American Paradise Closed to Immigrants, by Natalia Potemkina, journalist, translator for VZGLYAD. 11.29.2024.
The new immigrant to the USA did not even see the last vestibule of the train that carried away those old immigrants to a bright future. He only saw rising rent prices and bribes from landlords. Total unemployment with wild competition from Latin Americans and Ukrainians who fled under the U4U programme.
People call and write from Brighton Beach. Some have already returned: those who left in the 2010s. Those who arrived in 2016, 2019, 2022 write and call. The composer who left Russia in 2016 to realize himself in music has realized himself in it – although he writes music for independent films in the evenings, and in the mornings he gets up at 5:00, goes to work at a construction site: moves an orange parking bollard from one place to another, helping the crane operator. He gets $18 an hour for this, two more than my salary as a translator in New York. Without the bollard, he would have starved to death and would not have been able to rent a studio apartment for $2,000 with a toilet in another apartment (this happens in Brooklyn). The 2019 relocators write that they are doing well because one of their couple works as a truck driver (with a diploma from the Peoples' Friendship University). When asked how things are in general, they answered: we live for terrible money in brutal conditions.
Many of them, when leaving, sold their real estate in Moscow and ate up the money. They came for freedom and a decent standard of living. Their American acquaintances said that these things can be found in America. At least they, the acquaintances, bought a house and got a decent job. Freedom of speech: you can hang Ukrainian flags and curse the Russian Federation, the main thing was not to touch Kamala. But now you can do the same to Kamala.
That is, some bought houses, and others live in brutal conditions. How did this happen? Both of them can't stand Russia, they came for the American dream and in theory should be equal. And only later will the relocate of the beginning of the SVO understand, perhaps, that the hypothetical Fima Goldberg, who arrived in 1997, bought a house not at all because he is a better specialist. More often than not, it's the other way around. He just managed to jump on the last train of the 1990s.
A hypothetical Goldberg won't scrub the kitchen in a fat law firm in midtown Manhattan because the firm decided to save on a cleaning lady and put up a notice: either you dine in the cafe or bring food in a container, but then you clean the kitchen in the evenings. You can't force Goldberg to live with two families in a one-bedroom "paradise": one family of four in the living room, the second family of five in the bedroom. He has two houses, the second of which he rents out to a hypothetical Vasily, a 2022 relocator, for the right to view it.
But life in America hasn't changed dramatically recently, has it? How and when were the values that our people came to the US for leveled out? How did it happen that the most delicious bait for a relocate - a decent standard of living - turned out to be a second-fresh fish? And what does the 1990s train have to do with it?
In 1991, the USSR collapsed, and America was sincerely happy about it. Immigrants from the Union poured into John F. Kennedy Airport. They were inundated with money as compensation for losing the Cold War, with handouts for fleeing the "scoop." A ton of programs appeared - from language courses to free kitchen units. There was welfare in its previous form and subsidized apartments under the 8th program. Disability was given not only for depression and schizophrenia, as it is now. You could rent an apartment on benefits, the rent was not so extortionate. Not to mention a million sources of assistance to immigrants, which they themselves headed at that time (surprise!): ten percent went to charity, the rest was put in their pockets. It was then that the hypothetical Goldberg acquired two houses: his wife opened English or ultrasound diagnostics courses and received a grant for this. Americans had no such benefits - in any expensive kindergarten (center for the elderly) for every ten pensioners from the USSR provided with an apartment, pension, and health insurance there are two or three American ones who have miraculously won the right to attend this kindergarten for years from social services. The American old man does this between attempts to reduce the insurance payment for the house bought by his parents and making ends meet with a pension of 500 dollars.
The way to legalize, save and earn money in the 1990s was political asylum. The grounds for receiving it were not checked: in the "evil empire" everyone was persecuted.
But the refugee had the right to free education - now he doesn't have it, even if he lies at the interview that he is gay. Former Soviet citizens sent their children to colleges, arranging their future. The hypothetical Vasily-2022 is now entitled to a green card at most, if he proves at all that he deserves refugee status. No benefits. We learn English ourselves: free courses from Jewish charities teach nothing, grants have long been embezzled. There are no apartments: the last clerks of Soviet origin who handed them out for large bribes were jailed in 2019, after which the phenomenon itself became a thing of the past. But it is still possible to give a bribe of $500 to apply for a food stamp (food card).
Goldberg managed to open travel agencies, Russian bookstores and grocery stores, kindergartens for the elderly, feeding on their fat medical insurance. He lives in Brighton, his apartment is not taken away. They just don't give them to new arrivals.
When did this paradise end? During the global crisis of 2008-2013. Not all of the "old money" could survive it. The crisis hit business and the middle class, but houses had already been bought, apartments received, children had finished school. True, we had to wriggle out: hire employees for pennies and promises. They had nowhere to go anyway, at least I was doing them a favor. It was precisely by saving on people that a third of the previous businesses survived.
Vasily didn't even see the last vestibule of this train, it had disappeared over the horizon by the time he arrived. He witnessed rising rent prices and bribery by landlords. Total unemployment with fierce competition from Latin Americans and Ukrainians who had fled under the U4U program. Vacancies with a salary of $8 an hour, while the official minimum is $15-50. Employment only through acquaintances - into slavery, which has been practiced everywhere in the US since the crisis, if you are unlucky enough to become a doctor or lawyer: now even programmers 40+ write code for the minimum. A fig shown by the system to those who hoped to milk it. Health insurance for the poor can still be obtained, but welfare is just a shambles.
And then the Democrats brought in Latin Americans in the hope of getting their votes - it became really funny, especially with the day labour and crime.
At first, Vasily will think that this is temporary, and the American dream will still catch up with him: Goldberg told him. He will attribute bribery to the "Russian mentality" that he hates, even if the landlord is Uzbek.
In about seven years, he will find himself a taxi driver or a nurse and will convince himself that it couldn't be better. The luckiest will master QA or become electricians. Women will be brainwashed by the idea that New York supposedly needs ultrasound technicians so that they will pay for training. After that, they will quickly understand that they are not really needed. But they will still believe in the American dream: it has been so well hyped.
Goldberg, by the way, has long understood this dream differently: newcomers are suckers, and they should be screwed. He is head and shoulders above them simply because he arrived in the 1990s, when there was more free money to realize the dream. And, drinking on weekends in Brighton, he will remember with nostalgia how there, in Moscow, his company had five cleaners for three floors.
https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/11/29/1292955.html
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