St. Patrick’s Day and Immigrant Holidays

 Posted by  Kultur Clash  No Responses »
Mar 172012
 
St. Patrick's Day and Immigrant Holidays

Official, or federally recognized, American holidays derive from historical events (Independence Day/Fourth of July), religious traditions (Christmas), and national heroes (Martin Luther King Day). Among the unofficial but widely recognized and celebrated holidays, which include Mardi Gras, Easter, and Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day holds a special place: it celebrates the culture of an immigrant group.  Every March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day commemorates Ireland’s patron saint and the arrival of Christianity to Ireland in 12th century. About 12% of U.S. population, or more than 36 million people, reported Irish ancestry in 2008; the Irish diaspora [...] Continue reading >

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Through Other Lenses: American Robotnik’s Readings for March 2012

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Mar 112012
 
Through Other Lenses: American Robotnik's Readings for March 2012

Articles and Blog Posts "How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy" by Kathleen McAuliffe, The Atlantic Monthly, March 2012 – If you’ve ever wondered about Americans’ love for pets and their odd behavior, a Czech scientist has found there may be a connection. "A Brief History of the American Pawn Shop" by Wendy Woloson, Bloomberg, February 9, 2012 – They’re a world unto itself. "Quitting the Paint Factory" by Mark Slouka, Harper’s Magazine, November 2004 – "There’s something un-American about singing the virtues of idleness." He sings it well. "How [...] Continue reading >

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The Advantages of One’s Origin

 Posted by  Memories of Now  No Responses »
Mar 072012
 
The Advantages of One's Origin

One should appreciate, after all, the advantages of one’s origin. Its worth lies in the power it gives one to detach oneself from the present moment. —Czeszław Miłosz in "Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition"

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How Migration Affects Your Vote in Your Home Country

 Posted by  New World, New Life  No Responses »
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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Emigration and Its Weighty Obstacles

 Posted by  Been Reviewin'  2 Responses »
Mar 032012
 
Emigration and Its Weighty Obstacles

Emigration is hardest when it’s involuntary and when you cannot return to your country of origin. Alexandar Hemon, a native of Bosnia and now a Chicagoan, has based his career as a fiction writer on this theme. When he was visiting the States in the early 1990′s with a journalism education program, the war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, his hometown Sarajevo came under siege, and he was unable to return. The theme carries the short stories in "Love and Obstacles", tracing a single protagonist’s journey through childhood, immigration, [...] Continue reading >

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The Beer Map of Central Europe

 Posted by  Lager Field  No Responses »
Feb 292012
 
The Beer Map of Central Europe
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Speaking of Home and Homeland

 Posted by  New World, New Life  No Responses »
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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The Ghostbusters of Central Europe

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Feb 232012
 
The Ghostbusters of Central Europe

Anna Porter’s "The Ghosts of Europe" explores the state of affairs in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, 20 years after the end of state socialism. In each country she discovers that the historical triumphs and, more frequently, traumas remain far from being settled history. Two decades of free speech and free market may actually have intensified the debates among competing versions of history. To paraphrase Jan Gross, whom Porter quotes, "In order to reclaim its past, [insert Central European country's name here] will have to tell its past anew." [...] Continue reading >

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Surviving the Civic Limbo

 Posted by  New World, New Life  No Responses »
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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A Man from the East of Europe

 Posted by  Memories of Now  No Responses »
Feb 192012
 
A Man from the East of Europe

If I want to show what a man who comes from the East of Europe is like, what can I do but tell about myself?” —Czeszław Miłosz in "Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition"

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America the Hyperreal

 Posted by  Been Reviewin', Kultur Clash  No Responses »
Feb 172012
 
America the Hyperreal

Visiting and then writing about the U.S. has a solid tradition among the French, but it’s safe to say the late Jean Beaudrillard‘s 1986 work"America" hasn’t made the list of books covering their country that Americans would showcase. Even the most cynical among my new compatriots would hesitate to call their country "a giant hologram", a "blank solitude," or a "narcissistic refraction." Abstract hyperbole defines Beaudrillard’s "America". On the ground, it is the desert that defines Beaudrillard’s America. He can’t get enough of it because "you are delivered from all depth [...] Continue reading >

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American Euphemisms and Evasive Thinking, Part 1

 Posted by  Kultur Clash  1 Response »
Feb 152012
 
American Euphemisms and Evasive Thinking, Part 1

Last year’s final issue of The Economist featured an article exploring euphemisms—expressions that substitute neutral, ambiguous wording for a potentially uncomfortable one. The article “Making murder respectable” alludes to the experience every immigrant knows all too well as a cultural and language outsider. American euphemisms are in a class of their own, principally because they seem to involve words that few would find offensive to start with, replaced by phrases that are meaninglessly ambiguous: bathroom tissue for [toilet] paper, dental appliances for false teeth, previously owned rather than used, wellness [...] Continue reading >

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The Music of Trumer Pils

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Feb 132012
 
The Music of Trumer Pils

Trumer Pils is a memory of Salzburg I never had. I visited the city of Trumer’s origin with my father in 1992. We stopped there for a few hours on a train trip to Switzerland. I recall two experiences from our sightseeing walk: We walked up a hill and entered the Maria Himmelfahrt church that belonged to the nunnery Stift Nonnberg. The church was empty. No sooner had I sat down in a pew to take the place in, that the nuns began to sing. The choir’s acapella chant echoed [...] 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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You Must Go and Be Yourself: An Interview With Alina Simone

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Feb 092012
 
You Must Go and Be Yourself: An Interview With Alina Simone

When I read "You Must Go and Win," I knew I not only had to review it on account of its subject matter’s relevance to American Robotnik, but also try to interview the author Alina Simone. We talked yesterday via Gmail Chat about Russia and Russianness, about music and writing, and about doing your own thing. The first question was hers, about my experience reading her memoir: "Are you scarred?" American Robotnik: In your New York Times T Style interview, you talk about growing up as an American kid and, later, [...] Continue reading >

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