Listen: Ukrainians in NJ worried for their families back home

There are many people with Ukrainian ancestry here in New Jersey and the United States. Many are third-generation from immigration waves of the early 20th century. Yet also there are many in New Jersey who were born there, or the offspring of parents born there.

The Ukrainian American population in New Jersey is nearly 74,000.

We have the fourth-largest number of Ukrainians in our state behind New York, Pennsylvania, and California. There are various pockets of more recent Ukrainian immigrants mostly throughout Central and North Jersey.

The most recent wave of immigrants came after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. With the region becoming unstable when the USSR collapsed many Russians also emigrated around the same time.

In total, the people with Ukrainian ancestry reached over 1 million a few years ago. The images we woke up to on Thursday morning were disturbing enough to be the hot topic of conversation for everyone here in New Jersey and around the world.

We decided to ask what recent Ukrainian immigrants are feeling and hearing from their loved ones back home. We also asked recent Russian immigrants to chime in since most of them fled the poverty, oppression, and lack of opportunity that the Ukrainians had.

There is a large Russian American population in New Jersey as well. We heard from a few Ukrainians frightened for their family and friends still in Ukraine.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy only.

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