Social Attitudes of Recent Russian Immigrants

A detailed Summary of Social Attitudes of Recent Russian Immigrants

Social Attitudes of Recent Russian Immigrants

This paper is concerned with social attitudes of the recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the United States. They come in large numbers from a society, which is very different from American, and the process of "blending into" new system is extremely complicated and even painful for them. Interestingly enough, Russian immigrants in general manage to assimilate very well and it is considered to be "the most successful immigrant group in a nation of immigrants" (Barry V. Johnston, p.72). I am particularly interested in this topic because Russian immigrants are in a transition between two very dissimilar ideological and social systems. At the same time it has a specific significance for me because almost four years ago my family moved to America from Moscow as refugees. I would like to apply the order theory of assimilation processes in this paper since this theory fits perfectly to my personal experiences and the experiences of my family in this country.

After a long and scrupulous research I have decided to use two journal articles, which give excellent information on the type of Russian community in Los Angeles and social attitudes of Russian immigrants in the US in

Tatiana's response for the issue of homosexuals was that "I do not really care as long they keep their business to themselves. West Hollywood is famous for its gay population, the have been here forever, so, it is none of my business to judge them". Natasha said that she does not mind gays at all, because "they are cute and funny". She has gay friends herself. Although both Tatiana and Natasha showed tolerance toward homosexuals, Tatiana's views are more conservative than Natasha's. It is understandable because in the Soviet Union homosexuals were considered to be criminals with psychological problems. For many decades, suppression of gays prospered and the strong public opinion was only against them. On the other hand, Natasha, who came to the US as a child and has not been really exposed to Soviet propaganda, is much more liberal in her views; more "Americanized" comparing to Tatiana, because of her longer stay in US from her early age.

The results of the whole research suggest that assimilation is associated with changes in immigrants' social attitudes. Each of these attitudes changed to a different degree in a foreign environment". I would like to add that applying the order theory of assimilation toward recent Russian immigrants was amazing because it totally made sense. It was like playing "Tetris" where everything fits perfectly in order to fill the blank spaces.

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Approximate Word count = 937
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History