Russian immigrants in US - classification possible?

Tue May 30 17:27:53 UTC 2006

"Sapienza, Filipp" <Filipp.Sapienza at CUDENVER.EDU> wrote:For example, research by Fran Markovitz points out the ways that Russian speakers in new countries tend to find other Russian speakers regardless of nationality in order to find companionship and comraderie and a sense of home and so forth. 
............................Yes, this is how it is, and no one cares about the nationality or ethnicity, they just want to find friends with the same mentality. And all those speaking Russian do have smth in common, in most cases.

Other more recent research by Ogden, Ogden and Schau outlining the overall problem of ethnicity and immigrant groups in the US (vis a vis marketing and business) uses the term ï¿½micro-culturesï¿½ and speaks of ï¿½ethnicï¿½ groups and identification in terms of ï¿½objectiveï¿½ characteristics (such as census data) and ï¿½subjectiveï¿½ characteristics (such as oneï¿½s sense of identity). 
............................Micro-cultures is also okay, to my mind. But there is one problem here which is rather interesting. There is no Russian community or Russian "micro-culture" as such in the USA, as far as I know. The Ukrainian community does exist and is very active. They keep an eye on every new-comer to understand if he/she belongs to this ethnic group and then say: "Hello, we are here". I myself am very thankful to this community because they made my life in the USA very exciting. There is a Polish community in the USA  too. There is a community of Lemky in the USA. As to other Slavics, I don't know, but as to exactly ethnic Russians, there is no such community. I tried to find out just out of curiosity, but didn't find any trace.
The same situation is in Germany. The Ukrainian community does exist, but there is no Russian community here.
Maybe _ethnic_ Russians don't constitute a number big enough to organize their own community, I don't know.
But all together, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Belorussian, or even Georgians or Armenians who may be married to, for example, Russians, or whoever who speaks Russian at all, do belong to one much bigger community although this bigger community doesn't have any official status. All together they simply constitute a mixed multi-ethnic or multi-cultural community of Russian speakers. This means I myself had in the USA and have now in Germany two communities I am in. One is Ukrainian, which consists of Ukrainians, Ukrainian Americans, and Ukrainian Germans and which runs its own activities. We speak in most cases Ukrainian, not to lose the language, but, sure, _not_ Russian. The other one, the bigger one, was and is a mixed one: Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Russian Germans here, etc. We speak Russian when we are mixed somewhere.  It is like this in every country, not only in  the USA or Germany.

This means, there is one big Russian speaking community, but there are also smaller  communities inside it, which one, sure, may call "micro-cultures". Why not? But there is _no_ Russian micro-cultural community. This is interesting...

As to the sense of identity... It is actually a private business of everybody. However, not everybody wants to be Russian, as you seem to think.

My own experience working with Russian speaking immigrants confirms the unclarities involved in how these groups define themselves. For example, I know two families (one from Ukraine, one from Belorus) who consider themselves ï¿½ethnicallyï¿½ Russian even though they come from countries outside of Russia.
...............................This only means that they are ethnic Russians, who used to live in Ukraine and Belorus, because there were and there are ethnic  Russians not only in Russia, but in every ex-republic of the former USSR.

 I also work with a fair number of students who are children of Russian speaking immigrants having grown up their whole lives in the US and also consider themselves as ethnically Russian. I suspect this situation is not unique to Russian speaking immigrants.
.............................You won't find too many _ethnic_ Russians in the USA at all, to my mind. And if some consider themselves Russian it may also mean that it is much simpler for them to say like this. The USSR is actually Russia for practically everybody in this world. And all ethnic groups from the USSR have one and the same language of communication. And it is Russian. I know that many prefer to say simply Russian than to explain who they are, where they are from, and where it is at all. I myself am tired to explain all the time that Ukraine is not Russia, and that Ukrainians have their own language and so on and so forth, but I do it anyway.
If children of Russian speaking immigrants consider themselves as ethnically Russian, let them be, if they want it.

 Iï¿½ve had Pakistani and Indian students join the same organizations and visit the same websites in classes. Although the groups are somewhat hostile toward each other in Kashmir, in the US this hostility seems not to be an issue and in fact they seem to find more in common when away from their home countries.
............................It is the same with all those from the former USSR, as far as I know. And this is logical.

So, if one were to group Russian speaking immigrants in some order of classification, how might one go about doing this? For example, one thought I had was A: immigrants (first-generation from Russia or ï¿½ethnicallyï¿½ Russians such as Ukranians, Belorussians, etc, who consider themselves Russian); B second-generation or more immigrants (children of immigrants who learned about Russian culture outside Russia). 
...............................I wouldn't do this. Sorry, but Ukrainians are not Russians and normally do not consider themselves Russian. The Slavic, yes, but not Russians. Sorry, but the fact is the fact. The Ukrainian language is closer to Polish and not to Russian. Poles and Ukrainians normally understand each other speaking their own languages. Russians do not understand Ukrainian. Besides, Ukrainians _are_ different in many ways from Russians.  I myself don't want to be called Russian, I don't feel it that way, unless it is my own wish to identify with the bigger community I belong to anyway or unless it is some situation when I am ready to say that I am either Kirgizian, or Belorussian, or Jewish, or Armenian, or Russian, or Latvian, or whoever of all those who are now trying to come to terms with each other and with that mess with languages, religions, territories, etc.
To my mind, the best is to say: 
A: Russian speaking immigrants (without mentioning ethnicity at all); 
B: next generations of Russian speaking immigrants (and then let them identify with whoever they want, no matter if next generations speak Russian or not). 
To my mind, it is much better to put the focus on the language, which became the means of communication for the first generation and thus unites them, but not on ethnicity. 
It is also much better to forget about the definition "Russian immigrants" that you have in the subject field at all, and replace it with "Russian speaking immigrants".
To my mind this is the best in order not to get confused and not to confuse other people.
I hope it will help somehow.
Regards,
Maryna Vinarska 

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