Russian in the United States

(Kagan and Dillon)

Emma Raykhman

Introduction: Statistics

Russian is number 8 among the most commonly spoken non-English languages in the USA.

According to the 2007 American Community Survey there were 851,174 home speakers of Russian that yr.

From 1990-2000, the number of Russian speakers increased by 191 percent (greatest increase of all languages in Census)

Statistics (continued)

Immigration to the US was especially prevalent from 1988-1984 when more than 300,000 immigrants arrived from the former Soviet Union

80 percent of these immigrants were Jewish (US Department of Justice)

More relaxed emigration policies in the former Soviet Union and the USA’s acceptance of refugees led to these increases

History: Russian language

Russian belongs to the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and is an East Slavic language (along with Belarusian an Ukrainian)

It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken out of all Slavic languages

It was the state language of the Russian Empire (1721) and USSR (1924-1991) and for this reason is spoken in 15 areas that are different ethnically, culturally, and linguistically

Russian is also one of the official languages of the UN

History: Immigration

The first documented Russian settlement in the US was on the Aleutian island Kodiak in Alaska in 1784

The Russian settlers were motivated by profit and most were employees of the Russian-American company and were traders or fur hunters

Czar Alexander II sold Alaska to the US in 1867 and afterwards most Russians returned to their homelands but many Aleuts and Eskimos converted to Russian Orthodoxy

Also many Russian Orthodox “Old Believers” who emigrated from the USSR have their own villages in Alaska today

In 1882 there were 16,918 Russian-speaking residents in the US and by 1899 there were 387,416

This was the highest total for any yr in the 19th century

Shortages of farmland forced farmers and peasants to leave the Russian Empire and over many decades hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and Poles emigrated and arrived at Ellis Island in the US.

The imperial Russian government didn’t allow ethnic Russians to emigrate (the 1919 Census identifies less than 60,000 in the USA)

Also many Jews fled the Russian Empire near the turn of the 20th century because of anti-Semitism that turned into pogroms, or violent acts directed at them

What is known as “the first wave of Russian immigration to the US in the 20th century” occurred between 1917-22 during the communist revolution

Around 1 million Russians (most of whom had struggled against the Bolsheviks), fled the country and many came to the US

According to the 1920 US Census there were 392,049 Russian-born US citizens (just 10 yrs earlier there were 57,926)

Most of these Russians were members of the aristocracy and intelligentsia

In the 1930s and 40’s immigration from the Soviet Union slowed down b/c of restrictions imposed by Stalin’s government (only about 14,016 immigrants from 1930-44)

Then the 2nd wave of immigration occurred after WWII and many of these people were brought out of the USSR by the German army as forced labor or were POWs and refused to return to their homeland

The 3rd wave began in the early 1970s when Soviet Jews who were considered political refugees, received almost unlimited immigration by US authorities who pressed the Soviet government to release them

The 4th wave began in 1987 when President Gorbachev announced that victims of religious persecution could leave for the first time in 70 yrs

This allowed many Soviet Jews to leave who couldn’t before; they got visas and many emigrated to Israel and the USA

Estimates say that in 1990 one-quarter million Soviet Jews were living in the US

Some of the immigrants in the 3rd and 4th waves began in unskilled jobs b/c of limited English skills, but most of them acclimated well to the US lifestyle and found good jobs. The majority were educated and had studied some English.

Demographics

According to the 2000 Census, almost 3 million US residents said they have Russian ancestry (this includes all waves of immigration, from early to late)

In this Census, citizens of the former Soviet Union were asked about their ethnicity and people who defined themselves as “Russians” made up 49%, while those who defined themselves as Russian and another ethnicity made up 51%.

Also Jews form 80% of immigration from the USSR because of the prevalent anti-Semitism

Table 11.1 Russian ethnicity and language

Home language Claim Russian ethnicity Claim Russian + other ethnicity

Russian 71.8% 0.5%

(278,424,674) (7,571)

No Russian 28.2% 99.5%

(338,663) (1,381,793)

Total 100% 100%(278,763,337 ) (1,389,364)

This table shows that claiming Russian ethnicity isn’t the same as being a speaker of Russian. It is noted that almost 100% of of those who don’t speak Russian and about 1/3 of those US residents who claim only Russian ancestry don’t speak the language or don’t speak it at home.

Table 11.2 States with the largest Russian-speaking populations

Ages 5+ Percentage of all US Russian Speakers

New York 232,434 27.94

California 147,312 17.71

New Jersey 45,783 5.50

Washington 44,629 5.36

Pennsylvania 34,887 4.19

Massachusetts 34,869 4.19

Illinois 34,700 4.17

Florida 34,087 4.09

Maryland 21,200 2.54

Oregon 17,581 2.11

Total in USA 851,174

Table 11.3 Increase in Russian-speaking population by US state

State 1990 2000 Percentage change

New York 73,822 212,913 288

California 49,582 116,609 235

Pennsylvania 11,538 39,483 342

Illinois 15,075 37,490 249

New Jersey 18,707 36,354 194

Massachusetts 10,907 32,474 298

According to table 11.3 there has been a huge increase in the Russian population in many states, with the greatest concentration in the Eastern and Western states which is usually true with US immigrant populations.

NY and LA are home to the greatest concentrations of Russian speakers and in all states concentrations of Russian speakers are found in urban centers

This is b/c the majority of Russian immigrants came from urban centers so they settled in the large US cities and in the USSR urban life had a strong appeal

Socioeconomic and educational status

According to the 2000 Census, Russian speakers are generally well-educated with 51% having at least the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree and 92% having at least a high school diploma

Also 75% of Russian speakers over the age of 5 report speaking English “well” or “very well”

All Russian speakers independent of ethnicity or language are more likely to have jobs requiring a higher level of education when compared to the general US population

Among Russian speaking immigrants, 18% are in management and 36% are in professional occupations (compared to 13% and 20% of the general population)

They’re also less likely to be in construction and production (5% and 7% vs. 10% and 15% in the whole US)

Russian speakers in the US tend to work in the for-profit sector of the economy and only 10% are self employed

Public presence of Russian

In many US cities especially NY and LA there are Russian immigrant communities that preserve elements of Russian everyday life and culture

But the most prominent public face of Russian in the USA is within academia such as media, business, and education

Media

The 1st Russian-language newspaper in the US was published from 1868-71 and was called Svoboda (Freedom)

It was a bilingual, semi-monthly periodical known in English as the Alaska Herald

Today, Russian-language print and media resources are easy to find; magazines are available by subscription and in Russian bookstores and grocery stores

The newspaper that has served the Russian community in the US the longest is Novoe russkoe slovo (The New Russian Word), which has been published since 1910.

These newspapers are published in US cities with high Russian populations

There is also Russian-language radio that broadcasts from Russia and locally, and Russian television networks which broadcast around the world

Business

There are Russian-oriented small businesses like grocery stores, bookstores and beauty salons in areas with large populations of Russian speakers

In large cities there are medical offices that advertise that the doctor or staff speak Russian and there are Russian-American Medical and Dental Associations (RAMA, RADA) that hold annual meetings

Also Russian business associations have been established

Education

In terms of its difficulty, Russian is classified as a Level III language in terms of difficulty for native English speakers

This was decided based on the number of hrs of study that are required for English speakers to reach a certain degree of proficiency

Level I: Spanish and French, Level II: German, Level III: Russian, Level IV: Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Japanese

Before the 1960s, Russian wasn’t widely taught in the US. Before WWII, only 19 US universities offered Russian courses

B/c of the US-Soviet alliance during WWII, Russian teaching expanded and by 1946, 190 academic institutions offered Russian

In 1957 when the USSR launched the 1st Sputnik, the US gov. passed the National Defense Education Act to improve science instruction and promote the study of Russian.

The consequence was the establishment of many new departments of Russian at universities

From 1958-69, enrollment in college Russian courses doubled

Another growth spurt was in the 1980s when Gorbachev promised reform and democratization and that yr about 24,000 students were studying Russian at the college level.

By 1990 that number reached 44,000

As the US no longer perceived the USSR as a threat to security or an economic competitor, enrollments slowly decreased again: shows the relationship b/w politics and language

In the past few yrs, Russian has been an economic and political force and b/c of this change there is once again motivation to study Russian as a foreign or heritage language

Russian also is in the top tier of strategic languages for the US gov.

Unlike some other languages like Chinese that have a system of community/church schools that preserve immigrant children’s culture and language, there are few Russian schools like this.

B/c of increased immigration from the USSR, in the 1980s a lot of heritage learners began to appear in college Russian classes

The levels of competence in Russian of children of the 3rd and 4th waves of immigration depends on the amt. of education they received prior to immigration

Russian heritage language learners can be divided into 4 groups according to their age at time of emigration, linguistic biographies, and their resulting language competence

Table 11.4 Groups of heritage Russian-language learners

Group 1 Education: Graduated or almost graduated from high school in Russia or a former Soviet republic

Russian proficiency: Fully developed grammatical system, native range of vocab., full understanding of and connection to Russian culture

Group 2 Education: Attended school in the USSR for 5-7 yrs and thus experienced an interruption in Russian-language development in adolescence

Russian proficiency: Strong knowledge of Russian grammatical system but w/o the same range of vocab. or register as educated native speakers.

Table 11.4 Continued

Group 3 Education: Attended elementary school in the USSR

Russian proficiency: Have some Russian literacy but their language development was interrupted at an early age (7-9) so range of vocab. is limited. When they take Russian classes, they often recover some of the “lost” language

Group 4 Education: Emigrated as pre-schoolers or were born in the USA to Russian-speaking parents and have been educated primarily or solely in English

Russian proficiency: Never use Russian outside of home so vocab. is limited to home sphere; typically don’t have a strong control of Russian grammar. Reanalyze their language at a later age to arrive at a diff. grammatical system

By the late 1990s b/c of the understanding that heritage learners’ instructional needs really differed from foreign language learners, some colleges began offering special courses for these students.

Many descendants of Russian immigrants choose to enroll in these heritage speaker courses and surveys are being done to discover the main reason why

The most common motivating factor cited by 90% of respondents was the desire to communicate better with their families in the USA.

A third are also motivated by plans to travel to the former Soviet Union

Only 14% of the respondents indicate their motivation as “b/c it is easy for me”, contrary to the idea held by Russian instructors that heritage speakers hope to get an “easy A”

3 major professional organizations serve the needs of researches, teachers and students in the Russian field: the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (founded in 1941), the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (1948), and the American Council of Teachers of Russian (1974) which expanded its focus to become American Councils for International Education in 1987

Evidence of language shift to English and of Russian maintenance

Shift to English has been rapid among Russian speaking immigrants in the US; in many cases Russian is used primarily at home

The majority of Russian-speaking immigrants don’t live in an ethnic community and tend to disperse quickly into the general population that speaks English

An explanation for why this occurs is b/c the USSR was a vast empire that united diverse populations by political means and once these political restraints were lifted, unification disappeared

Another factor that contributes to the lack of ethnic neighborhoods is the Russian culture’s attitude towards socializing and friendship

Russians have very close friendships but usually they don’t socialize with people outside their own close circle so they wouldn’t be likely to live in huge communities.

Russian speakers in the USA have also introduced English language features into their Russian

This is due to sociopolitical reasons and the fact that Russian speakers had to find a way to express ideas that did not exist in Soviet society or language.

For example, for the 3rd wave of Russian immigrants (1970-90), they moved from a state-controlled economy to a market economy so for words like mortgage that didn’t exist in Russian, they would either pronounce it as in English or Russianize it phonetically and morphologically (morgidz)

Also for Russian speakers in the US, semantic extensions are common like using the Russian word for K-12 school, skola, to refer to college and even grad school.

There are many attitudes towards the preservation of Russian in the US; at one end are those who insist on the preservation of “pure” Russian and on the other are the majority of speakers who incorporate some English into their speech, especially words and expressions that don’t exist in Russian or would require lengthy explanation.

Some immigrants or heritage speakers use code-switching and semantic expressions to such a degree that other speakers find it hard to understand them, so the impact of the dominant English on Russian proficiency of heritage students is similar to most languages

Signs of shift

Immigrant Russian children usually speak Russian almost exclusively until they start school at the age of 5, when they begin to switch to the dominant English.

Then after the age of 18, almost 50% reported exclusive use of English and very few reported use of Russian exclusively, which shows the shift away from Russian to English

Signs of maintenance

The biggest indication of the motivation to preserve and advance Russian-language proficiency in the immigrant population is the heritage learner phenomenon and the growing number of these students at the college level

In 2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a new organization called Fond Russkij Mir (The Russian World Foundation). The main purpose is to promote and support the study of the Russian language and culture abroad.

Also a goal is to help Russian speakers abroad maintain their language proficiency so the program is aimed at Russian heritage speakers worldwide

Conclusions

The 1st wave of 20th century Russian immigrants preserved Russian better than the other waves b/c only the 1st wave left Russia fully intending to return

College students who grew up in Russian-speaking families are well disposed to preserving the language and most want to teach Russian to their children

Researchers think that it is unlikely that the Russian language will survive beyond the 2nd generation in the US. The dominance of English throughout the world and challenges to bilingualism in the US educational system will likely overpower the good intentions of a small number of families and people who think they can preserve their home language and culture