Social Attitudes of Recent Russian Immigrants essays

Social Attitudes of Recent Russian Immigrants essays Social Attitudes of Recent Russian Immigrants This paper is concerned with social attitudes of the recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the United States. They come in large numbers from a society, which is very different from American, and the process of blending into new system is extremely complicated and even painful for them. Interestingly enough, Russian immigrants in general manage to assimilate very well and it is considered to be the most successful immigrant group in a nation of immigrants (Barry V. Johnston, p.72). I am particularly interested in this topic because Russian immigrants are in a transition between two very dissimilar ideological and social systems. At the same time it has a specific significance for me because almost four years ago my family moved to America from Moscow as refugees. I would like to apply the order theory of assimilation processes in this paper since this theory fits perfectly to my personal experiences and the experiences of my family in this country. After a long and scrupulous research I have decided to use two journal articles, which give excellent information on the type of Russian community in Los Angeles and social attitudes of Russian immigrants in the US in general. Acceptance of prevailing U.S. attitudes toward social issues is believed to be a reliable indicator of immigrants adjustment to U.S. society (M. Gordon). An immigrant cannot be expected to obtain American values if the individual does not assimilate for example, if he or she does not learn English. Such factors as aging slows attitude change and tends to produce more conservative positions on social problems; education, in contrast is associated with expression of tolerant view. Newly arrived immigrants tend to preserve deeply carved cultural traditions and values of the home country. A person can live in Russian neighborhood in West Hollywood without speaking Engli...