sikorsky diss. on russ-americans

[richard]

I have some brief annecdotal personal experience tangetally related I
thought I'd share.

>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.

My father being born in Ukraine but myself being born in Canada I can say
I've noticed some split on Catholic and Orthodox religious lines. Where I
live there is a very small UK community yet we have two halls a Catholic
and Orthodox one.

>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.

My father is this way he wanted me only to learn English. It wasn't until I
got to University when I could decide for myself that I began to study
Russian (beause they didn't have a UK program) He told me learning UK would
not help me in life so thats why he wanted me only to speak English. I
didn't know this was a trend in Slavic immigrants.

>They usually don't perceive themselves as a part of Russian community
>at all.

I find it difficult to call myself Ukrainian-Canadian mostly I think of
myself as simply Canadian. Finding my Ukrainian-ness is a challenge.

>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.

My 2 cents

Richard Gilmore (Lukyanenko)