These Czechs want to come to Portland. Help them out!

Join my new Ahoj PDX friend Katerina Bohadlova on Wednesday, May 30th, at MacTarnahan’s Taproom for an evening of music and merriment to benefit a not-for-profit project of the Czech contemporary theater company Geisslers Hofcomoedianten. A founder of Geisslers, Katerina is bringing the Prague-based troupe to Portland for dates from October 15th to 18th. 

In addition to nightly performances, Geisslers Hofcomoedianten will also lead workshops with with students at PSU and Lewis & Clark College, exchange experiences with local artists, and meet with the community.

For your $30 cash at the door, you will get:

• Two beers and delicious brewery-made goodies for dinner
• Live piano music
• Silent auction with real Czech products
• Short video introduction to Geisslers Hofcomoedianten
• Great music and show by Portland based company Hand2Mouth Theater, the partner on the project and special event guest

Asked about motivations for this Czech-American cultural exchange, Katerina said, “The company has just celebrated a 10th anniversary and there is no better gift than to perform for international audiences and exchange with international artists. Allow us to share our experience and help us to build a bridge from Prague to Portland with your attendance at the Benefit event!”

About Geisslers Hofcomoedianten

The company Geisslers Hofcomoedianten built its body of work on unifying the Baroque cultural heritage with the contemporary theater principles and tools. Based in Prague and Kuks—a unique cultural Baroque site in Bohemia—the company offers a new take on the universal themes inspired in the fertile Baroque era. The company earned recently many awards in the field of experimental theatre and has its regular place in Prague’s theater scene.

• “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” by Stephen Marche, The Atlantic, May 2012 – “American culture, high and low, is about self-expression and personal authenticity. The price of self-determination and self-reliance has often been loneliness. But Americans have always been willing to pay that price.” Social media is helping to raise the price.
• “Facebook Isn’t Making Us Lonely” by Eric Klinenberg, Slate, April 19, 2012 – There are at least two sides to every story.
• “America’s Secret Growth Weapon: Why Immigration Really, Really Matters” by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, April 24, 2012 – It keeps America young and innovative.
• “The Disconnect” by Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, April 16, 2012 – “Why are so many Americans living by themselves?”
• “The War Against Youth” by Stephen Marche, Esquire, April 2012 – The young are screwed.
• “The Crisis in American Walking” by Tom Vanderbilt, Slate, April 10, 2012 – A 4-part series on why Americans don’t walk.
• “Why Americans Won’t Do Dirty Jobs” by Elizabeth Dwoskin, Business Week, November 9, 2011 – “In the wake of an immigrant exodus, Alabama has jobs. Trouble is, Americans don’t want them.” Applies to other states as well.
• “The Dollar-Store Economy” by Jack Hitt, The New York Times, August 18, 2011 – Making money off cheap stuff in the post-Great Recession era.
• “The history and mystery of the high-five” by Jon Mooallem, ESPN Magazine, August 8, 2011 – Who said the 1970′s sucked? So good was the decade it birthed a jubilant alternative to the handshake.

The Book Stack

• George Konrád, “Melancholy of Rebirth: Essays From Post-Communist Central Europe, 1989-1994,” New York: Mariner Books, 1995 — BUY NOW (look in Used)
• Sándor Márai, “Embers”, New York: Vintage, 2002 (1940) – BUY NOW
• Yi-Fu Tuan, “Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience,” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001 (1977) – BUY NOW

Do you have any recommendations for readings about America, immigration, or Central/Eastern Europe? Please share in Comments.

The beautiful envelope from Multnomah County Elections Division

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 step onto a stage to give his election victory speech. I became citizen just over a year ago, on May 4th, 2012.

Oh What Fun It Is to Vote

“It’s too bad that you’re not voting in a more fun election—that it has to be a primary,” said Lindsay, summarizing how Americans feel about non-presidential elections. The highest turnout in a U.S. federal election in my lifetime was in 2008: about 57% of all eligible voters and 63% of registered ones (figures vary across sources), which is meager by European standards. But in 2010, the federal election attracted only 37.8% of registered voters. Primary elections tend to garner even lower turnout numbers, though Oregon’s vote by mail system appears more conducive to turnout: 70% in 2006, 86% in 2004. Statewide primary elections are on par with the federal non-presidential election. No wonder a huge part of every election are get-out-the-vote efforts.

Reasons for low electoral turnout in the U.S. vary and include

• lack of interest or engagement in public affairs
• low or even decreasing trust in (and the converse high and increasing disenchantment with) public institutions, government, and politicians
• voter registration requirement (71% of eligible voters are registered)
• negative campaigning
• voter fatigue
• long ballots (authorities attempt to increase turnout by combining elections)

These factors affect me to a degree. I’ve always been interested in politics despite my low trust in public institutions and politicians anywhere. I considered having to register a hassle. American campaigns fascinate me, albeit mostly thanks to their ridiculousness. I am definitely not tired of voting and a long ballot is an opportunity to explore what’s going on.

The ballot. It is big.

Vote, Dammit!

I have also lived in a system that did not allow for free electoral choice; I am painfully aware of places where people go to prison or die fighting for the right to vote freely—alas, right now in Syria. Abstaining from voting feels disrespectful to those who cannot vote and to those who helped secure the right itself (I do feel awful for missing deadlines for Slovakia’s recent parliamentary election). Not to mention that, as they say, if you don’t care for politics, it will take care of you.

Local affairs may not be the hot stuff of the federal presidency, but they affect a denizen’s life more directly and immediately. I use the library several times a week—for books and wi-fi. It does matter who is the Portland mayor or City Councilor or state Supreme Court judge.

I look forward to casting my first ballot in the U.S. Above all, my vote effectively ends my civic limbo.

Notes

* Oregon has vote by mail so, it being too late then to mail it in, I’ll be able to drop off my ballot before the Tuesday 8 p.m. deadline.

Stop 1: Serbia, Bosnia, and Thereabouts at Mississippi Pizza

Krebsic Orkestar with Maria Noel at Mississippi Pizza, Portland, Oregon, 4/27/12

The Krebsic Orkestar is a 14-piece local brass band that plays about a gig a month at various venues around town. I don’t know much more about The Krebsic Orkestar,* other than it is the brainchild of Alex Krebs, who is a friend’s tango teacher and leader of the Alex Krebs Tango Quartet.

Alerted by a Facebook update, I caught them at the space adjacent to Mississippi Pizza for a second time this year. Fewer people than the first time, back in January, enjoyed a slightly different show: Maria Noel sang several songs, decked out in a traditional costume. Her rendition of "Imam jednu želju" (I Have One Wish) was positively heart-wrenching. Circle dancing ensued, foreshadowing the Central/Eastern European’s back bookend.

Stop 2: Poland and Russia at White Eagle Saloon

Toasting the finally crowned eagle at White Eagle Saloon during the Polish Heritage Celebration, Portland, Oregon, 4/28/2012

I’d heard about Chervona‘s April 28 gig at the White Eagle Saloon on Facebook weeks before, but only that day did I realize their show was a part of the "Crown the Eagle Festival: A Polish Heritage Celebration."

The White Eagle Saloon is part of the McMenamins chain of pubs, most of which are located in historic buildings. The White Eagle Saloon was founded in 1905 by Polish immigrants, who settled in the Portland’s Albina neighborhood, and hosted meetings of the Polish community until the completion of the Polish Hall up Interstate Avenue. After McMenamins acquired the building, their in-house artist Maria Yoder painted the Polish White Eagle by the entrance, adding yin-and-yang signs in the wings but omitting the crown. This year McMenamins finally recognized and decided to fix the error of their ways (the Polish Communist Party used the national symbol crownless). The Polish Heritage Celebration revolved around the painting of the crown on White Eagle’s eagle.

I went to the event twice. In the afternoon, I attended a presentation about the history of White Eagle Saloon. McMenamins historian Tim Hills (yes, the company has its own historian!) showed slides of old photos of the neighborhood, the building, and various documents of Polish immigrant organizations that met there, all on the backdrop of early 20th century history, a plate of meat pierogi, and McMenamins special Orzel Bialy Baltic Porter.

Having seen Chervona up close, in the evening I watched Chervona from afar. Given Poland’s history, hearing Russian at a Polish festival was puzzling and made sense at the same time. Led by a St. Petersburg native, Chervona billed the show as an Eastern European Carnival.

Stop 3: Czech Republic and Slovakia at McTarnahan’s Taproom

I learned about the Ahoj PDX Ning Group from my sister-in-law who had struck a conversation during her cashier shift at the Food Front Cooperative Grocery with a customer who turned out to be Slovak. Exclusively in the language of its users, Ahoj PDX is a hub of Czech/Slovak activity in town. "The Pub" meetup takes place every first Tuesday of the month at McTarnahan’s Taproom in far Northwest Portland.

Having not met a single Slovak and only one Czech resident here in Portland, I was a little nervous about showing up to chat with a bunch of strangers from the same imagined community. But beer (Full Bloom Lager) and the bonds of language, origin, and immigrant experience eased the introduction. I met Milan from my home town; Laco who is a gold dredger about to leave for Nome, Alaska; Karel who owns the awesome Czech food cart Tábor; Jana (?) who is an accountant for a hydroponics shop; and finally Marika who not only gave me great tips on teaching Slovak but also turned out to be the person who, inspired by the SK sticker on my car’s rear bumper, years ago stuck a piece of paper with her phone number behind my windshield—following a single phone call, we’d lost touch.

For an evening, it was as though Czechoslovakia still existed.

Stop 4: Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Thereabouts at Al Forno Ferruzza Pizza

Kafana Klub performing at Al Forno Pizzeria, Portland, Oregon, May Day, 2012

At the Krebsic Orkestar show, an English guy told me and Maria added details about the regular (1st Tuesday of the month) Kafana Klub performance at Alberta’s Al Forno Ferruzza Pizza.** Right after the Czech/Slovak experience, acoustic Bulgarian and Macedonian music was quite a jump, as was the transition from the sedentary pursuit of beer and conversation to circle dancing, which mysteriously took over the dance floor. Vague flashes of Hobbiton clashed with visions of a medieval hall beneath the Balkan beats as Brent Geary shredded the violin and kemenche (Karadeniz Kemencesi).

Though I wished for more amplification and room on the floor (circle dancers!), the music left me enchanted and eager to return next month. What a problem to have: if only The Pub wasn’t happening at the same time!

Notes

* Yet. I’m interviewing Alex Krebs soon.
** What is it with pizzerias and Balkan music?!

No matter what we call it and whether or not we speak of it as such, Central Europe was, is, and probably continue to be. Like the Danube, which existed long before it was called the Danube. Central Europe may well outlive us. The existence of Central Europe is thus a given. And yet Central Europe is transitory, provisional. It is neither east nor west; it is both east and west. —George Konrád in "Melancholy of Rebirth: Essays From Post-Communist Central Europe, 1989-1994"

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 influenced by this framing manipulation in a foreign language. Two additional experiments show that using a foreign language reduces loss aversion, increasing the acceptance of both hypothetical and real bets with positive expected value. We propose that these effects arise because a foreign language provides greater cognitive and emotional distance than a native tongue does.

The natural human proclivity in decision-making is to avoid losses. In a classic experiment by Kahneman and Tversky, subjects were asked to choose between alternative courses of action. Two sets of options with identical outcomes were presented, the first in positive terms (lives), the other in negative terms (deaths). People tended to choose the safe-sounding option when it was presented in terms of gain and the risky-sounding option when it was presented in terms of loss—hence humans are considered risk-averse for gains and risk-seeking for losses. We just can’t stand to lose.

Now we know that the bias disappears when presented in a foreign language. Something happens in translation: it seems that when thinking in a foreign language your mind enters a more rational zone where it’s more capable of recognizing the underlying facts. You’re too biased in your native tongue.

Compare thinking in a foreign vs native language to visiting a foreign country vs. staying in your own. When you know your way around, you’re more comfortable and your brain makes cognitive and emotional shortcuts more easily. In a strange land, your biases or automated responses don’t work as well; you’re more careful, evaluate your environment constantly, and simply have to think more.

Until reading about this study I thought that the emotional distance I experience when using English only improves my freedom to cuss. English curse words don’t mean the same or have the same effect on me as curses in Slovak, so I utter them more easily (too easily, I’m afraid). Now I know that thinking in English may have improved my decision-making. I’d never say I have only made good decisions over the years of thinking in English. But I’m comforted by the notion that my decisions may have been worse had I been thinking in Slovak.

Immigration to the U.S. from Central Europe (anywhere non-English speaking, really) inevitably comes with having to think in a foreign language. How great to know it has a hidden positive side effect.

Notes

Sources:

• Pointer: "Less thinking biases in a foreign tongue," MindHacks, April 22, 2012
• Study itself: Boaz Keysar, Sayuri L. Hayakawa and Sun Gyu An, "The Foreign-Language Effect: Thinking in a Foreign Tongue Reduces Decision Biases," (abstract only) Psychological Science, April 18, 2012

Image credit: alles-schlumpf

The NPR news segment identified Dick Clark as the TV host of "American Bandstand" and the New Year’s Eve countdown at Times Square; later I learned he had been the first American "television personality." Having seen the music show, which ran from 1957 to 1987, precisely zero times and the "New Year’s Rockin’ Eve" only for a few inebriated seconds, years ago, I could not picture his face or conjure his body of work.

When American celebrities like Whitney Houston die, their global brand assures familiarity for most immigrants. The likes of Etta James or Johnny Otis passed through my cultural radar since I arrived stateside, and I registered the news of their passing with some dismay.

But there are dead celebrities that everyone but you seems to mourn. Every month this year, I’ve experienced the death of a celebrity who was completely unknown to me until I learned of their death: Mike Wallace, Andrew Breitbart, and Davy Jones all seemed to have moved and shaken and stirred, in their time and their way. To feel no nostalgia, no loss other than in a cultural discourse I am not part of—it’s unsettling.

Every country has its ‘domestic’ celebrities, whose fame or importance keeps within its geographic, linguistic, or cultural limits. For example:

• I still feel a pang of sadness when I think of the Slovak satirist and comedian Július Satinský (2002), he of the controversial asteroid 15946 Satinsky and a peculiar admiration for "čučoriedky" (blueberries), his moniker for lively young women.
• I experienced a strange sensation on last year’s trip to Slovakia, when in a Zuberec hotel room I channel-surfed to a surprisingly well-looking actor Michal Dočolomanský (2008), hosting a music variety show, only to realize the program was an anniversary rerun.
• I felt my heart sink one day last year when I learned of the unfortunate death of Petr Muk (2010), the frontman of my favorite 1990′s Czech band Oceán.

When I had told my wife Lindsay about these Slovak cultural icons, she drew a blank face that mirrored mine as I listened to Lynn Neary announce Dick Clark’s death. Only Oceán rang a bell the same way New Year’s Eve on Times Square would for me.

Now every time I peek at my Facebook Wall or turn on the news during my commute, I half-expect to experience that moment of confusion that comes from not having a clue. By virtue of population mass, length and richness of pop and political culture, and the speed with which new personalities enter the discourse, America continues to produce a huge number of celebrities. I’m having a hard time keeping up with pop culture today. More so, particularly the era before 1990 when Central/Eastern Europe got flooded by everything West is a vast expanse of unknown celebrities. In fact, the longer I’m in the U.S., the more I see that the expanse encompasses the entire period before I got here in 2003.

The onus, of course, is on me as the immigrant. Deal with it, I tell myself. My assets as I do so include:

• a mind that’s open to filling the huge blank spaces on its cultural map despite getting overwhelmed on a frequent basis;
• personal, online, and traditional media filters that only let through what (who) is really important, or at least potentially so (these days the news you need to know will find you);
• a cultural interpreter (Lindsay) who can overlay her own personal experience with the celebrity onto mine, unwittingly helping me live, vicariously as it may be, an additional life.

Notes

Image credit: Eric Steuer

Anyone know why or how Dick Clark hated America? Was it the hair?

At first glance, it was a different time: Communist governments had toppled a few years before and the chaos of transition to democracy pervaded all life. But, Applebaum presages what Anne Porter documented in last year’s "The Ghosts of Europe": history casts a long shadow across time. Shifting borders, clashing empires, and old conflicts turn making sense of the borderlands into a daunting challenge:

Travel here demands a forensic passion, not merely a love of art or architecture or natural beauty; there are many layers of civilization in the borderlands, and they do not lie neatly on top of one another. A ruined medieval church sits on the site of a pagan temple, not far from a mass grave surrounded by a modern town. There is a castle on the hill and a Catholic church at its foot and an Orthodox church beside a ruined synagogue. A traveler can meet a man born in Poland, brought up in the Soviet Union, who now lives in Belarus—and he has never left his village. To sift through the layers, one needs to practice a kind of visual and aural archaeology, to imagine what the town looked like before the Lenin statue was placed in the square, before the church was converted into a factory and the main street renamed. In a conversation, one must listen to the overtones, guess what the speaker might have said fifty years ago on the same subject, understand that his nationality might then have been different—know, even, that he might have used another language.

Applebaum performs the task admirably, confirming that the version of her I know from Slate and other venues was already fully formed back then. The personal encounters and observations take place on the background of impressive historical research, as Applebaum backs every assertion with rich detail. As a good journalist, Applebaum remains consistently respectful of the people she meets. Only once does she cross the line and judges, but to pity an ignorant anti-Semite can be forgiven (Applebaum is Jewish).

As she travels from the Russian Kaliningrad to Lithuania to Belarus and down to Odessa, Ukraine, she first organizes her journey by the peoples inhabiting the lands she crosses, then by cities, towns, and villages she passes through. Thus in Part One she visits Germans, in Part Two Poles and Lithuanians, and finally in Part Three Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians. But even as she describes well a municipality in each chapter, nations and nationalism matter more than the place and characteristics of each place matter only inasmuch as they relate to the shifting national borders. Granted, on the backdrop of nationalisms bubbling up after the fall of Communism, the impulse to see the region through the national lens seems understandable. Too, in 1994 the concept of place identity wasn’t a force it is today. But writing so little about the impact of villages and cities themselves, as places, on the people Applebaum meets struck me as a missed opportunity.

"Between East and West" was the rare book I read word for word (I would have even read the index, had there been one). But I almost abandoned it when, after leaving Mukachevo and passing, roughly south-eastbound, through Khust, Applebaum miraculously finds herself near Miková, Andy Warhol’s parents’ village in Eastern Slovakia which is some 230 kilometers (144 miles) to the northwest. The episode is only a page of text, but the magnitude of the error left a bitter aftertaste of a misplaced gimmick.

Save for the one instance of teleportation, "Between East and West" is the kind of book I want (and am planning) to write: combination travelogue, historic geography, and literary reportage focusing on Central/Eastern Europe. Rather than being dated, it reveals a striking portrait of a turbulent time in the region.

Word from the Publisher

Rich in surprising encounters and vivid characters, "Between East and West" brilliantly illuminates the soul of the borderlands and the shaping power of the past. 

American Robotnik’s Bookrating

• Anne Applebaum, "Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe," New York: Pantheon Books, 1994
• Lowdown: A fascinating travelogue with a historic backdrop, "Between East and West" documents a journey through plains long contested by empires and peoples.
• Grade: B

Richard Florida’s 2002 book "The Rise of the Creative Class", has become a landmark study on the ascendance and impact of creatives on the American economy. The Creative Class, a socioeconomic force comprising knowledge workers, artists, and creative professionals, drives economic development, innovation, and the growth of post-industrial cities.* Florida finds only mixed evidence on the impact of immigration on development and growth.

Immigrant, What Is He Good For?

Citing a plethora of sources, Florida first shows that not only has "[o]penness to entrepreneurial individuals from around the glove long been a hallmark of our nation," it is "the cornerstone of innovation and economic growth."

Simple logic suggests and numbers confirm that an increase in immigration indeed results in more growth: "The 2000 Census makes is abudantly clear that a large share of regional growth over the 1990′s was driven by immigration." Cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix, as well as the Silicon Valley benefited from an influx of immigrants.

Population increases may be a crude indicator of growth, but other numbers provide additional evidence. To wit, Florida contends that "[t]hose who choose to leave their countries are predisposed to risk and can be thought of as ‘innovative outsiders,’" which makes them more entrepreneurial and innovative. For example, immigrants founded a third of Silicon Valley tech businesses in the 2nd half of the 1990′s.

In the current anti-(illegal)-immigration backlash, the resulting drive by many cities, both on the coasts, e.g. Philadelphia and inland, e.g. Minneapolis-St. Paul, to attract immigrants ("the new outsiders") may sound like from a long-gone era. But reasonable voices have increasingly been calling for encouraging skilled immigration.

The Evidence Is Absolutely Mixed

"Immigration is associated with high-tech industry," says Florida. However, it is "not strongly associated with innovation." He uses his own Melting Pot Index to measure diversity. The Melting Pot Index may be correlated with population growth but not with the Innovation Index (patenting rates) or job growth. Florida also finds that "there is no significant statistical relationship between the Melting Pot Index and the Creative Class."

With such strong evidence, Florida doesn’t break down immigration by source countries, except to mention the natives of India as over-represented among high-tech startup founders. This certainly appears to be the case to a casual observer of the tech world.

As to the lack of correlation between immigration and innovation, I can think of two explanations. First, it’s possible that  the predisposition to risk that characterizes immigrants runs its course with the process of immigration itself. My own experience suggests that to leave one’s homeland and settle in a new country can be exhausting. At the end of the day, you just want to fit in, at least until you begin to feel at home. Even basic acculturation can take years.

More importantly, rather than national or ethnic diversity, it’s cognitive diversity, i.e. differences in individual views and experiences, that matters for things like innovation, strategic decision-making, knowledge creation in groups, and even the wisdom of crowds.

In and of itself, being an immigrant matters much less for the economy than how the experience of immigration affects you and how you put it to use.

Notes

* Everything I’ve read over the past few years suggests that the forces Florida identified 10 years ago have intensified since the book’s publication.

Source: Richard Florida, "The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life", New York: Basic Books, 2003 — BUY NOW

Image credit: ambientfusion

• "Rise of the Single-Woman Voter" by Hanna Rosin, Slate, March 13, 2012 – On the rise of the fastest-growing voter group. "These days your daughter, or even your mistress, is the better campaign target."
• "Sexuality, Independence, Economic Empowerment: A Q&A with Liza Mundy" by Marc Schultz, Publishers Weekly, March 16, 2012 – The author of "The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family" talks about a trend of women out-earning their male spouses.
• On the flipside, "America wants to keep women in line": "Rihanna, Chris Brown, and pop music’s female trouble" by Miles Raymer, Chicago Reader, February 29, 2012, and "2012: The Year of the Dissolving Diva" by Katherine St. Asaph, The Atlantic, March 13, 2012.

The Book Stack

• Anne Applebaum, "Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe," New York: Pantheon Books, 1994 — A travelogue, with a historic backdrop, documenting a journey through plains long contested by empires and peoples: today’s Kaliningrad, Lithuania, and western Belarus and Ukraine. – American Robotnik review – BUY NOW
• Richard Florida, "The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life," New York: Basic Books, 2003 – Creatives are taking over the economy. – BUY NOW
• Charles Murray, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010," New York: Crown Forum, 2012 – How the rich get richer and more isolated, and the poor get poorer and less community-minded. Or, "[o]ur nation is coming apart at the seams of class." – BUY NOW
• David Weinberger, "Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room," New York: Basic Books, 2011 – Knowledge no longer resides in books or experts’ heads—it’s in the network, and there’s more of it than ever. – BUY NOW
  

Do you have any recommendations for readings about America, immigration, or Central/Eastern Europe? Please share in Comments.