Emigrant history being recorded in Seinäjoki

Museum to be meeting place of emigrants and genealogists

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By Kirsi Alanen
     
      Esa Hakala drives his American car into the yard of the regional centre of the Institute of Migration in Seinäjoki. He has arrived from Florida to the region of his birth to promote his long-standing dream of setting up an emigrants' museum.
      "There is a migration museum in almost every European country except for Finland. South Ostrobothnia is an appropriate location, because half of the Finns who emigrated to America between 1867 and 1930 came from the old Vaasa Province."
      As families were large and farms were small, moving to America to get work was seen by many as the only alternative to starvation.
      "But another reason was a kind of insanity and a yearning for adventure. Such character traits have always existed among the Ostrobothnians - a desire to go and show people what one is capable of", says Aaro Harjopää, a member of the association set up to support the Emigration Museum project.
     
The same Ostrobothnian desire to prove one's worth will come in handy if the planned Emigration Museum is to be set up in connection with the Kalajärvi travel centre. One building is not enough. Plans are for an entire theme park on the eight hectares of land.
      "The museum will comprise various routes, called ‘streets of the world'. Along the routes, Finnish emigration to different parts of the world will be depicted. The visitor both observes, and participates in the action through experience, action, and perception", says Tuula Koskimies-Hautaniemi, regional director of the Institute of Migration.
      The first on the spot, on the "American street", was an Ostrobothnian log house donated by Hakala.
      Esa Hakala's grandfather Matti had built it, using the money he earned in America.
      "I have also brought other things, such as the carpenters' tools I used in America, letters, and old notes. My wife works at an American nursing home, and I am also salvaging material from there. Otherwise the papers would be thrown away when the residents die", Hakala explains.
     
One of the aims of the project is to make the museum a meeting place of immigrants, their descendants, and genealogists.
      "I myself went to America to work 36 years ago. I believe that after a few generations my descendants in America will become interested in their own roots. Then this place will be useful", Hakala says.
      The logs of the house donated by Hakala are still piled up under a canvas, and the foundations stones are lying on their sides.
      The construction will begin when the city grants the necessary permits and land.
      "The project was slowed down by the municipal merger of Seinäjoki and Peräseinäjoki at the beginning of the year. Last year everything would have been easier, but the museum is being built like the American dream - one piece at a time", Harjunpää says.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 15.8.2005

More on this subject:
 BACKGROUND: Changing patterns of Finnish emigration

Links:
  Institute of Migration

KIRSI ALANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
kirsi.alanen@sanoma.fi