So I was born in Lahti. But I never grew up there. I actually grew up in the US.
So when it comes to Finnishness, I feel I have a weird perspective of being on the in and out group at the same time.
Sometimes I get frustrated when people hear I grew up in the US and try to start explaining salmiakki or sauna to me. Even I grew up elsewhere I still read the same Mauri Kunnas books as they did, or have memories of skinny dipping in a hole in the ice. Somehow though, even we speak the same language, have the same experiences, and even similar values… I felt really alone moving back.
In 2021 I had really had no friends. Perhaps it was the pandemic or something else but I found the experience of moving back to be immensely lonely. Slowly though, and now especially after starting college, I have found a way to integrate back into the place I was born.
Really as much as there is to say about finnishness, I think there is too much of a focus on Finnish. What is and isn’t.
“Karelia is Finnish, its not Russian.” Is something my grandmother might say. Her dad traumatized by having to evacuate his farm with his family after the war.
“Swedes we are not, Russians we will not become, let us be Finns” is another quote some people have heard.
I understand the history but it doesn’t mean we should stop writing. What so many people are focused on I feel is what IS Finnish. When, sometimes I wish we could think more of what CAN be Finnish.
I speak Finnish, I was Born here, I have citizenship.
Still some people rather speak english with me.
Or when they see the way I look they assume I’m something else.
I asked an elderly lady the other day where the “Pesula” was instead of saying “Pesutupa” and she got very concerned and stayed around to watch me do my laundry, asking me all sorts of questions of why I was in the building, where I worked, and when I moved. Eventually she worked up the courage of asking where I was from, and in particular where I was born. I responded,
“Mä oon lahest”
She let out a great sigh of relief and began professing how she was so sure I was a foreigner and exclaimed about how upset she was with all of the recent foreigners in town and especially the ones moving in her building.
I can only imagine the immense pressure on those that are less Finnish.
I wish they had a better Finnishness to connect to. One they could recognize themselves in.
And I wish as a society we could begin the broaden our ideas of Finnishness.
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