My Boyfriend's Family's Immigrant Experience

     My boyfriend Sam was born in the United States but his parents and older siblings were all born in Russia and practiced Judaism. Bukharians, as they call themselves, were discriminated against in Russia because the mainstream religion there was Christianity. Anyone who did not practice Judaism was treated poorly, especially after the Soviet Union's collapse. Angela, my boyfriend's mother and Avrahm, my boyfriend's father told me stories about how the Christians would come to the Jewish communities and trash them by breaking the windows of small businesses in the area and even trashing the outside of some residential homes. His sisters Esther and Yaffa told me stories of how they would get bullied in elementary school because they were Jewish and dressed differently than their Christian classmates. 

    Soon the violence and the harassment got too much for the Jewish community in Russia and many of them began to leave and head west. Angela and Avrahm felt that they had a better chance of giving their children a more comfortable life in the United States so they got on a plane and headed here in 1992. They had so many doubts and worries about coming here--at the time Russia was making it difficult for anyone to come in and/or out of the country, especially if you were Jewish. Secondly, it meant leaving all their family and friends behind and moving to a completely new place where they did not know the language. Nevertheless they took the risk.

    Life was very hard for them at first. In Russia they both worked well paying jobs and were able to live a comfortable life, owning property and such. Angela was a school teacher and Avrahm was some kind of laborer. However, when they got to the United States and could not speak much English they had to work horrible jobs for such low wages; Angela cleaned houses for a living and Avrahm made deliveries for a restaurant on a bicycle. Little by little their English got better and they saved their money. Eventually they were able to buy an apartment in Queens, New York. This apartment was the first thing in their name and is Avrahms greatest accomplishment to this day he says. No matter what, he never wants to give it up and wants it to remain in the family. He is very proud of the fact that he came to this country with absolutely nothing and was able to make something of himself and give his children a place to finally live comfortably. 

    When I first started dating Sam, he kept from me the fact that he was Jewish and I could never understand why. He had explained to me that he was raised to never make it obvious that he is Jewish, especially to a person that isn't Jewish themself. Up until now, I've always thought that that was an excuse he made. However, after hearing the stories of how his family was literally chased out of their home country where they had already built a life for themselves just because of their religion, and having to start over brand new in a completely different place, I empathize with and understand why his parents would raise him that way. They never want him to experience the brutal prejudice that they had to endure and want to protect him like any other parent would. 

    I know that this semester one of the ideas we touch upon was how immigrants assimilate into "American" culture and whether or not that means forgetting the culture of where they originally came from. In the case of Sam's family I feel like moving to the U.S gave them the religious freedom they needed to fully embrace their culture. For example, they still primarily speak Russian and are still extremely religious--they observe the Sabbath every single Saturday to its most extreme rules of not operating motor vehicles or touching anything electric (AC's, refrigerators, light switches, etc). This strong religious upbringing is something that I think will be kept for generations to come. I say this because Sam is religious even when he is not around his parents. When we went on vacation together he still brought his prayer books and his other praying materials and prayed every single morning and night and even kept the Sabbath the same way he would at home. Sam is religious because he wants to be, not because his parents force him. I think this is an important point because if his parents had stayed in Russia then the persecution might have gotten worse and made him grow up feeling more ashamed about his religion than he is now, or maybe it would've made him less religious all together since they would've had to practice Judaism in secret. Migrating to the United States gave Sam and his family the best of both worlds--a comfortable life and religious freedom.