sikorsky diss. on russ-americans

[Kamneva, Natalia]

Unfortunately, the problem is even more complicated, because
the Russian-American community is not a unity. It is very explicitly
separated on Russian-Jewish and Russian parts. The communication
between two parts is  difficult because of social, religious, financial,
and
other reasons.
Russian-Jewish community perceives itself very explicitly as a part of
Jewish-American community.
Russian community doesn't perceive itself very clearly as a community
because of many reasons. One of them: it is small in number.
Russians  have more connections with Russia on one hand, on the other
hand they try very hard to integrate in American society.
Nevertheless the children of both parts of the community (even born in
Russia)
very soon stop to speak and even to understand Russian language.
Parents encourage them to speak only English. That's a reason why they
can't
communicate with their grandparents and lose Russian cultural
traditions.
They usually don't perceive themselves as a part of Russian community
at all.
Of course, the situation is more complicated than described in this
short paragraph.
For example, in NYC, where Russian speaking population is more
significant,
is is a little  different. I just tried to describe the common
tendencies.

Natalia Kamneva, after 6 years of emigration perceive herself  partially
Russian,
partially American, but apart from Russian speaking community.




        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Sapief [SMTP:sapief at albany.net]
        Sent:   Wednesday, March 18, 1998 10:18 AM
        To:     SEELANGS at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
        Subject:        Re: sikorsky diss. on russ-americans

        >
        > What interests me is how does this very large group of people
perceive
        > itself, does it see/know itself as a community, with one or a
set of common
        > interests and what might those be? Does it have an interest in
preserving
        > itself in some sort of institutional way and with what sort of
        > institutions?  How does it want to integrate or keep itself
apart from the
        > rest of American society?

        These are very important questions. I've been looking at the
        Russian-American community in cyberspace, and my guess is that
Soviet
        emigres, wherever they originate from, construct communal
identifications
        in a somewhat ambivalent manner. This is due to the fluidity of
electronic
        rhetorical spaces and perhaps, to the global influence of
cyberculture
        norms.  On the other hand, many of these web sites show evidence
        of conscious attempts to "carve" a fixed identity out of the
        electronic wilderness.

        Some of this may not be unique to Russian speaking emigres, but
        it does put some interesting twists into the nature of
transnational
        activity and also influences how this large group perceives
itself.

        >
        > ______________
        > >Serge Rogosin
        > >93-49 222 Street
        > >Queens Village, NY 11428
        > >tel. & fax (718) 479-2881
        > >e-mail: srogosin at aol.com
        >
        > Respectfully,
        >
        >
        > Max Pyziur
        > pyz at panix.com
        >

        Filipp Sapienza
        Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
        sapief at rpi.edu