Oral History – Immigrant, Research Paper Example

For this assignment, I interviewed my friend Katherine, who moved to the United States from Russia when she was 7 years old. She had lived in the country while it was still the U.S.S.R. Her family decided to leave their community in Russia due to a continued sense of anti-Semitism. Some of Katherine’s family members were able to leave the country a few years prior and left to move to Brooklyn, New York. Initially, Katherine’s family joined them there, before moving to several other locations in the United States. Her initial move to the country was with her mother and father, who still mostly only speak Russian, and her two little brothers, who have also learned English since moving to the country.

During the first part of the interview, Katherine was asked how she felt about leaving her home of 7 years and moving to a new country. She reported that even though she understood why her parents wanted to move to the United States, she did not want to go. She had finished several years of school in the country and had made many friends that she didn’t want to leave. Furthermore, Katherine did not know English before moving to the United States, so she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone and make new friends.

She was also asked how her parents and siblings felt about the move. Katherine reported that her siblings were too young to understand what was going on, so she thought that they would be able to adapt okay. She remembers them saying that they would miss their toys, even though they were able to bring some along with them. She also didn’t remember the full opinion that her parents had on the move, but they told her that it would be better in the United States than it was in Russia. She didn’t believe them, which contributed to her inability to cope with the move.

Of utmost interest in this analysis was to determine how long it took for Katherine and her family to adjust to living life in the United States. To do so, she was first asked when she learned English. Katherine reported that since she was already 7 when she moved to the United States, she had already completed several years of school there. Thus, she tended to think in Russian and knew a majority of her school subjects in that language as well. When she started 4^th grade in New York, she was far behind the others because she couldn’t understand what the teacher was saying. As a result, she needed to be put in an ESL classroom to work on her language technique. She thinks she was fluent in English by 6^th grade, but it took her awhile to be confident of her new language skills. She also felt stressed out that she needed to practice these basic skills more than her other classmates who were born speaking English.

When Katherine was asked about how long it took for her siblings to learn English, she reported that they learned it within a few months. Since they were in the younger grades, she believed they had a better opportunity to still learn many English words when even native English speakers were learning how to speak formally. Her parents had an even more difficult time learning the English language. Both her mother and father are not completely fluent in the language today.

Katherine was then asked how her ability to learn English impacted the way that she felt about moving to the United States. She stated that her ability to cope to moving to the United States increased after she learned English. This allowed her to make greater connections with her classmates, who had previously seemed strange to her because she was never certain of what they were saying. She believed that the same was true for her younger siblings, although it took them a shorter period of time to appreciate the new country. Since they hadn’t already invested themselves in the language of their old country, and Katherine had, she was more bothered about the transition than they were. They were also happier about the move because they liked their new classroom better than their old one. On the other hand, Katherine stated that it took her a few years to completely adapt to the different classroom culture and setting. She appreciated that school in the United States was not just a place of learning, but a place of socialization as well, and this helped her make the friends she needed as support in order to get through these big changes in her life.

Katherine was then asked if she has ever returned to Russia to visit her family and how she would feel about doing so. She stated that she has now lived in the country for 20 years, and has not visited Russia once. While her parents wanted to a few times in order to visit relatives, a majority of the relatives that the family was able to keep in touch with had ended up moving to the United States anyway. She says that at this point, she wouldn’t return either because there isn’t much that she now misses about it. She thinks that it would be more difficult to return to Russia at this point in her life because she has become well-adjusted to how things work in the United States and connect with it now more closely than with her former lifestyle in Russia.

Since the main reason Katherine’s family left Russia was to escape anti-Semitism, she was asked about the Jewish community that she has in the United States. She stated that she was able to find a place in the Jewish community in the country, and many of these individuals were Russian speakers as well, so this made the family feel at home from the beginning. As a result, many of the individuals that Katherine’s family associated with both initially and currently are fellow individuals of the American Russian Jewish community. Her family members prefer it when her friends fall into this category, which exemplifies their sense of Russian ethnocentrism. It is clear that Katherine disapproves of her parent’s feelings, and believes that they should learn English and attempt to become members of the American community as a whole. Based on this, it is apparent that Katherine has become ethnocentric as well, but towards Americans instead of what she identified as when she was born.

Overall, Katherine believes that her values have changed for the better. When she lived in Russia, people hated her family because they were Jewish. Even though her family had been living in the area for generations, there were those that considered her to not be Russian just because of her religion. Currently, Katherine believes that her parents are too closed minded and are continuing the prejudice that forced them to leave Russia by not giving any non-Russian Jewish individuals a chance for friendship and understanding. She is glad that she was positively influenced by her American friends to accept others despite their ethnicities and religious beliefs.

Ultimately, it appears that Katherine’s ability to utilize an understanding of cultural relativity has helped her acclimate to her new environment. She was able to use aspects of her own culture that allowed her to recognize aspects of a new one that she appreciated and was willing to become a part of. This is what primarily drove her motivation to learn English; wanting to be a part of this new and exciting society. While she resented that she had to put in a lot of work to do this, she found that it was worthwhile and that the people that live in Russia aren’t very different from the people that live in the United States.

Katherine’s views oppose that of her parents significantly, and it is likely that her parents are resistant to change because they fear the possibility of culture death. They may believe that if they do not uphold their old traditions in the new country, these may be completely erased from their lives. However, Katherine wants them to understand that simply changing some behaviors and interactions will not detract from the fact that they are culturally Russian. She wants them to understand this so that they can begin to integrate American customs into their lives and thinks that this will make them happier once they recognize the value of this.

In conclusion, it appears that each individual who has come to the United States from Russia has their own unique story about adapting to a new language and culture. Even within Katherine’s family, there are many diverse stories. It appears that one’s ability to adapt to a new place is dependent upon their age and degree of experience. Katherine’s siblings did this the most easily because they were young and had little understanding of the world around them, so when they moved to the United States, they learned English and made new friends quickly. This seemed completely impossible for Katherine’s parents, who still mostly speak Russian and continue to associate themselves only with members of the Russian Jewish population. Since Katherine had much of her school years in Russia, the adaptation was difficult for her as well, but she appreciated the effort that she put in to do so because she thinks that her current life is better in the United States than it would have been in Russia.  Ultimately, Katherine’s story demonstrates that while becoming a member of a new community in a new country is challenging, it is certainly possible to make the change a positive one. Her parents were worried about the family’s safety in Russia, and many people move for similar reasons. It is important to respect the challenges that these individuals must face and offer them support to help them adjust to this new culture.