Finnish immigrants were more radical in their views than other Nordics.
Now, some of those gathered at Suomi Hall say that reading Marlantes’ Deep River, for example, has been a difficult experience, because the story of the Finnish siblings who moved to the United States brings back memories of their own family’s difficult times.
Duoos has heard stories about, for example, the deportation of a deceased relative from Canada to Finland, when he had almost lost his mind as a result of torture. The relative did not share his experiences himself, but they reached the ears of Duoos and his siblings in other ways.
The man had fought for Finland’s independence, so in the red camp he was seen as white.
– He always told us to never use the word crazy. Never call someone crazy because you don’t know what crazy means.
Faith Swanson says his grandparents told about visiting friends in Uniontown. They had climbed the stairs and entered the door. When the front door was closed, what was behind it was revealed Joseph Stalin picture.
– That was the end of the visit.
Digging for the old doesn’t please everyone. Williams, who collects and digitizes information from the Finnish community, knows that historians have even been threatened so that the communist background of relatives does not become public.
Changes in both Astoria and attitudes
Finland is not only history in Astoria. On Commercial Street, which runs through the center of the city, there is a shop called Finn Ware, which clearly reads “Avoinna” in Finnish on the door. The shelves are stocked with Finnish design, salmiakki and Finnish chocolate.
Other Nordic stores have disappeared, and now Finn Ware, despite its name, also offers products from Finland’s neighboring countries. The store was founded in 1987, and the current owner by Sarah Matthews noticed it since 2010.
Matthews says that Finnishness is suddenly popular. For example, Finland’s ranking as number one in happiness measurements has aroused a new kind of interest that he didn’t have in Astoria when he was young.
– When my mother came to the United States in the 1960s, being Finnish was not necessarily a good thing. Finns were somewhat discriminated against, and my mother noticed it.
When Matthews was young, he only learned some Finnish. In retrospect, at that time it was about wanting to be Americans in the United States, not stand out from the crowd.
– Now people value knowledge of languages in a different way than they did then. It saddens my own children that I haven’t been able to teach them Finnish.
The city has changed considerably during Matthews’ lifetime. Tourism has increased a lot, and Matthews says that many people visiting the shop mention, for example, that they have read stories of Finnish immigrants. Before, the windy city was full of physical jobs, but with the arrival of tourists, there are restaurants and culture on offer.
– When I was growing up, Astoria was even a pretty dreary working-class town. The change has already been huge compared to ten years ago.
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