On Becoming an American

Book Review: Russian Tattoo: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova

With rare exceptions, we are a nation of immigrants. It seems to be part of the American consciousness that we conveniently forget that fact within a generation or two.

We forget how our grandparents or great-grandparents struggled to learn a new language, a language full of secret idioms and unspoken meanings. We forget how they worked to fit in with a new and different culture that is itself a mixture of many cultures. We forget how they labored at menial and poorly paying jobs, no matter what their education might have been, because the language and cultural differences threw up walls against them.

Elena Gorokhova's Russian Tattoo serves to remind us of those things that we have chosen to forget on the road to becoming Americans. The twin barriers of language and culture mark the immigrant as clearly and visibly as a tattoo, a label of difference and strangeness that closes the doors of opportunity. Coming to America has given all of us a chance to start our lives over, and that is exactly what is required. Whoever and whatever you were before you arrived: a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist - is largely wiped away and you will find yourself washing dishes or waiting tables, trying to learn English from people who speak louder and slower to make you understand.

Russian Tattoo is the story of this American rite of passage as seen from the inside. Elena Gorokhova's journey is the journey that our own immigrant relatives took, as much as we want to deny it. OUR forebears learned English immediately, and were tax-paying contributing members of society within a month of getting off the boat - or so our romantic notions would have it. The fact is, my immigrant great-grandfather worked in an auto factory, was a truck driver, and English was a second language to his native German. His son - my great uncle - was a United States Marine who served in the Ardennes in World War One. Sometimes it takes a generation or two to achieve American-hood.

With each new wave of immigrants, those of us who are already here inevitably push back against the would-be new arrivals. Russian Tattoo lets us see that from the viewpoint of someone who was on the receiving end; not as a search for sympathy but simply understanding. The road to becoming an American is not an easy one, getting here is only half the battle. We all have our own tattoos, maybe it's time to acknowledge them.

(ed. This review was originally published January 25, 2015)

Welcome to America

Book Review: Never Look an American in the Eye by Okey Ndibe

What happens when a person's perceptions of the United States are determined by watching vintage American Western movies? The result is Never Look an American in the Eye, Okey Ndibe's multi-faceted tale of his immigration to the U.S. in 1988. Ranging from the humorous to the sharply serious, Ndibe uses a series of anecdotes to explain how and why he chose to leave his native Nigeria, and what happened on his arrival here.

American culture is disseminated to the world in often enigmatic ways. Often it is through media, particularly television and movies. Needless to say this can give viewers on the other side of the world a very different idea on what the "real" America is like. The result can be a shocking wake-up call to the newly arrived potential citizen.

Ndibe does an excellent job of conveying this inevitable culture shock, and the emotional effect it can have on the hopeful immigrant. Between his stories of feeling lost in the swirling tide of new sights and experiences, he also injects bits of humor: the similarity between the pronunciation of his first name, Okey, and the common English exclamation "okay" leads to some exchanges worthy of Abbott and Costello. Examples of American misconceptions about Africa and Africans also serve to lighten the mood while illustrating our cultural indifference.

Amd the mood can be exceedingly dark as well. His tale of being the victim of racial profiling by the police, hampered by his less than perfect grasp of the American justice system (he thought he was being questioned for looking the policeman in the eye) echoes an uncomfortable reality for many Americans, not just the most recent arrivals.

Throughout this portrayal, Ndibe reinforces the certainty that underneath the cosmetic differences, we are all people just trying to make our way. Towards the end of the book, where he relates the death of his father and his return to Nigeria for the funeral, we see a fellow human being, dealing with the pain and emotion that cuts across racial and ethnic lines.

Never Look an American in the Eye points out our preconceptions about immigrants and immigration without beating us up with them, but refuses to ignore them. The United States is an immigrant country, yet we sometimes turn a blind eye to that fact. Okey Ndibe reminds us that there are still people around the world who dream of a better life in the United States, just as our forefathers did, and that they have much they can contribute to our country and our culture.

"There are no cats in America"

Book Review: A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka by Lev Golinkin

In the animated movie, An American Tail, the simple immigrant mice have an idealistic view of the United States, including the belief that in America "there are no cats". Needless to say, they are shortly relieved of their naivete, and nearly of their lives as well.

In A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, Lev Golinkin presents us with a deceptively simple story - his story - and we follow this childhood memoir down its seemingly predictable path. And then, like a matryoshka doll, we find that there is another story tucked inside it; and inside that one, another -- and another.

"The anti-Semites didn't know -- they hated because they had been programmed to hate, and they obeyed because they had to obey to survive. No one knew, no one understood, and, as the old saying goes, one will always fear what one doesn't understand."

Inside Golinkin's childhood memories nestle the dark tale of anti-Semitism, the story of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the ongoing history of immigrants to America. Inside those are the personal stories of the Ukrainian people, the struggle of Jews seeking escape to the West, and the organizations and individuals trying to aid them. And deep inside it all, the story of Lev Golinkin and his family.

As I dove farther down into the nested stories inside Golinkin's Backpack, I began to reflect on how this plays out in America today. Immigration has become a hot button issue - but then it always has been. It was no different in decades past when the immigrants were Irish, or Italian, or German. Those who had already managed to secure the blessings of liberty were all too eager to quench the lamp, close the golden door, and leave the masses huddled outside.

"Every immigrant expects something from America. People don't scale fences, trudge through deserts, abandon careers, friends, loved ones, the graves of their parents, risk their lives without hope of something waiting for them on U.S. shores."

My grandmother emigrated from Russia at the turn of the 20th century. Her family was German, among many who had been invited to settle in the Volga Valley; but the political situation had changed, dangerously. Her parents put their two daughters, barely teenagers, on a ship to the United States. For them, America represented hope, and freedom from fear.

A Backpack and a Bear is not an essay supporting immigration. It is just the story of a Jewish boy in the Ukraine who held that hope. In the process it becomes the story of all those who have ever made that journey to stand in the light.

The Pauses Between the Notes

Book Review: The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomon

"Music isn't just notes; it's also filled with rests or measured silences. We wait during the pauses, listening to the possibility of music."

Shortly before starting on Natasha Solomons' The House at Tyneford, I had come across the Wikipedia article on the Dorset 'ghost village' of Tyneham. After reading the summary of the book, I realized that the connection was tenuous, but I took a chance and ordered The House at Tyneford anyway, promised at least a classic English setting.

The early parts of the story reminded me of The Mirador, Elisabeth Gille's autobiographical novel set in roughly the same time period. The years between the wars only sharpened the issues that had brought about the First World War - the "War to End All Wars" was only a prelude. Those holding onto the remnants of the imperial lifestyle, like the Landaus, were torn apart, literally and figuratively.

Once Elise Landau arrives in England, the story centers on the changes that any immigrant would face - learning a new language, a new culture, and new values. In addition, Elise has been forced to make a huge change in her own class status as well. Ms. Solomons does an excellent job of portraying both her characters frustration and naivete. In doing so she manages to find the middle ground - relaying enough details to allow us to feel the character, yet in turn allowing us to fill in the blanks with our own feelings, to see the possibilities of the character'

While written from the viewpoint of a female character, the story is accessible to male readers as well. Some emotions are universal, even if our reactions to them are personal. Love, loss, fear, courage, and pride are not divided by gender, and the author helps us find the ground common to us all.

Grandma's Dirty Little Secret

Book Review: My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner by Meir Shalev

This is how it is: author Meir Shalev has taken the threads of family history and woven them into a tale that drapes as easily as a babushka over the head of the family, in this case Grandma Tonia. Every family has a skeleton or two in the closet; Grandma has a sweeper in the bathroom. Or does she? A story doesn't have to have a point -- the story IS the point.

As the title My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner implies, this is in no small part a tale of the clash of cultures (and cultural values). Americans have long been upheld as the personification of luxury and comfort, and reviled for those very same qualities at the same time. 'Luxury' implies laziness, 'comfort' equals complacence. It is not simply a case of the 'haves' and the 'have-nots', but goes deeper into values and ideals.

And when your ideal is cleanliness, the value of a vacuum cleaner would be priceless, or so one would think. Like magic the dirt disappears, never to be seen or heard from again. It is a miracle of modern science, as long as we ignore the law of conservation of mass. And then at last the weighty dilemma occurs - who sweeps the sweeper?

Shalev manages the diversity of cultural history and values with sure hands - the story of My Russian Grandmother could happen anywhere, and in any time. In fact, I am sure it has. While not everyone has a Grandma Tonia or an Uncle Yitzhak, we have all had people like them in our lives and in our own families. The idiosyncrasies that make us individuals are the very things we have in common.

An enjoyable read, filled with humorous insight into obsessive-compulsive behavior as well as the Freudian aspects of a manicure, My Russian Grandmother is part James Thurber's My Life and Hard Times, part my own uncle Dave reminiscing about life on the farm in the Depression (if my family had been Jewish and Israel was Minnesota.) If you don't have stories like this in YOUR family, you should make some up.