The Feeling of Freedom : Lithuanians here celebrate the happy turn of history

A year and a half ago, a band of Southern California residents advocating freedom for the Baltics met at a downtown Los Angeles hotel. The air crackled with excitement at that Baltic-American Freedom League meeting; Lithuania had declared independence, and apprehension ran high about a Soviet crackdown. That night, the group heard from Curtis Kammen, deputy assistant secretary of state.

What a difference the sudden tide of history can make.

On Monday, Southern California’s estimated 25,000 Lithuanian-Americans and other area residents with connections to the Baltics were celebrating U.S. diplomatic recognition of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Kammen was being dispatched by President Bush to begin talking about establishing embassies in the Baltics.

One Orange County family, activists Anthony and Danute Mazeika and their children, were offering prayers in a cemetery for the children’s great-grandparents, Lithuanian freedom fighters who died before seeing their country liberated.

To have in our midst Americans such as these--the league’s current president, Angela Nelsas, lives in Fullerton--is a refresher course in freedom’s heady promise.

Jaak Treiman, a Canoga Park resident and Estonia’s honorary consul in Los Angeles, says that with all now going on in the Baltics, he relishes especially the opportunity he will have next year to serve as president of a local chamber of commerce. As he put it: “ . . . To communicate with local officials, to have the ability to worry about what zoning ordinances will be passed, and what goes on in the community--and to control our destiny in a real personal sense.”

As Americans, we watch these historic events from afar. From our neighbors, we learn something about our own cherished values.