A couple months ago, I spent time with my parents’ friends in New York. The couple, whom I’ll call Sergei and Natalia, came to the United States in 1989 from Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union, and settled in that shimmering metropolis on the shores of the Atlantic. They learned the language and got jobs.
But during a recent dinner party, the talk quickly turned to their and their friends’ many criticisms of their adopted country — how uncultured and rude its people are, how life in the U.S. is about one thing: money.
“America is a great country, but people here are pretty dumb,” said one guest. “They don’t know art. They don’t attend theater. They are happy to just barbeque in their backyard and call it entertainment.”
Another chimed in about how lazy black people are and that it was unfair that his tax dollars were going to pay for generations of families “sitting on welfare.” Sergei, meanwhile, criticized American journalists, of which I am one, as dimwitted and “completely ignorant of Russian history.”
“Americans just don’t understand the Russian soul,” Sergei exclaimed, shaking his finger close to my face as if I were somehow responsible. Despite living in the country for almost 20 years, Sergei does not read the English-language press because he thinks journalists all have a hidden agenda. When I reminded him about the censorship in the Soviet Union and its reemergence under Vladimir Putin, he casually brushed the point aside.
Let me back up. I am an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who came to the U.S. with my family in 1989. We settled in the East Bay and proceeded to become American as quickly as possible. It wasn’t hard to do. My sister and I were the only Russian kids in our school.
Despite years spent trying to lose my accent and downplay my Russianness, today I am nothing but proud of my heritage. I still speak Russian with my parents and growing community of Russian friends.
But perhaps because I come from a family that has always embraced assimilation, comments like the ones at the dinner party still make me shudder. They also remind me how self-segregationist, elitist and closed-minded many in the Russian community are and how separate many of its members view themselves from “other Americans.”
This insulation, of course, exists in all immigrant communities and has its merits. It can be a way to preserve language, traditions and, above all, identity in a country that has its own overpowering culture. But Russian immigrants need to be careful to not turn ethnic pride into an “us vs. them” mentality. They must find a way to celebrate their heritage without dismissing those who are different. This is a mighty challenge, considering that Russians come from a society that inculcated its citizens with a deep suspicion of anyone or anything that was different.
Let me be clear. There is nothing wrong with criticizing the government or “the system.” But the problem is many Russian immigrants reap the benefits of life in America — better-paying jobs, good schools, freedom of religion and speech, to name just a few — while focusing on the negative aspects of their adopted country and seldom celebrating the good.
Of which, in my opinion, there are many. For all of its problems, there are few other countries where an immigrant with drive and determination can become as successful as in America. For all of its limitations, the U.S. is a place that gives people a chance to shed the shackles of class, ethnicity and family connections and become whoever they want to be. And more than anything, America’s great strength lies in the freedoms that it bestows upon its citizens: the freedom to stand outside the White House and protest the president, the freedom to write a letter to an editor.
Then there’s the whole racism bit. Even though many Russian immigrants have themselves been victims of discrimination, they have ingrained views of racial or ethnic superiority. And despite the fact that they live among Asian, Hispanic and black neighbors, these sentiments have not entirely been erased. Rather than getting to know the diverse people in their communities and finding out what they may have in common, many Russians fear these people and paint them with broad negative stereotypes.
It might sound idealistic, but everyone would be better off if instead of complaining that America is not like back home, Russian immigrants would tackle the problems they see. They should view it as their responsibility to contribute something to the fabric of the country, without feeling that doing so compromises the pride they feel in their heritage.
Russians can take their food, their music, their literature and everything else that is good about where they came from, and combine it with the opportunities America has given them. That, indeed, would be something to celebrate.
Karina Ioffee is a freelance journalist who grew up in San Ramon and now lives in San Francisco. To see more of her work, go to www.karinaioffee.com.