sikorsky diss. on russ-americans

[Alina Israeli]

May I humbly disagree with what Natalie Kononenko wrote on the subject of
Russian-Americans. It very much depends on the generation of emigration and
the purpose of such. Take the first emigration. Many of them left
"temporarily" hoping to return soon. One of the grandmothers of my French
friend Tania W. never learned to speak French (according to Tania, French
born). I have met third and fourth generation from the first emigration who
maintained their language against all odds.

The reason for maintaining Russian as lingua franca that existed for their
grandparents' generation is now lost and so is the drive in many families
to pass the language along.

The third emigration left for good. This a group of people (for the most
part) who felt being treated as a second (maybe third) class citizens. When
they came to America it was with the intention to become first class
citizens, and speaking English natively is the very first noticeable trait
of being "in".

Alina Israeli

>  I, too,
>feel that Russians do not have much of a sense of national
>identity, that parents do not encourage their children to speak
>Russian or maintain other markers of their "Russianness" and
>that they even encourage their children to assimilate to the
>dominant (American) culture.  Could this be because Russians
>were the dominant culture back home?  Could this be because
>Russians, in Soviet times and subsequently, did not sense much
>of a difference between themselves and the various
>natsional'nosti that they dominated, or assimilated, or
>whatever you want to call it?  They just assumed that the
>various peoples would somehow be russified, assimilated, etc.
>This is kind of the ugly American syndrom, only, of course, we
>are not speaking about Americans.