Finnish Fitchburg

When my grandfather was 8 years old, he was one of thousands of Finnish immigrants to migrate from their homeland to the United States. My last name is his, Lahna, and to this day anyone else I meet with it in the country is actually related to me. In fact, I am the only Suzanne Lahna in the United States, which I think is pretty freaking cool. Safe to say, I didn’t think there were many Finns in the US, let alone New England, as most people I meet as me what the hell it means when I say I’m Finnish. A type of fish? Some new non-meat diet?

I was shocked to find we actually have one of the largest Finnish populations right here in the ‘Burg, which is pretty awesome. The people of Finland migrated to the United States usually during or after the Civil War in 1918. My grandfather came over when he was eight years old, and grew up to fight in World War 2 against the Germans, partly because of the violence they inflicted upon Finland in World War 1. It took many years for the Finnish society and economy to recover, but today they are actually the third most stable country on the planet.

In Fitchburg, the Finnish people tried many times to form a Co-Op that could work and function as an organized unit, in order to build jobs and support eachother in world of new customs and a new language. Though it failed many times, they finally succeeded and from what many of us know and use today: the Workers Credit Union, which in turn became the second largest union in Massachusetts by 1964. Safe to say the Finnish population made quite an impact on the city of Fitchburg.

If you take nothing else away from this, here’s a list of famous Finns: Matt Damon, David Lynch, Jessica Lange, and Mark Hoppus (yes, the guy from Bling-182).

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The State of Affairs; Who am I and What the Hell am I Doing Here.

Fitchburg, Massachusetts is a dangerous city.

Is it now? Is it really?

I’ve lived in this city for almost a year now, and I wonder, well, why? How? Says who?

Yes, there is violence. Yes, people die here, it happens everywhere. It is bound to happen when there are 15,000 of us in a teeny, tiny space.

So I beg the question, how dangerous is it?

I am not a scholar. I am not a “studied reporter”. I am a supposed-senior at Fitchburg State University, living with her cat and the super-boyfriend. I have an unstable roommate situation. I have loans worth more than my mother’s car. I take six classes, and work two jobs to pay the bills. Yeah, I’m your typical ‘college kid’. It does not mean I’m blind, that I am somehow seperated from the world around me.

I’ve been moved around a lot. I was born in Massachusetts, shipped off to a suburb of southern Texas, and then moved back up here to a rural cow town far west of here. With a healthy population of coyotes, black bears, and the occasional mountain lion on my mother’s road, it can be dangerous in its own right. What the hell am I doing in Fitchburg? An unfortunate series of events, to put it mildly. I was denied housing by the university, FASFA really needs a system overhaul, and car insurance is too freaking expensive for this starving Professional Writing Major to afford. Thus I find myself in my “quirky” 2nd floor apartment of a 1920’s house. Love the place, hate my neighbors; I feel like this kind of thing probably happens far too often.

I am not blind, but I feel as though many of my fellow Fitchburgians are. They consume the news on the latest car accident, the latest arrest, and don’t even to get outside and experience it for themselves. Yes, there are dangerous elements to this city, as there are anywhere you live. But there’s a lot of good here too. There are volunteers who better this little place, and a shop owner who keeps a frequently decorate stuffed emu in her store.

That is what this blog will be about, the good, the bad, the gritty; the state of Fitchburg as I  see it. I live here, I work here, and strangely enough, I kinda like it here.

Perhaps after reading this, you’ll kinda like it too.

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