Russian Immigrant Identity Struggle - ‘I Don’t Want to Be Called Russian Anymore'

[JBG]

‘I Don’t Want to Be Called Russian Anymore’: Anxious Soviet Diaspora Rethinks Identity; (link), excerpts below:

“I am really concerned that there could be animosity toward members of the Russian-speaking community,” said Mr. Levin, who is still haunted by the hostility he faced as a Jew in the former Soviet Union. Jewish families represent a substantial portion of immigrants from the former Soviet bloc, where they were deprived of rights and where discrimination limited their economic and educational advancement.

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The label, “Russian,” has been applied to multilayered religious and cultural identities, and to people with a variety of motives and circumstances that led them to the United States from across the region — Belarus, Armenia, Moldova and other former Soviet republics. Among them are dissidents who fled the totalitarian government in the 1970s and ’80s. Jews and evangelical Christians came seeking religious freedom in the ’90s.....Two-thirds are not from Russia.....“The old self-identity crumbles under the weight of the unthinkable and unimaginable. A new self-identity as Ukrainians, Moldovans and Georgians emerges,” said Ms. Batalova, who grew up in Moldova, the daughter of a Russian father and Jewish Ukrainian mother....

I have never gotten this thing about hating emigres and their descendants for the horrors committed by their ancestors' rulers. It seems to me that most people emigrating from Eastern Europe or, for that matter China did so to escape the madhouses that those areas have historically been.

Speaking for myself, I am Jewish; half Slovak/Hungarian and half Russian, from modern Poland and Ukraine. My identity is Jewish. I have no pride or longing for my European roots.

How do others feel?

 

[Chomsky]

‘I Don’t Want to Be Called Russian Anymore’: Anxious Soviet Diaspora Rethinks Identity; (link), excerpts below:

I have never gotten this thing about hating emigres and their descendants for the horrors committed by their ancestors' rulers. It seems to me that most people emigrating from Eastern Europe or, for that matter China did so to escape the madhouses that those areas have historically been.

Speaking for myself, I am Jewish; half Slovak/Hungarian and half Russian, from modern Poland and Ukraine. My identity is Jewish. I have no pride or longing for my European roots.

FWIW, I have great pride for my former Euro culture, values, and Faith.

As to the Poles, I think what they are doing is admirable, and anyone in Polonia should feel proud.

How do others feel?

I feel as you do. Leave the old crap at the boarders, and throw-in to the melting pot.

I'll be straight-up, though: Having been raised in an American immigrant community, I still at times relate and have greater respect for immigrants than for some Americans. Once us kids got our footing in this country, and starting rising through the social, economic, and educational ranks, we came to see a segment of native born Americans as a bit soft, lazy, entitled, and lacking in grit & effort. This was especially apparent when I and my cousins started progressing into undergrad studies and the work-a-day world. And when I look at some groups like some of the hard-core Trump supporters, those feelings come flooding back.

The feelings we had were exasperated by the long-assimilated native-born Americans sometimes looking at us as 'back-wards', or 'out of it (culturally); when the reality is we often were harder & smarter working then they were, while we often saw them as a bit lazy, entitled, superficial, and only holding their social & economic position by virtue of birth.

But I'm telling you, if you've got Polish or Ukrainian blood, I think you should be proud as hell. But, that's just the way I roll . . .

 

[JBG]

FWIW, I have great pride for my former Euro culture, values, and Faith.

As to the Poles, I think what they are doing is admirable, and anyone in Polonia should feel proud.

Definitely. I think all of the former Iron Curtain countries have a shared desire not to next on Putin's hit parade.

I feel as you do. Leave the old crap at the boarders, and throw-in to the melting pot.

Exactly. There were reasons our ancestors fled their former stomping grounds. No one rides the steerage of a ship across the stormy Atlantic unless they have no future where they are.

I'll be straight-up, though: Having been raised in an American immigrant community, I still at times relate and have greater respect for immigrants than for some Americans. Once us kids got our footing in this country, and starting rising through the social, economic, and educational ranks, we came to see a segment of native born Americans as a bit soft, lazy, entitled, and lacking in grit & effort. This was especially apparent when I and my cousins started progressing into undergrad studies and the work-a-day world. And when I look at some groups like some of the hard-core Trump supporters, those feelings come flooding back.

The feelings we had were exasperated by the long-assimilated native-born Americans sometimes looking at us as 'back-wards', or 'out of it (culturally); when the reality is we often were harder & smarter working then they were, while we often saw them as a bit lazy, entitled, superficial, and only holding their social & economic position by virtue of birth.

But I'm telling you, if you've got Polish or Ukrainian blood, I think you should be proud as hell. But, that's just the way I roll . . .

There's a reason that America advanced beyond the European countries. Those with grit and initiative and "get up and go" got up and left.

 

[Chomsky]

FWIW, I have great pride for my former Euro culture, values, and Faith.

Definitely. I think all of the former Iron Curtain countries have a shared desire not to next on Putin's hit parade.

Exactly. There were reasons our ancestors fled their former stomping grounds. No one rides the steerage of a ship across the stormy Atlantic unless they have no future where they are.


There's a reason that America advanced beyond the European countries. Those with grit and initiative and "get up and go" got up and left.

Haha! Humorous sounding, but true!

Here's the best thing about coming to America from somewhere else: You can take the best from the old country, and leave the crap. Then you can take the best of America, and leave the crap. You then end-up with the best of everything, and none of the crap! I swear by those words . . .

 

[JBG]

Haha! Humorous sounding, but true!

Here's the best thing about coming to America from somewhere else: You can take the best from the old country, and leave the crap. Then you can take the best of America, and leave the crap. You then end-up with the best of everything, and none of the crap! I swear by those words . . .

Interesting. Exactly my thinking about why my 26 year old son and my 26 year old law colleague both like 1960's and 1970's music. They hear the great stuff like Beatles, Don McLean, Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones and get to skip the cr@p. But I meant no joke with the highlighted language.