First generation immigrants who successfully assimilated in new countries rarely get to tell their stories. Maybe it’s because it would go against the nature of assimilation; just having a story like that goes against fitting in. When you spent years learning a different language, understanding the new culture (including jokes) on top of building a career and friendships, why would you undo it all by talking about something that separates you from the people around you? And most of the time people don’t want to know. We like people for their similarities to us, not for their differences, that’s just how we are wired, immigrants included, no matter how many times we are subjected to diversity training. In fact, it’s well known that diversity might be good for teams BECAUSE it’s uncomfortable – it makes us work harder. But nobody likes being uncomfortable.
Sometimes people do get curious. They ask about your country, they try to pronounce your name correctly; but even if it’s not done with the specific purpose to show how much of an alien you are (“How can you not know who Steve Irwin is?”), it still makes many immigrants uncomfortable. We spend so much time adapting that we often don’t want to attract attention to our differences. And given the tendency of the general population to blame almost everything on immigration, who really wants to remind others that you belong to that group of people who are both lazy and stealing jobs, require handouts and buy properties driving prices up?
When first generation immigrants do tell their stories, it’s often in their own language, to the audience back in their home countries – stories of displacement, aliens in exotic lands. They might have not regressed in their careers when moving, they might even speak the new language well enough for everyday life but the heart of the community and their own self perception is tied to their countries of origin and primarily to their native language. If the language stays the same, even with distinct dialects, the culture shock is much reduced; an American or an English person might have a few surprises in Australia and yet they are not entirely alien either, they exist in a very similar cultural code.
Even before I moved to Australia, I was intent on learning English – not for a specific purpose but because I became obsessed with it. I went to a good high school with a great language course which gave me the foundations; the real work of learning English started after. I found a forum for English learners with a few people who were as obsessed as me (also many people who just loved talking about ways of learning a language, never seemingly progressing very far). One of them posted an observation once: when you are obsessed with learning a foreign language and being absorbed into a different culture, you become somewhat of an immigrant in your own country. Your friends will be talking about soccer matches and local news and movies while you think about another phrasal verb or an idiom you learned while listening to an audiobook in English. You can try making different friends; your mileage might vary.
Then you make it to the country where that language is spoken and suddenly speaking it is table stakes. Nobody cares about all the effort you put into learning it, it’s what you use it for. Someone will make fun of your accent. Most people who only speak one language have no clue how hard it is to become fluent in a different language as an adult, especially a language that is very different from your native one; so they will judge you for awkward phrasing, your wrong intonations, your inability to understand some jokes. Even if they don’t, you will judge yourself.
When I arrived in Australia, I was already fluent in English – I had to be to do the job that I was hired to do (a technical consultant) but it was English I learned from books. I struggled with everyday chitchat – there is no culture of small talk in Russia and I was also not used to having casual conversations. I could discuss philosophy but I didn’t know the words for a colander or a skirting board. It took me a while to be less self conscious about speaking English. I didn’t think of it as an immigrant’s experience. It all felt like a personal failing. And I continued practicing to get better.
I truly love Australia – it feels like home to me after I have lived here for 18 years. It has its problems (what country doesn’t?) but I love its nature and its people. I tended to draw wide conclusions from interacting with a group of people I met immediately after immigrating: my boyfriend, people I worked with. I have since met thousands of people through work, sailing, socialising and walking around and Aussies mostly make it easy to practise small talk. People generally love a chat and a bit of banter; over the years I have talked about a wide variety of topics with a lot of people. I do have Russian speaking friends but I don’t generally stick to the Russian-speaking community. It’s definitely not my default. I have seen and internalised “The Castle”. I enjoy literary fiction in English and this blog is in English too and while I have an accent while speaking, I can write in a way that won’t make you suspect that I am not a native speaker. I taught my husband the words “kowtow” and “subservient”. I can win a game of Scrabble while playing with an educated English speaker. I have customer meetings at work and have been on stage at marketing events a few times.
I’ve read stories from second generation immigrants, of being bullied in schools for weird lunches, about the clash of cultures within the family and the outside world. The best stories show both appreciation for the parents who moved to another country and the pain of displacement, the necessity to translate things for your parents and be both embarrassed by them and proud of them. What is often unspoken in these stories is that with that struggle comes a gift: a gift of another language, a different culture and outlook on life. My children will not have to translate things for me or suffer unusual lunches but they also don’t speak Russian, apart from a few words here and there. The reasons are complex and not particularly interesting. Mainly, I ran out of energy trying to do all the things, all the time, and what I am trying to pass on to them instead is my life of reading and writing, having fun while playing games or just fooling around and riding bikes. They do ask me about my past sometimes but not very much – they are still very young but it might change.
I don’t have any illusions of shedding my Russian identity altogether, nor did I ever want to do that. When the war with Ukraine started, there was a huge wave of anti-Russian sentiment, not just against the current government but against everything Russian, including the people and the culture. It was mostly concentrated online, not in real life so I had to step away from many online places for a while. I still see occasional comments on Substack about boycotting Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky but I can usually ignore those. What all of that prompted for me is soul searching and eventual realisation of how Russian I am deep down, despite learning small talk and being proficient in English. I am a picky reader and my tastes are shaped by the Russian classics, even if I don’t re-read them. I love “deep and meaningfuls” which is very much in Russian tradition. I don’t fit a lot of stereotypes of Russians: not a big drinker, not big anything really, fairly introverted. And yet, there’s my childhood in Siberia, my parents and friends, all the friendships and heartbreaks, books and movies and cartoons packed tightly and forever in my head.
I have a couple of recurring dreams. One of them is that the apartment block I grew up in and all the other very similar ones lined up around it like a stack of dominos are being ripped apart by a tornado. Another is that I came back to my hometown but my parents moved while I was away and I don’t seem to be able to find the place they moved to and keep walking from one apartment block to another. My parents did really move after I left my hometown and I have been to the new place yet my subconscious doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. Perhaps that’s the quintessential immigrant experience: we work hard to fit in while some other parts of us slowly submerge only to haunt us from the backs of our consciousness.
Sails and Commas 