Russians and Accents

During a recent trip to New York, I ventured over to Brighton Beach with my cousin Eugene in order to explore what I believe is the largest Russian community in the United States. Long hours spent at my grandparents' house watching Russian TV on full blast had convinced me that Brighton Beach was more Russian than Russia itself. Plus, I wanted a bulatchka s makam.

Near the King Ave stop, Eugene warned me that we would soon be surrounded by Slavs. Sure enough, sour-faced Soviet women began to appear in their knock-off D and G sunglasses at around the same time that young men sporting the "Slavic rat tail" began to get on the train. I've always been able to spot a fellow ex-Soviet on the spot (even non-Slavic Central Asians), but these Russians were unbelievable. Most of them looked as though they had just flown in from Boryspol.

The fact that Brighton Beach residents have managed to maintain their Russian identity so stringently is unique among Russian communities throughout the United States. I've noticed that even second-generation Russians who were BORN in New York still speak English with a Russian accent. In Kansas, on the other hand, first-generation immigrants who came to the US as children (such as myself) speak English with no hint of a Russian accent. The disparity in levels of assimilation is staggering (well, to me, at least).

Before, I used to think that all first-generation children lost their mother tongue and that this inevitability gave way to an adulthood filled with erroneous declensions and half-rolled R's. In fact, it seems that those who grew up in Brighton Beach have not only retained their ability to speak the Russian language at a highly literate level but also consider it their Mother tongue. They speak English with a mild Russian accent and a heavy New York accent.

Oh, za horra!