How they treat Russians in America
Posted: September 13th, 2020, 6:58 pm
I got this from quora
"I immigrated here with my parents shortly after the fall of communism. I was old enough back then to remember food lines, social disturbances, bombings, and that whole mess, but too young to understand the implications. I am of Russian descent. My parents raised me on Russian values, culture, stories - since that was what they knew, but I grew up in America. Now I can tell you from my experience, US is anti-Russian enough. Its one thing to be hostile towards a political ideology, but in US, I find that there is hostility towards being Russian, and because we’re caucasian, we technically can’t play the race card, so its way more overt that in other cultures’ instances.
Here are some examples —
My experience as a kid:
Teachers and adult constantly made communist jokes about me and my parents
Kids constantly told me to “rush back to Russia”
Adults and kids berated me because of how my name sounded when my parents called out for me in the school yard. Sushi was my nickname at some point.
Teachers were ignoring me in class because I wasn’t 100% knowledgeable of english and of American culture. I didn’t grow up on Barnie, and Simpsons wasn’t allowed in my house.
My accent was constantly berated by adults and kids
My lack of knowledge of what some foods were, was made fun of constantly (Sorry, no such thing as sloppy joe’s in Moscow)
What did that create? - It isolated me and created distrust in me of the local community. I started hanging out with mostly Russian kids, speaking Russian and not wanting to learn English. I went from being a brilliant outspoken kid, to a disengaged kid who sat in the corner quietly by myself. My friends became other quiet immigrants who also were ostracized from the “American” community.
My experience as a Teen:
Teachers telling me they will send my kind back to Russia in a potato sack (thanks LaGuardia HS!!)
Teachers berating my culture and making fun of any opportunity they had of my Russian heritage
My name still remained a point of contention with many
hearing phrases like “back in my day, we wouldn’t have allowed your kind into our country” - a lovely phrase mentioned by one of my teachers.
There were more, but by this time, I had gotten used to many of these things and began to ignore them. I formed a close group of other Russian people in my H.S. with whom instead of assimilating, we amplified our culture. We brought blini, caviar and boiled eggs for breakfast with zero f***s given. We played Hi5 in the hallways, sang Russian pop songs, played Russian card games and ignored the general nastiness that came our way. The nastiness and the Anti-Russian sentiment though got a lot more negative in those years, and as it did, we became much more dismissive of it.
My experience in collage and as an adult:
I’ve had potential employers assume that I was illegal or unqualified because of my name, or that I could not speak English (another story on how I found out about those instances)
I’ve had colleagues and class mates constantly ask me about being a hot Russian spy - guys who tried picking me up with that line also became numerous.
I’ve had colleagues, class mates and random guys “hitting on me” ask me about being a Russian mail order bride.
Another assumption that get’s thrown my way is that I *must* have been an escort at some point
My account supervisor told me the following phrase about 2 weeks ago “I know that English isn’t your first language so I rather you go through several processes of approval before you write this document” (I was writing a press release, and could tell you that our editor was more than happy with my work on first round, so as you see, clearly there was no language barrier)
People ask me about Putin every opportunity they get, even though I haven’t lived there for 22 years — another favorite topic that gets brought up, especially by the older generation, is communism and how they personally feel about Russian politics (for which I really don’t care)
I frequently hear the following comment “Your English is so well! You don’t have an accent - you must have studied it in Russia?!”
And even though no one says it to my face in person, I still see the same childhood jokes about Russian accents, culture and “rushing back to Russia” pop-up across US comment sections and forums
Also, I must add how I am tired of seeing Russians portrayed as the bad evil juju guys in practically every thriller/ spy film.
So as you see, people are still pretty hostile ...
BTW, for reference point, this is the stuff that happens in NYC."
"I immigrated here with my parents shortly after the fall of communism. I was old enough back then to remember food lines, social disturbances, bombings, and that whole mess, but too young to understand the implications. I am of Russian descent. My parents raised me on Russian values, culture, stories - since that was what they knew, but I grew up in America. Now I can tell you from my experience, US is anti-Russian enough. Its one thing to be hostile towards a political ideology, but in US, I find that there is hostility towards being Russian, and because we’re caucasian, we technically can’t play the race card, so its way more overt that in other cultures’ instances.
Here are some examples —
My experience as a kid:
Teachers and adult constantly made communist jokes about me and my parents
Kids constantly told me to “rush back to Russia”
Adults and kids berated me because of how my name sounded when my parents called out for me in the school yard. Sushi was my nickname at some point.
Teachers were ignoring me in class because I wasn’t 100% knowledgeable of english and of American culture. I didn’t grow up on Barnie, and Simpsons wasn’t allowed in my house.
My accent was constantly berated by adults and kids
My lack of knowledge of what some foods were, was made fun of constantly (Sorry, no such thing as sloppy joe’s in Moscow)
What did that create? - It isolated me and created distrust in me of the local community. I started hanging out with mostly Russian kids, speaking Russian and not wanting to learn English. I went from being a brilliant outspoken kid, to a disengaged kid who sat in the corner quietly by myself. My friends became other quiet immigrants who also were ostracized from the “American” community.
My experience as a Teen:
Teachers telling me they will send my kind back to Russia in a potato sack (thanks LaGuardia HS!!)
Teachers berating my culture and making fun of any opportunity they had of my Russian heritage
My name still remained a point of contention with many
hearing phrases like “back in my day, we wouldn’t have allowed your kind into our country” - a lovely phrase mentioned by one of my teachers.
There were more, but by this time, I had gotten used to many of these things and began to ignore them. I formed a close group of other Russian people in my H.S. with whom instead of assimilating, we amplified our culture. We brought blini, caviar and boiled eggs for breakfast with zero f***s given. We played Hi5 in the hallways, sang Russian pop songs, played Russian card games and ignored the general nastiness that came our way. The nastiness and the Anti-Russian sentiment though got a lot more negative in those years, and as it did, we became much more dismissive of it.
My experience in collage and as an adult:
I’ve had potential employers assume that I was illegal or unqualified because of my name, or that I could not speak English (another story on how I found out about those instances)
I’ve had colleagues and class mates constantly ask me about being a hot Russian spy - guys who tried picking me up with that line also became numerous.
I’ve had colleagues, class mates and random guys “hitting on me” ask me about being a Russian mail order bride.
Another assumption that get’s thrown my way is that I *must* have been an escort at some point
My account supervisor told me the following phrase about 2 weeks ago “I know that English isn’t your first language so I rather you go through several processes of approval before you write this document” (I was writing a press release, and could tell you that our editor was more than happy with my work on first round, so as you see, clearly there was no language barrier)
People ask me about Putin every opportunity they get, even though I haven’t lived there for 22 years — another favorite topic that gets brought up, especially by the older generation, is communism and how they personally feel about Russian politics (for which I really don’t care)
I frequently hear the following comment “Your English is so well! You don’t have an accent - you must have studied it in Russia?!”
And even though no one says it to my face in person, I still see the same childhood jokes about Russian accents, culture and “rushing back to Russia” pop-up across US comment sections and forums
Also, I must add how I am tired of seeing Russians portrayed as the bad evil juju guys in practically every thriller/ spy film.
So as you see, people are still pretty hostile ...
BTW, for reference point, this is the stuff that happens in NYC."
