Immigration Narrative Thickly Accented: the Unsaid Says More

BOSTON. In the theology of American consumerism, spa pampering and salon preening are rites of womanhood, privileges animated by Sex and the City characters. In these stylized depictions, impossibly perfect-looking and witty women chat freely and salaciously—confident that those who administer these rites usually don’t speak English.

In the mind of Maria, a Russian “nail technician and hair removal specialist,” privilege refers to her cubicle in the loft of a Newbury Street salon, where she answered questions during a brief lull in her beautification duties. Short and plump with Nordic features and a kind smile, she looks more like a suburban Betty than a fur-clad Comrade.
Maria, 53, arrived in the U.S from St. Petersburg, Russia (then the Soviet Union) in 1982. Soft-spoken Maria, whose last name is omitted at her request, has worked at Safar Coiffures for six years.

Her thick accent belies nearly three decades of Boston living, but broken English is common to the second story of Safar. On this floor, the middle-aged, immigrant females have formed a sort of workplace microcosm and Pidgin language. English is simply a tool of the trade, used to answer politely to the young American stylists and svelte Swiss cosmetologists who buzz about the floor below.
But Maria is not resentful of her station in the salon or in life as a foreign wageworker on the glitziest avenue of a wealthy city. “Land of work opportunity,” she rephrases, chuckling.

Maria claims that her immigration story “is so boring…so long ago.” Hers was a Cold War upbringing, but she has little to say about her political socialization in the Soviet Union.

“I just remember comparing [General Secretary] Leonid Brezhnev to Ronald Reagan and saying to myself ‘Americans pick better-looking presidents’,” she recalls, laughing.

Maria is not a naturalized citizen of the U.S, but holds a Green Card as a legal permanent resident. She and her husband, also from St. Petersburg, initially entered the U.S on non-immigrant (temporary) work visas and eventually gained LPR status.

She doesn’t remember the specifics of U.S immigration policy at the time of her arrival, only that it was a worn path and not troublesome.
“My husband had family who came to Boston, not New York. Too crowded,” she remembers. According to New York City’s 1980 census information, available at nyc.gov, foreign-born residents accounted for 1.6 million of a 7 million total population constituted largely by second and third generation emigres.

“They said we could come here and get jobs, and one day do paperwork to stay,” states Maria, matter-of-factly.

“I think illegals should try and do the papers, but I think now the times are different and it’s not so easy,” she offers. And Maria says she sees no parallels between the Anti-Communist policies of her time and U.S anti-terror measures following 9/11.

These security policies not only energized the vetting process for certain would-be immigrants, as with the Airport and Transportation Security Acts of 2001, but restricted the movement and breached privacy through authorized wire-tapping, property seizure and vague investigative procedures. Most of these security directives affected Muslims, exclusively.

Arriving in the U.S during the denouement decade of the Cold War, Maria came with no political baggage and a simple, satisfactory story for immigration officials. “We just told them we hated Communism and wanted work,” she shrugs.

Furthermore, Maria explains that she is unsurprised by the blameful tone of immigration dialogue since the economy’s downturn:
“It is true that immigrants take jobs that nobody wants, but no one notices until they are desperate and need them, and then they call them job-stealers and—what is it—slugs? Leeches.”

Maria does not consider immigration a right, but a matter of access. Largely disinterested in policy particulars or the competing calls for liberalization and restrictive policy, she blankets her thoughts on immigration and life thereafter with a single principle:

“If you are not born here, you don’t have any rights to this place…if you want to come here and you want those rights, maybe you have to deal with things that are not comfortable for you,” she concludes, wagging some instrument used for hair waxing and casting a glance towards the clock.

Maria recalls observing the U.S-led boycott of the 1982 summer olympics, to be held in the Soviet Union, in her last years as a Soviet citizen. President Jimmy Carter recruited 57 other countries in the protest of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

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~ by thedailydrawl on October 19, 2009.