Customer Reviews

Red Blues: Voices from the Last Wave of Russian Immigrants (Ellis Island Series)

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Many of the experiences of the new Russian imigrants captured in this book read like short stories with a beginning, a middle, and a moral. Essentially all of the stories are compelling even when the character is not sympathetic. The human struggle to persevere in the modern world is no where better captured than in the experience of leaving everything you have ever known to start again in a new country. As these are contemporary stories, many resonate.

This book is a collection of interviews with recent Russian immigrants to the US. The authors have organized the book in sections according to the reason for migration or the immigrant's occupation in either the Soviet Union or the US, including Privilege Lost, God and Religious Dissent, Artists, Scientists and Engineers, Entrepreneurs, and the Gray Zone (sex industry workers). The very first interviewee, Georges Nakhitchevansky actually came to the US from France, but he provides a very insightful overview of the historical waves of Russian immigrants to the US, from the first refugees of the Bolshevik regime, to the Cold War immigrants, and the modern wave. He also notes how little communication or understanding there is between these groups once they arrive in the US. In the first few sections of the book, most of the focus is on the immigrants' motivation for leaving the Soviet Union, and there is relatively little reflection on life for Russians in the US. In later sections, however, a few interviewees make interesting observations about how life differs in the US and how they have had to struggle to survive here. One point mentioned over and again is how much harder people work at their jobs in America. On the other hand, some interviewees note that the average worker back home seems better educated and more capable than the average person here, yet we still seem to get more out of our workers here than they do in Russia. With its deeply personal interviews, this book shines a light on many aspects of the lives of recent Russian immigrants.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. Well written, well structured. Extremely moving.