You know what annoys me? OK, yes, many things. One of such things is being constantly asked to teach Russian, organize a Russian Club, or start a Department of Russian at our university. I keep explaining to people that I’m a Hispanist but they remain stuck on this Russian obsession.
The only engagement with Russian that I speak it. If you think that this must qualify me to do any of the things I listed here, you must probably believe that every single English-speaker you have met is prepared to start English Departments at universities.
I read a lot less in Russian than I do in Spanish and English. I have very little interest in the Russian-speaking culture (or what’s left of it.) As for the language, I’m completely unfamiliar with the grammar, so teaching is out of the question. It just annoys me that while nobody would consider that the profession of an English-speaking mathematician or biologist is interchangeable with that of a teacher of English, it isn’t as easy to convince people that a Russian-speaking Hispanist is still a Hispanist.
Another thing that gets to me (I said there were many, didn’t I?) is the endless questioning about when I plan to travel to Ukraine. People seem to be convinced that all immigrants experience a profound need to visit on a regular basis the countries they emigrated from. I’m in no way being critical of immigrants who do go back regularly but I’m not one of them. I didn’t leave Ukraine because I couldn’t make a living there or experienced bad economic conditions. I wasn’t escaping from an oppressive political system. None of that was true for me.
I left because I disliked living in the place intensely. So why would I want to go back? I haven’t been back once since I left almost 14 years ago and I’m definitely not planning on going. I know what would happen if I went. People would be extremely mean to me, I’d be exposed to the level of aggression that I don’t know how to deal with any more, I’d rediscover how alien I am to the culture where I grew up and how obnoxious the reigning materialism and cynicism are. Yeah, that would be one lousy trip.
I guess it would help if people realized that some immigrants are not forced to leave their countries of origin but choose to do so because they dislike their cultures and really admire and love the culture of the country where they move. Seriously, what are the chances that you would accidentally be born into the culture that suits you best? I wasn’t lucky in that respect, so I made an effort to correct the situation.
Clarissa's Blog 
I agree with your sentiments exactly. Russia under Putin is in decline morally, culturally and economically. Ukraine is showing dangerous tendencies towards outright, murderous dictatorship. In contrast, South America is advancing in all dimensions towards freedom and wealth. You are very wise to go with the comparative advantage and not to lock yourself into long-past geographical and language links.
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” Russia under Putin is in decline morally, culturally and economically. Ukraine is showing dangerous tendencies towards outright, murderous dictatorship.”
– This is 100% true. What is really sad, though, is that most people there want precisely this kind of existence. Well, that’s their right, I guess.
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If your University wants you to teach Russian tell them to hire a TT professor in Russian.
You know I will be teaching French 101 next semester, right? I have never never ever wanted to teach my first language but for the first time in my life I feel like I may contribute to the development of the French section of my department. This will be quite a challenge, however.
My point is: if one day you feel like you want to teach Russian language or literature go for it. Although I cannot judge your skills, I suspect that you are being modest about your supposed lack of knowledge of Russian grammar and culture. Your post on Russia are my favourites!
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I take it you have no family there you care to see in person. You mention your sister but she lives in Canada.
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I have relatives in Ukraine who have robbed us and destroyed our family heirlooms because they feel like anything could be done to people who emigrated.
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Welcome to Anglophonia, where the only “real” language is English, and all other languages are special skills that only smart people can conquer, so of course anyone who speaks something like Russian can just jump right into being an expert teacher of said language.
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Actually, there is the same problem with English, just not so much in the U.S.. English speakers in non-English speaking countries are often viewed as potential English teachers, regardless of their teaching ability, experience, or area of expertise.
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This is precisely the attitude that led an administrator I’ve met say, “Who needs to waste money on a TT person to teach Arabic when we can go outside, catch an Arab, and get him to teach the language for $7.50 an hour?” Years after I heard this, my blood pressure still goes up whenever I remember this horrible event.
After that, it was suggested that we go “catch a Chinese person” to teach Chinese.
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Horrible, but unfortunately not surprising–this is an all too common attitude towards “critical” languages in the US, which also helps explain why few people ever learn them.
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This is an example of the of Supply and Demand, there’s not much supply and there is a (somewhat) demand, so the price (qualification) decreases…
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This is an example of the law of Supply and Demand, there’s not much supply and there is a (somewhat) demand, so the price (qualification) decreases…
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One can take this to a totally new and disturbing level…
When I was still a postdoc, we had an African-American professor of some kind of engineering. He complained that due to the absence of any other African-American professors, he was asked to start the African-American studies program.
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You see? Horrible!
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Maybe I could start an Anarchist Studies departement some day… 😉
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Why not? This is an area drowning in general ignorance.
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“People seem to be convinced that all immigrants experience a profound need to visit on a regular basis the countries they emigrated from. I’m in no way being critical of immigrants who do go back regularly but I’m not one of them.”
That’s interesting. I got the impression that sometimes there is (was?) more frequently the reverse narrative — that immigrants (especially war refugees, those from particularly economically deprived places etc.) fleeing hardship, persecution etc. don’t want to go back even if things got better over there, they want to put down roots and never go back to the traumatic place. So, thus surprise at the reverse — “oh, you’re actually going back?”
It seems also there can be some surprise by immigrant parents towards their kids or grandkids who take interest in “going back in search of their roots”, because the immigrants themselves think “we fled this awful place, why would anyone want to return” but the place may be different and more attractive to tourists/those seeking to reconnect with “roots” etc. now than in the past.
“I guess it would help if people realized that some immigrants are not forced to leave their countries of origin but choose to do so because they dislike their cultures and really admire and love the culture of the country where they move.”
I find that interesting in that the latter’s part of the “American dream” narrative you see a lot of the time portrayed in for instance, the Ellis Island era, that immigrants were glad to get off the boat, shed the old country baggage behind, anglicize their name, become proud New Yorkers etc. Did that narrative get sidelined or something?
The “forced to leave countries of origin, and are desperate to return” actually seems less of a trope for emigration to the US to me, but maybe that’s just my perception. I always thought the US had much more of a narrative of “people moved to us voluntarily because they wanted to join us” for most immigrant or ethnic groups crossing the ocean (setting aside the one stark contrast — the involuntary arrival of African Americans).
The old school idea of “diaspora” (as opposed to migration in general or immigrant) indeed seemed to focus far more on involuntary migrants (e.g. originally the Jewish diaspora was the archetype, scattered among nations, then the term was applied to other involuntary ones like the African diaspora due to the trans-Atlantic slave trade).
Diasporas loved their “homeland from afar” and wished to return but were prevented from doing so — sometimes the “return” is more symbolic than literal like in some cases the “back-to-Africa” movement. (But it seems now and in this generation, diaspora and immigrant are used pretty interchangeably so you could speak of Indian immigrants in Naperville who can fly back to see family every year as part of a diaspora or diaspora kids). The word “diaspora” no longer evokes as strongly involuntary Babylonian exile-like or Exodus-like scenarios.
Perhaps this generation, even native-born Americans, are pretty used to having friends who chat with family overseas or pre-Covid, took regular trips abroad (posting images of the old country on social media with talk and hashtags about being “back in the motherland” etc). Also, this generation is probably more used to international news and a more globalized world (e.g. they can see what people are saying about K-pop or Eurovision etc. with the click of a mouse) as opposed to no communication with those on the other shores once your family leaves the harbor. With this perception, maybe the “why don’t you go back, it’s so easy, book a flight” might make more sense than in a world where foreign travel was hard and the limit was often the means, not the will to make the move back.
Actually come to think of it I’ve noticed this more recent trope too for immigrants (even kids of immigrants) to be asked that if their home country is “better now”, why don’t they go back (e.g. your family left Korea or Poland of whatever when it was poor in the 60s, 70s, 80s, but now it’s a thriving country etc. why don’t you return to reconnect with their roots. It even happens with say Chinese-Americans getting questioned if they’ll take advantage of China’s “rise” to “return” for economic gain).
But, even if your “old country is better now” (for whatever definition of better — economic, political etc.), that doesn’t mean you would, after already having made it elsewhere and put down roots firmly in the place you decide is home, pack up and then say “well, the reason we left the old country is solved now, let’s go back to the old country now!”.
It’d be like saying (maybe with some hyperbole) to a Mayflower-descendant American, “well, your old family back in the day fled England because they didn’t have freedom to practice their religion”, but now England won’t persecute you if you go back, so why not hop on the next flight and you’ll be back in East Anglia, after all, aren’t you proud of your roots? Or pressure a German-American Midwesterner whose forebears assimilated and lost their German culture after social pressure in WWI, “well, the stigma against Germans are gone, why not go back and pick up what you lost, are you ashamed of your roots”. Most people would laugh at my last two examples, people are obviously not obliged to do these things, but why should more recent immigrants be obliged to hang on and not be allowed to let go in this way.
I know of course it was bad to pressure and shame people to letting go of their old culture in many times through history (e.g. forced assimilation), but the pressuring and shaming people of into not letting go is just the flip side of the coin, not particularly good either. Whatever.
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Absolutely true that the question of why don’t you move back to your country keeps cropping up more and more often. Especially from the young people. They’ve been sold the narrative that swapping countries is easy and fun and they don’t even begin to imagine how difficult it is even in the best of cases.
Strangely, these are the same people who easily recognize that moving house or getting divorced is a huge trauma. As if divorcing one person were harder than divorcing every single person you’ve ever known.
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“Absolutely true that the question of why don’t you move back to your country keeps cropping up more and more often.”
Funny, the “why don’t you go back to your country” question is seen as quite negative and understandably gets lots of backlash if coded in a conservative way (e.g. if you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave). But not as much if framed in a liberal, “multicultural” way (e.g. why don’t you go back to reconnect with your wonderful roots?).
I’m indeed curious as to how kids these days like the ones you mention (which I presume if, are college students, tend to be quite sensitive to accusations of “othering”, microaggressions etc.), if they do ever try to balance the perceived offense of telling someone “to go back to where they came from” to the perceived openness or “progressiveness” of telling them to, well “go back to where they came from”… just in a different way.
They’re told conflicting things about not assuming things about people’s looks, accents, the rudeness of “where are you really from” but at the same time told to elevate differences and celebrate “distinctiveness” and point it out which naturally lends itself to constant re-emphasizing “origins” and reconnecting with such origins, and having such origins constantly frame one’s life, rather than current individual agency and choice in doing things not contrained by what your ancestors/forebears were.
“Strangely, these are the same people who easily recognize that moving house or getting divorced is a huge trauma. As if divorcing one person were harder than divorcing every single person you’ve ever known.”
Telling an immigrant who left voluntarily that “you should go back, now that things are better in your old country” reminds me too uncomfortably of telling someone long after a breakup or divorce “why don’t you go back to him, he’s improved and a much better person now. He’ll gladly have you back!”.
Even if it were true that the person/place has changed and would gladly have you back… well, you know.
It doesn’t need to be said, that this would be an awkward conversation, right?
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Gosh, it’s so true. I’m tired of constantly explaining why I never went back to my country of origin after emigration. Or why I don’t know or seek out any other Ukrainian immigrants in the area. Or why I’m not teaching Russian to my kid. I don’t even have an answer other that I’m just not very interested. I left. It’s done. I’ve moved on.
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