For Those About to Vote I Salute You

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May 112012
 
For Those About to Vote I Salute You

This weekend I’ll cast my first vote in an American election—the “May 15, 2012 Primary Election.”* It’s a big deal. Everyone remembers pivotal moments of their life: Slovaks where they were when Czechoslovakia ceased to exist and independent Slovakia came into existence; (East) Germans when the Wall came down; Americans where they were when the planes hit the Towers. I remember the exact moment I decided to apply for U.S. citizenship and be a part of this nation: on the evening of November 4th, 2008, as I watched Barack Obama [...] Continue reading >

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How Thinking in Another Language Improves Your Decision-Making

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Apr 272012
 
How Thinking in Another Language Improves Your Decision-Making

The title of the recent study, published in the journal Psychological Science summarizes why mastering foreign languages is good for you and the world: "The Foreign-Language Effect: Thinking in a Foreign Tongue Reduces Decision Biases." Only the abstract is accessible as of now, but even that reveals plenty (emphasis mine): Using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases. Four experiments show that the framing effect disappears when choices are presented in a foreign tongue. Whereas people were risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses when choices were presented in their native tongue, they were not [...] Continue reading >

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How Migration Affects Your Vote in Your Home Country

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Mar 052012
 
How Migration Affects Your Vote in Your Home Country

Civic limbo is an extreme case of the migration experience. Only a small fraction of Central European nationals vote from abroad and their share in electoral turnouts, and hence the impact on electoral outcomes in their home countries, is even smaller. If their votes carried greater influence, however, elections across Central Europe would turn out quite differently. That is a conclusion of a 2006 paper by Jan Fidrmuc and Orla Doyle, who examined the effect of migration on voting behavior. Migrants encounter different cultural and social norms in their host countries. The exposure [...] Continue reading >

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Speaking of Home and Homeland

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Feb 252012
 
Speaking of Home and Homeland

When we are home, we don’t need to talk about it. To feel at home is to know that things are in their places and so are you; it is a state of mind that doesn’t depend on an actual location. The object of [nostalgic] longing, then, is not really a place called home but this sense of intimacy with the world; it is not the past in general, but that imaginary moment when we had time and didn’t know the temptation of nostalgia. When we start speaking of [...] Continue reading >

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Surviving the Civic Limbo

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Feb 212012
 
Surviving the Civic Limbo

The upcoming early parliamentary election in Slovakia reminded me of a different sort of neither-here-nor-there handicap new immigrants experience: I call it the civic limbo. Until mid-2000′s you had to be present on the territory of Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to vote.* If you had moved to the United States, you were unable to vote in your old country’s elections and, as a non-citizen, not yet allowed to vote in your new one’s. You were left out of the democratic process anywhere. True enough, to the extent [...] Continue reading >

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Accents in Both Languages

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Feb 112012
 
Accents in Both Languages

There are many nostalgic objects on immigrant bookshelves, and still the narrative as a whole is not that of nostalgia. Diasporic souvenirs do not reconstruct the narrative of one’s roots but rather tell the story of exile. They are not symbols but transitional objects that reflect multiple belonging. The former country of origin turns into an exotic place represented through its arts and crafts usually admired by foreign tourists. Newly collected memories of exile and acculturation shift the old cultural frameworks; [diasporic] souvenirs can no longer be interpreted within [...] Continue reading >

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The Edges of Old New Year With Chervona

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Jan 162012
 
The Edges of Old New Year With Chervona

In a happy coincidence, Friday the 13th was also Orthodox New Year’s Eve, and if the party Chervona threw at Dante’s is any indication, 2012 will be awesome. A few recollections from the night linger through the night’s haze. The Show Before the Show I call it Old New Year at Soup-n-Vodka Kitchen: a small pre-party with kapustnica, vodka, and cheap beer. The warm-up works so well I forget about the clock and don’t want to go anywhere. Still giggling at the detour sign a few blocks back that said "MORISON  BR  EAST  DETOUR", I [...] Continue reading >

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To See and Feel America

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Jan 142012
 
To See and Feel America

To see and feel America, you have to have had for at least one moment in some downtown jungle, in the Painted Desert, or on some bend in a freeway, the feeling that Europe had disappeared. You have to have wondered, at least for a brief moment, ‘How can anyone be European?’ —Jean Baudrillard in “America”

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Take Comfort, Immigrant, Your Experience Makes You More Creative

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Jan 112012
 
Take Comfort, Immigrant, Your Experience Makes You More Creative

Two of the defining features of immigration  are the crossing of the language gap and the multicultural experience, both which can often be tough to navigate. You find yourself cherishing every little cause for relief or consolation you can find, so this can help: the multi-language and multicultural experience immigration entails helps boost your creativity.  Exhibit #1: Psychologists Charlan Nemeth and Julianne Kwan discovered that bilinguists are more creative than monolinguists—perhaps because they have to get used to the proposition that things can be viewed in several different ways. —Eli [...] Continue reading >

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The NHL Winter Classic and the Invention of Tradition

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Jan 022012
 
The NHL Winter Classic and the Invention of Tradition

Inventing traditions is part and parcel of American culture, indeed a tradition in itself. Today’s exhibit: the NHL Winter Classic, the one and only outdoor game on the league’s schedule played on New Year’s Day (or the next day if the year’s first day falls on a Sunday). Traditions, as Eric Hobsbawm has shown in “The Invention of Tradition”, are cultural constructs. Underlining the strong commercial undercurrent of American culture, the motive for the NHL Winter Classic was business: the event originated at NBC Sports in an effort to boost the sport’s [...] Continue reading >

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Merry Christmas!

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Dec 242011
 
Merry Christmas!
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Give the Gift of Creative Expression or Livelihood

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Dec 152011
 
Give the Gift of Creative Expression or Livelihood

Over the past few years, Americans have had (the increasingly fashionable) option to give charitable Christmas gifts: instead of buying presents for a friend or a family member, you can give a donation in that loved one’s name or honor to an organization serving people in need. Whether it’s a sign of late capitalism, a backlash against materialism, or a cop-out for the self-righteous, giving someone the gift of helping a person or people neither of you may know is a good thing every time, and especially during the season [...] Continue reading >

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Bottoms Up at Chervona’s Xmas Song Video Shoot Set

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Dec 102011
 
Bottoms Up at Chervona's Xmas Song Video Shoot Set

I discovered the band Chervona by missing their street concert at the Polish Festival. I listened to their music online every time I postponed going to one of their bi-monthly shows around town. So I was going to be damned if I were to miss the video shoot for their Xmas song “Bottoms Up”. Advertised on Facebook with a call for talent, extras, and production help, the shoot took place last Thursday, December 8th, 2011, at Lents Commons, a Southeast Portland Coffee House. The “Russian genius painter Andrey Nedashkovskiy” created a beautiful, [...] Continue reading >

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Grow a Memory

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Dec 032011
 
Grow a Memory

The immigrant needs to grow a memory, and grow it fast. Somehow or other, he must learn to convert the uncanny into the homely, in order to find a stable footing in the new land. —Jonathan Raban in “Driving Home: An American Journey”

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A Yearning for Elsewhere

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Nov 192011
 
A Yearning for Elsewhere

A yearning for elsewhere, for a life beyond the one we’re leading, is universal, but America is unique in giving the idea a specific geographical location in the West. —Jonathan Raban in “Driving Home: An American Journey”

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