Interviews >> Mark

Mark

(USA via Russia)

The following essay was based on a few lose questions that I asked Mark via email. He expounded on the subject – wonderfully, I might add.

As usual with the people I interview, I tried to touch on the practical side of life, the day-to-day differences or similarities, but also on the more “ethereal” things: like friendship. He answered both kinds: a practical man, an engineer, with the sensibilities of a poet.

It is not a proper “interview”. Mark and I called it an interview/essay. It started with my questions, but it turned out to be something that I call a poem in prose. So I won’t break the flow of it with any of my comments. It doesn’t actually need any. Also, I don’t think you, the reader, need the initial questions. They come through in the answers.

The only other thing you need to know is that Mark is (or used to be) Russian. He now lives in the United States. If you have comments about the essay or would like to contact its writer please address your questions and comments to the editor@sentimentalrefugee.com.

REVELATIONS OF A FIRST GENERATION IMMIGRANT

"You don’t chose your times

You just live and die there."

Alexander Kuchner

"Where is your pit for the free men?"

G. Figuereidu

Aesop

Was It Worth It?

Somewhere in the backyard of the small New England town I spotted an Italian bakery.  I entered and ordered coffee. The proprietor, an elderly gentleman with distinct noble Italian features, watched me for a while and than said,

-                      --   You don’t look so good, Mr. First Generation.

-                      --   Well, here one year counts for two. You must know that, I said.

-                      --   Sure, man. But the children are happy, right?

-                      --   Yes, that’s why it’s worth it.

-                      --   Let’s drink to that.

He pulled out a bottle of Grappa and filled two shots. We drank to our precious, two members of the Nation of the First Generation. The nation in the business of going out of business.

The Helpless Love

Emigration is always a family affair, but one person makes the decision.  Sometimes that person doesn’t even know that he or she made this decision.

Our son made a decision for us when he was 4 years old.

Alexander Pushkin, our great poet, once said, “When you live in the toilet you put up with the stench.”  You can put up with a lot of things.  You can put up with permanent lines, with communal apartments where there is one toilet for 10 families, with deceit and lies in the press, with lousy food, with restricted access for you and your kind to the certain professions. Not that you have to wear a yellow star on the sleeve, but you kind of know your limits and everyone knows that you know.  You can put up with lawlessness, with the power in the hands of the mob, with the moronic evil (a tribute to Stephen King) eating up your life day-by-day. You can even put up with the most horrible thing - the fact that you are not in charge of your own life, that everything, from your birth to your death is predefined by the faceless state. You can put up with the slow death. That is because you love the place and all those people. You love the city you were born in, the smell of lilac in May and the scatter of the chestnut leaves in the fall. You love the magnificent architecture, music, paintings and literature, the best in the world. It all belongs to you no matter what. That is until the child makes his decision.

The man-made disaster strikes and threatens your child. And suddenly you realize that the moronic evil you put up with now wants your son dead.  If you don’t do something right now, your son will soon be dead or severely crippled and no one around you will give a damn.  That is because you are doomed in their minds, the way your ancestors were doomed, those whose bones lie in the pit on the city outskirts where they were shot to death only about 40 years ago…  You have a new duty now and if there is a chance for your child, that chance is his and you have to provide it. There is no choice.

The decision is unanimous but the process is slow and painful. Through all the humiliations of   standing in lines to the authorities, through abuse and harassment, through stupid regulations, through fear of rejection, through giving your humble possessions to friends and relatives (we were allowed only to take out $300 and very limited belongings), through waiting for the permission to leave, you still have hope that it is a dream, that you will wake up with all your friends on the beach, laughing and singing.

That is until you start getting signs. I got my sign #1 when the blondish creature lazily remarked while taking our applications to leave,

            “Why are you, people leaving?  We are not killing you yet.”

Then came sign #2.

“You, folks, shouldn’t go to the city street arts festivities. That is for your own sake,” said my friend who worked with the police.

“ Why?”

“Well, you know how it is now.  People of your origin are to be careful nowadays.   Everyone is very angry. You know what happened in other cities, right?”

Yes, we knew. In some cities in the East people of Armenian descent were raped and brutally murdered.  In other places that happened to people of Turkish descent. We are not Turks or Armenians; we are Jews. They are not killing us yet. But people can be angry with us. Other people. Our neighbors. They can be angry with us and openly discuss in the newspapers what to do with us. They can write letters to the editors saying that we all are vermin and those letters can be published openly as people’s opinions. We cannot be angry with them.  That’s how it goes.

Sign #3 comes with the denouncement of the citizenship. You pay money, surrender your passport and you are legally dead.   You cease to exist.  Out you go through train and airport, no longer a documented person.

There, in the airport, we got our last boot.  Hundreds of people were on the floor in one of the big halls, families and all. Those were the ethnic Germans. They were waiting for visas to the Federal Republic. After 500 years those farmers were leaving because the mob attacked them and the government didn’t help them.  I forgot my own misery when I saw them. What a terrible tragedy. For a farmer emigration is not just leaving; it is surrendering his very sense of life.   I looked at them and thought that if I was in charge, I would have placed a regiment at each of those farms, so that they could stay, plant crops, breed cows, make milk and butter.  What kind of a country is this that lets its farmers go?  And that’s when the old words of Friedrich Durrenmatt came to mind:

..If   your country becomes the coven of criminals and the breeding ground for

executioners, wipe its dust from your feet because your love of it is helpless.

            The yearly ordeal ended in the two hours’ flight. A van driver brought us to some building in Vienna and drove away. I pushed the button.  No one answered.

That’s how the technical PhD of 33, who could also recite Shakespeare and Pushkin by heart, his wife of 29, a mechanical engineer, their 4 years old son and his mother–in–law, 68 years’ old, the WWII veteran and distinguished surgeon, became refugees without a country on a dusky street in Austria.

America from Sea to Shining Sea

America is the land of opportunity. Only one opportunity that is. It is the opportunity to be who you really are.  As the mask in the movie ‘Mask’ it enhances and promotes the already existing features of a character, the ones which really define the personality but had been dormant or not fully realized due to the circumstances of the previous society the person lived in before. An honest, hardworking individual will become even more honest and hardworking; a petty thief can become a big crook or even a millionaire; a compulsive liar can become a politician; a cheap person can become a Scrooge; a deeply religious person can become a preacher; a covert womanizer can become an open philanderer; an unsuccessful rapist can become a real one; a woman who has only one child can have many and a woman who does not want children can dedicate herself to herself without guilt or remorse.  That is because there is no such thing as an American nation, no such thing as carved-in-stone societal perceptions on what is good and what is bad, no real sense of belonging to the  ‘people’ as an entity.  That’s what is different. 

When I speak, the generations of Russians speak through me whether I want it or not.  My language is the language of Nestor, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Pushkin, Lenin and Stalin. The consciousness I possess is the social consciousness of the farmers of my region even though I am Jewish and never had a farm.

There is no social consciousness here; neither there is a generally accepted sense of morality. Instead, there are clusters, groups, territorial customs and individual interests. As such, the society here resembles Medieval Europe, somewhere in the 15^th-16^th centuries.

We went through the interview process in Europe and were lucky to be admitted.  My first impression of the US was a balloon. A tall, lanky woman was meeting us in the mid-America airport with an enormous balloon over her head. The balloon had our son’s name on it.  It struck me at that time that I would never use a balloon that way. But it worked; we saw her.

I got my first job at a small engineering company with a lot of immigrants in it. The owner was a mechanical buff and somewhat of an environmentalist.  That was another piece of luck for us. There was no problem with my accent because it was only one of many. Among the South–African, Irish, German and Chinese accents a DalmatianJaccent like mine was not much of a difference.  I still keep it. Thanks to that job my wife could enroll in the university English courses and we settled as real Americans in a small town of about 5,000 residents. Our son went out to the street… and returned from it not a Russian anymore.  Of us four, our son is the first person who talks English and Spanish much better than Russian and we speak English with him. We both, of course, are fluent in English. Our granny still speaks Russian only.

Due to the job I got we skipped the usual process of assimilation within the community of the people of the same kind, like in New York, Boston or any other place, where there are big Russian-Jewish settlements.  We liked the idea and decided for ourselves that whenever possible we will be on our own, belong to no group and cherish our independence. We’ve kept this resolution so far, but it is not without a price. Both of us are relatively successful now. I lost my first job, had several others. We moved several times.  My wife studied, then worked full- time. Now   we work for the   big company. I am an engineer and my wife is a manager. Our son studies in the good University. We all are US citizens and a middle class.  It is time to reflect:

             I have six honest serving men

They taught me all I knew

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who

R. Kipling

Everyday life

Ø         Food 

Americans eat everything.  That is they are offered food in abundance, but the quality of food is not as important as its price.  Food quality is very low indeed. Milk is not milk, cheese is not cheese, and juice is not juice.  Everything tastes the same - like hey.  Sauces mask the blandness. But the price is right and people eat that. I still cannot eat frozen food, bread and 80% of the things in the supermarkets, as well as I cannot drink coffee, Coke and Pepsi. Try drinking Pepsi - warm. Good food is either very rare or very expensive.  That’s why it is not true that people get fat because they don’t   eat right. They don’t eat right no matter what; it is not their choice, period.  Same with the drinks.  Cheap beer is in abundance and nobody cares how bad it is for you.   I agree with Ralph Nader that fast food is a weapon of mass destruction. Nobody is forced to eat all that junk, but people have no choice because only a small group can afford the time and money associated with good eating. That includes eating slowly.  Most of my colleagues eat at their workplaces. From my standpoint they might as well drink cyanide in small doses.

Ø         Perseverance

This quality is by no means American but America is the only place where this quality is considered a must in every character. In fact, this is practically the only quality valued absolutely and without any amendments. Perseverance in trying to reach your goal, making the maximum effort again and again is   praised as an utmost virtue.  Whenever anyone is successful he or she always mentions perseverance from childhood.  This explains all the good things and bad things like the relentless pursuit of justice and blind following of the rules, the stubbornness of the NRA and the   popularity of the books about the End of the World, Hef, Warren Buffet and Warren Beatty, Elliott Ness and Michael Corleone. Perseverance is not really a quality but rather a habit and as any habit, it is in service of all the other qualities, whether good or bad. As here, in America, perseverance is so developed, bad things are much worse here as well as the good things are much better too. Sometimes.

Ø          Money

Americans love money. There is only one true crime in this country - to be poor. When you are poor everyone thinks it is something wrong   with you; like you have a mental deficiency of some sort. At the same time if a person is rich, that person will be always called ‘smart’. Not only people on retainer will say that, but also absolutely average people will say that.   No wonder that the verb ‘to make’ is used in this country in the two most popular expressions: ‘make money’ and ‘make love’. In this country love of money is a legitimate character feature, same as kindness, malice, love or hate.  Only in America you can see a genuine happiness on the face of the man who had just saved about $10. There was a poster in one of the hallways of my former job, ‘Do you love money? Then we have something in common.’ Such perception is extremely alien to the person of Russian origin who does not even include the level of wealth into the domain of people’s evaluation.  

Ø         Healthcare

In my opinion there is no healthcare in this country. I mean that medical profession has been transformed into a money-laundering scheme. Physicians are not interested in making people healthy. Hippocrates’s Oath is dead as well as the   primary motto of the medical professional, “Do no harm”. The non- existence of the healthcare as a universal right not only promotes the abuse but also connects it to other abuses:  health insurance, HMOs, prescription drugs programs, abominable Medicare and Medicaid, etc. Most of the health problems in this country are easily solvable but they are deliberately exaggerated and made worse, so that the vultures benefit from it.

Ø         Family

Children are a precious commodity in this country.   A single woman with children is still considered a desirable partner for marriage as well as the single man with children.  That seems pretty odd to a person like me who is used to the perception that you have to marry a virgin. No offense, just an observation. In fact, the virginity of the bride is not considered a factor here whatsoever. That is certainly a terrific societal achievement.  At the same time, an average American family is oriented towards disintegration. Children are not encouraged to live close to their parents after they become adults and parents are frequently put into nursing homes. I am not including here the minority families where things could be different. 

Some family ways seem very strange. It is common to give children drugs to control their behavior, to subject children to school punishments, to surrender children to the police. Teenagers are treated   as time bombs, sexual perverts or potential drug addicts. Just check the level of car insurance premiums for teenagers.  In fact, it is very rare when the parents stay and fight for the rights of their children and if they do that, it is not really very much appreciated by the others especially if the children are at the age of elementary or middle school.

One of the most troubling issues is the issue of treating young people, especially the ones in the military. The jingoism, the unconditional ‘support of our boys and girls’ is pure hypocrisy and stupidity. It results in death.  I can’t judge the individuals but   it is my opinion that there is something very wrong with the family morals in this area.

Ø      Smiles, hugs and shows

Americans smile a lot.  They even smile when they show you the middle finger.  Whenever you meet an American   unofficially he /she would smile at you, hug you or show you at the shoulder. Up close and personal.  That’s what we call a cultural difference; it seems uncomfortable to me to be hugged or showed by someone I don’t know well. As for the smiles, I prefer a smile for a reason. If a person smiles for no reason, I consider such person a dufus, unless he/ she is in love.  Permanent smiling annoys.  It denigrates human character and insults human intelligence. It is especially true when you see how quickly those smiles vanish when money comes into play.

Ø      Homemaking

You can only admire the American tenacity and skills when they work on their homes. Most American men are handymen. They can repair things, maintain machinery, remodel, paint, mow the grass, and take care of all aspects of the property. Moms are economical, on budget, home- oriented and sweet.  Smile a lot. They also take care of flowers, children, vegetables and dogs.   Nearly every household has a pickup truck, always filled with wood or something else. Children are taught to take care of the property, to appreciate its value, etc.

The only little twist here is that about 70% of the property value is defined by location.  Also, most of the contemporary middle- class homes are houses of cards.  A bare hand can protrude the internal walls.   It is very tough to really heat or AC such houses, that’s why heating or electric bills are high.  To maintain such a house is a full- time job, which takes practically all the time of the average Joe’s and Jane’s aside of actually working for living. That explains why people here are not very curious and do not look around or read real literature. They are tired.

Ø      Laws

Americans are proud of being a ‘nation of laws’. What it actually means is there are numerous petty laws to replace the nonexistence of the general national character and customs. As a result, there are written laws for everything from dressing right to dying right. People are desperately afraid of each other because suing is the way to get money. Criminal laws are so broad that jails are filled up to capacity all the time.

At the same time this criminal justice system is the only one allowing deals, when the criminal actually can plead guilty to some charge and thus avoid penalty for the bigger one.   Dealing on Justice? That’s mind- boggling. Police violates laws constantly; brutality is becoming a normal thing.  In all police shows and movies laws are violated 99% of the time and everyone accepts it. The horrible stench of manhunt is in the air and bounty hunters, those vultures, benefit.

As much as they admire laws in the country here, we violate all the possible laws of other people.  Most of our wars, starting with the extermination of the Indians, were blatant violations of laws, treaties and agreements. The American government is maybe the most consistent and persistent in exercising the treacherous foreign policy. The real reason for it is again that there is no such thing as an American society, thus the ruling group does not have to adopt certain unwritten rules of conduct. Basically, the rulers can do what they wish   as soon as they can do mischief to someone who cannot strike back. None of the former rulers who even were in jail for their behavior had ever been ostracized by the society or even reprimanded in any societal way. There is no such thing as honor. It does not mean that there are no honorable people; there are plenty. But the society does not consider honor as a virtue. The cynical principle of the American business,” I am honest until proven otherwise.” replaced the noble one ‘Honest work for honest pay.’

Ø      Organization

Americans are very organized. It is a pleasure to watch the fire team, the police, and the road works. When I was in Florida I admired the preparations for hurricanes. Wherever Americans are, they bring with them the spirit of organization, structuring, efficiency and work done.    It is only when something nonstandard happens that the problems arise. Once I was in South Carolina and there was a small fire in the room over mine. When I came back from the meeting I discovered that and wanted to see if there was any damage in my room. The police didn’t allow me to come up because they claimed that the firefighters were still there. The policeman was blocking the elevator door. I passed by him, went to the second floor and called the elevator from there. Of course, there were no firefighters in the room and my things had some water damage.  Go figure.

The seemingly flawless logic of the organized activities provides for a wrong sense of arrogance and self-righteousness. Americans frequently think that if they are organized and others are not that means that is something wrong with those others and they have to be fixed.  “What do we do with those people?” – is heard frequently on TV, in Congress, even at the family gatherings.  This   way of thinking is so embedded that people don’t even notice how strange it sounds and to what perils it might lead to.

Ø       The politics of shorts

Russian men don’t wear shorts. Russian women don’t do that either except maybe for very young girls.  That’s how it was in my time at least. Americans wear shorts, overalls, strange flannel shirts, camouflage fatigues, dungarees, jeans, etc.  All of that is practical, cheap and totally out of taste.  Middle – aged men in shorts with leg hair making winds. Women in some strange spandexes with   legs protruding out like   it is a secretary bird.  Looks like it is hereditary. The worst happens when some of those short bearers suddenly come out in double –breasted suits, tuxedos and cocktail- dresses. They look so unnatural in those garments.

Shorts and spandexes kill the walking. That’s why women here don’t walk properly. They either trot like little puppies or make strange movements as if they hammer the nail every time they make a step. Men in shorts look like overgrown teenagers. Maybe they want to feel younger that way, who knows. Shorts dictate everything, even politics. About 40% of men are overweight, but they still wear shorts and like to show themselves in public that way. As a result, they talk and function like overgrown teenagers without even noticing this.  The people with childish mentalities commission wars and destruction.

Ø      Groupthink

It is by no means an American phenomenon, but as there is no such thing as a social character here, Groupthink is soaring. Every corporation has ‘corpthink’, GOP has Repthink and Dems have Demthink.  Paradoxically, the Groupthink is used as an excuse to avoid personal responsibilities for anything.   In short, the Groupthink is a powerful tool of ignorance and its manifestation openly is a symptom of something very wrong happening inside of the society. This society was built on personal responsibility and accountability. Groupthink undermines those cornerstones.

Personal

I treat the modern life politely

But there is a wall between us.

Nicholai Gumilev

Ø      Fatigue

The sense of fatigue is overwhelming and permanent.   It appeared in about 6 months after we came to this country and has stayed with me ever since.  Sometimes when I am an alone it takes over completely. It took me 15 years to figure out the reason. The reason is my internal, natural opposition to what I have to do every day.   I do all the necessary things, play the life game but I don’t want to do it. Thus I have to control   myself every step of the way and that is extremely tiresome. Everything that I do   in the external world I would prefer to do differently, in my own way, the way I understand.  As I cannot do that my way and being a rational being,   I ‘do as Romans do’ but that does not make me happy and it slowly exhausts me. I only relax sparingly when reading a book or just talking in the family.

Ø      Education

I am the only person now in my family who never studied in this country.   The great side of that is that the actual skills are still   worth more in this country than the paperwork.   The tough part is that I realize that the way the education system is structured here I might have never become a scientist.

I taught here for a while.  I also watched how my son studied. The deregulated K-12 system when schools are supported locally and rely on property taxes, also the lack of national school standards, result in the obvious:  fragmentation and a broken glass system. No issue in this country is more discussed than the education and no issue is so subjected to hypocrisy. In all those rants about ‘no child left behind’ SAT, PSAT, ‘teenage problems’, etc. the real question is always avoided: why do we need K-12 schools? What do we expect from them?  And the answer (at least as I see it) is NOTHING.

The primary function of the K-12 school in every society is to raise a citizen. This function is taken out of the process here and thus the schools are castrated. As soon as every local authority wants to exclude from the studies (not include, mind you) anything that contradicts to the views and perceptions of the majority, there can be no good education. We can pay our teachers thrice higher salaries and they still will be afraid to talk to each other, to touch any controversial issue, to be responsible for the young minds.  Once I taught in the Upward Bound Program in Ohio for the impoverished Appalachian kids. I was supposed to teach physics and math.   It became clear to me that those kids were malnourished and totally deprived of simple attention; they needed just TLC (tender loving care). I said to their parents, “If you really want your kid to know physics, get him a notebook and tell him to research and study your farming machinery.  Let him find out how they work, what forces are there, why the fuel is needed, coolant, etc. Tell him to write it all in the notebook and in such a way that you will be able to understand. When he does that, he will know physics...” They thought I was joking.

In the universities I discovered the same thing. The idea that ‘you can study anything’ achieves nothing. The primary goal of the higher education is not to study in abundance but to develop the ability to acquire knowledge on   your own with a systemic approach to everything. That cannot be achieved if every professor is so full of ego that he/she seriously thinks that the science started with him/her.  People have to understand that science, engineering, literature are not just some static things, that they existed before and will exists after like an ocean and that the person better be very careful because to pollute is much easier than to improve.   Unfortunately, the academia treats knowledge like some kind of commodity, a source to extract money. There are thousands of unnecessary courses and the teaching process is broken to say the least. That results in the mass production of the ‘homo ignoramus’ species, humans which are totally ignorant but think that they are very knowledgeable. You can see the results in our political leadership. Their self- control mechanism has been removed.

In engineering it manifests itself in the abundance of young people who blindly believe in that very knowledge they possess without even trying to look around. They are conformists.

Ø      Friendship

I consider friendship a sacred feeling, second only to love.  As such I never expected to have many friends in this life. I lost most of my friends on the other side forever.  Here it is very difficult to maintain such friendships because it can only develop on mutual respect and respect is not something appreciated here.  I have many nice people around; we talk to them, keep in touch, etc, but I would never trust my child to their keeping, neither would I trust them with my money or my welfare. As I specified above, there is no such thing as honor here and thus I cannot trust people. I just do not know. They might be OK and they might be not, but my criteria of assessing people signal to me only one thing: they do not care very much for others and that’s how they live.   I would make a comparison with the ideal gas models or pool balls.   We can easily find each other and strike, there is inertia of movement, but there is no “intermolecular potential”, cohesion, so to speak.  Thus the best way is not to expect very much and not to promise very much. This is OK, but friendship is dead then.

Ø      Diversity

The people of Caucasus would be very much annoyed if they found out that all those whitey WASPS call themselves Caucasians. In fact, I wonder if any of the Americans know that their racial definitions (Latinos, Blacks, Caucasians, Asians, Middle – Eastern) are based on the old, totally flawed and even racist theories and gradations, which have subsequently been totally discredited by modern anthropology.  There is no such thing as Caucasian ethnicity or race. There are no ‘blacks’ because there are at least 6 or 7 distinct African races from Hottentots to Bantu. There are no “Middle- Eastern people’.  Actually, the WASPS are predominantly of Swedish- German origins and those are well – known by reputation as the dullest and most limited people in EuropeJ Sorry, that’s how they are described in the classic Western European literature.

I do think that we here in this country deliberately try to disconnect people by emphasizing what is different instead of promoting similarities.  We should show again and again how close the cultures are, how easy it is to absorb the best in others, how insignificant are the petty differences. Of course, the primary issue of acknowledging the connection is respect and as it does not exist, neither is anything else.  It is that simple.

Ø      Spiritual life

I am not a religious man. At the same time I was brought up in the spirit of respect to any true religious endeavor. Those endeavors personified in the description of acknowledgement of the achievements by the truly religious people in standing firm for their beliefs and also at the same time in being humble and selfless in the face of  God and Nature. Religion, whatever it was, always was associated with commitment in my mind. It totally lacked hypocrisy and was striving for virtue and wisdom. Bottom line, it was tough to be truly religious and tough it should be.

Here, in this country again this criterion does not work. I would even dare to say that I think that most of the people here, except maybe Buddhists and Irish Catholics, are not really religious. They go to churches, pray, read the Bible and hold hands at dinners, but for them God is like some benevolent uncle, who is always kind to them. They consider Him to live here.  Someone even called this country God’s realm.  From the point of view of true religion such views are paganism. They might as well worship Baal or someone else. The US middle class does not own God. In fact, He owns everything and everyone.  So I feel very uneasy sometimes when I hear Mr. Fallwell or Mr. Robertson or Mr. Graham vehemently proclaiming that they speak to God and know His wishes. That is sacrilege and we can be punished for it.

As for myself I do believe that God knows better (if He exists) and when my time comes He will be just. Gods are just, right?

Ø      Work

I work as an engineer. The engineering legacy of the US is terrific. It is based on the works of such giants as Edison and Robert Wood, Fulton and Eriksson, the Wright brothers, Henry Ford and many others.  It is primarily an applied skill, but what a beautiful skill!  The achievements are enormous; from Hoover Dam to the Space Shuttle. The US school of engineering is by far the best in the applied area of knowledge.  The engineering profession is extremely rewarding and self- sufficient. Due to the licensing process experienced professionals can go into business for themselves, do consulting, etc.  The pay is still pretty good.

At the same time I need to mention an extreme conservatism of engineering professionals here (not all of them, surely), them being prone to standard solutions, lack of creativity and   certain limits of imagination.  I would argue that those features are not cultivated in our engineering schools. 

Also, I need to state that the hiring and firing at will are not to the benefit of the best people. A person has to cultivate connections more and more and that interferes with the normal working process.  Not the best are hired, but the most convenient and conformal in many cases. That is especially hard for young people.

Ø      Lost and found J

I lost my handwriting.  Computers and  ball- point pens kill  it.  I still  struggle to maintain my reading skills despite computers.  It is  an ugly secret that computers actully denigrate reading skills and  make people dumb

I do my best to fight it.

I lost my sense of the female mystery. There are so many women’s magazines around, so many nude bodies, so much Sex and the City, so many gynecologists, sex pathologists, etc. The sanctity, the thrill of relationship is permanently damaged and only old books are the cure.

I lost the feel of happiness. Old criteria are gone and new ones I don’t believe in. Whatever I do, they do not thrill me anymore.  Only family successes still make me happy for a while.

I gained… new impressions. America, France, Italy. I would have never seen those otherwise new people, new faces, new talks. I love that dearly.  It helps in my job too. 

Ø      What am I?

Many immigrants and very prominent ones asked themselves the same question. Leon Feichtwanger said once, ‘I live in the US. My native language is German. I have a Jewish soul.’

I will try to say something similar: ‘I live in the US. I am of Russian- Jewish descent. Always wanted to be Irish.’ That is, I think, my Irish soul somehow lost its way and landed at the Russian borders where it engaged in drinking and learning Russian poetry until the time came to go back. I am still on the Journey if I may say.

Ø      On immigration

Immigration is a run. No one in his or her right mind would want to leave their native country for good especially if there is a big chance to never come back. People run away. The experience of running away from your own kind is devastating forever. Thus personal happiness is gone and the only possible equivalent would be the happiness of the children.   We live for them. Our primary goal is for them never to experience fear and run.  Thus we have a responsibility to watch and preserve all freedom- supporting institutions in the country even if it means to jump into the pit like Aesop.  Our children have to be alive, liberated and free to choose. There is no other goal.

Conclusion: we are here as sentinels.

I   would like to state that whatever I said about this country and its people is not from the intention to gloat on the negative.  This country is not wonderful or perfect and neither are other countries. I live here. It means that negative and positive things are mine to share. This is my place; I will live the rest of my life and die here. Thus I take everything I can and offer a lot in return.  At the same time the best of me is the honest and direct opinion and as a man of experience I have a right to state it.  As one Russian poet said, “The people are not complete without me.” That is why we all are valuable.  One of the oldest stereotypes here is that first generation immigrants are up to no good. Literature and entertainment are full of the characters portraying us like some living ghosts, unable to change and embrace the new life.  That is not true. We are part of the people here and we are here to help.   As we are personalities, we don’t have to change who we are. We will not be ignored or discarded.  Neither are we expendable. We are sentinels, watchers and warning people. Our experience is unique and if it taught us anything, that is how to expose the symptoms of totalitarianism and oppression emerging from anywhere and under any pretense in the society we live in. We, by definition, are   those canaries who feel the smell of gas long before it fills the mine and explodes.  By the same definition our voice, though critical, is always well- intentioned.

I earned my right to fulfill these functions to the best of my abilities and I will exercise those whenever I deem necessary. That is my responsibility to freedom and my duty as a citizen, as a father and as a husband.

If you have comments about the essay or would like to contact its writer please address your questions and comments to the editor@sentimentalrefugee.com.

FEATURED BOOK:

Disappearance of the Outside: A Manifesto for Escape

by Andrei Codrescu
Taking into account his own exile from Stalinist Romania, as well as the plights of such greats as Garcia Marquez, Breton, Dada, Kundera, and Milosz, Codrescu issues a call for those living in a free society to reach beyond a benign reality founded in technology and commercialism by tapping into their imaginations and striving for a better, evolutionary existence.

Sonia Choquette. (first generation born in the USA)
"The first thing to say about the experience of an immigrant is that people are like a tree whose roots have been cut off. Fortunately the human spirit is regenerative but only if you acknowledge that you have suffered a major psychic wound, even if you move under the best of conditions. So you can build new roots." Read more...