Heritage, with Masha Rumer

About the Guest

Masha Rumer is author of the new book, Parenting With an Accent: How Immigrants Honor Their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for Their Children. She’s an award-winning journalist and freelance writer. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Moscow Times, and elsewhere. She immigrated to California from the Soviet Union as a teen.

Best Books

Parenting With an Accent: How Immigrants Honor Their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for Their Children, by Masha Rumer.

The Nesting Dolls, by Alina Adams.

Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, edited by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky.

Transcript

MASHA RUMER: Basically it’s the feeling of being between two cultures. It can feel like you're occupying them both at the same time, but also not really belonging to either of them, either.

BLAIR HODGES: Masha Rumer immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union when she was thirteen. Her family was fleeing economic uncertainty and religious discrimination. And at first, her nationality made her self-conscious, she wanted to blend in with her new American peers as fast as possible. Get the right clothes, learn the language. Over time Masha discovered her love for her homeland never really went away, and she wanted to share it with her own children. Which turned out to be a lot more complicated than you might think.

In this episode of Fireside with Blair Hodges we’re talking with Masha Rumer, author of Parenting with an Accent: How Immigrants Honor their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for their Children.

Someone to commiserate with and learn from – 1:05

BLAIR HODGES: Masha Rumor, thanks for joining me here at Fireside today.

MASHA RUMER: Blair, thank you so much for having me here. I've been listening to your podcast for a while, and I'm really thrilled to be a guest on your show.

BLAIR HODGES: I'm excited to have you. We've actually known each other for a long time—we met back at Georgetown University, we were both students there in 2011, or something like that.

MASHA RUMER: That's right, 2011. It's hard to believe.

BLAIR HODGES: So we've known each other a long time. And now you're a published author. You've got this new book called Parenting with an Accent: How Immigrants Honor their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for their Children. So first of all, congratulations!

MASHA RUMER: Thank you so much, Blair. Yes, it's one of those things I can check off my life to-do list. I'm really excited. I mean, I've always wanted to write a book. But this particular book I've been kind of thinking about for many years, in different iterations. And it took me about four years, and now it's out.

BLAIR HODGES: You've been a writer for a while, I've followed your writing, you've been published in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Moscow Times and elsewhere, but to have a full book out, that's a really big project. You said it took four years. Why did you decide to do this particular book?

MASHA RUMER: I felt like it's a book that I wish I could have read when I first had kids. And even, I would say, before kids. I see writing—certainly as a form of self-expression—but when I write, I see it as a way to bring light to certain issues that many people are struggling with or experiencing. This is something that's always motivated my journalism career as well.

And when I had my first child—whom you met, I think, at a holiday party, a Christmas party, three, four years ago? We were painting ornaments together.

BLAIR HODGES: That's right.

MASHA RUMER: So when I first had my daughter, I realized I was having this culture shock all over again. So just for background, I'm an immigrant. I was born in the former Soviet Union. And I immigrated to the United States as a refugee when I was thirteen years old, right after the Soviet Union fell. I didn't really speak much English—I listened to a lot of the Beatles [laughter] tried to kind of catch up that way. So I obviously I went through my share of culture shock, and the whole immigrant experience, which was not necessarily very pleasant. But, you know, then I kind of became an American and had my life here.  

And when I had my first baby, my daughter, I had this culture shock all over again. And it brought up all kinds of questions about, how do I preserve the heritage of my ancestors, or how do I make sure I kind of fit into society today while also honoring those roots? It brought up all kinds of memories, all kinds of traumas that my own people have gone through. And I really struggled with all those issues. Also, language.

And so I wished there was a way to understand all of that, and process it, and also share what I know, and also give other people an opportunity to talk about their experiences. So I started writing articles and essays, getting them published. And I've always thought I wanted this to be a larger project, a book. The more I talked to other people, whether they spoke my language or came from anywhere in the world, really, I found we all kind of struggled with similar issues and questions. And that's when I decided this needs to be a book.

BLAIR HODGES: I was surprised as I was looking around—after reading your book, I was looking for similar books talking about being an immigrant, talking about parenting. And there aren't a lot, which is kind of surprising, because as you point out in your introduction, the foreign-born population in the United States right now is about forty-five million people. And as you say, that's the population of Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois combined. So there's a lot of people out there, but not a lot of books. Why do you think that is?

MASHA RUMER: Thank you, Blair, for bringing that up. One thing I actually failed to mention is that, of course, a lot of us look for resources when we're struggling with something. We may turn to our friends, to our family members, to writing, and I was looking far and wide for books that kind of captured that immigrant experience, not in fiction form, and not in like, “here's how you do it” form—“these are the steps you should take to teach your child a second language.” That's not what I was looking for.

But something that was supportive, conversational, something you can relate to, commiserate with, and maybe learn from, but also just feel supported and seen by. That's what I really wanted—to be seen and not feel like some kind of a weirdo struggling with these issues. Like I'm alone. And it turned out that I wasn't!

But there were no books like that, that I could find. I'm not sure why. I think there's certainly the language barrier. I kind of straddle, I would say, both cultures, because on the one hand, I preserved quite well, my own background, because I was thirteen. But at the same time, I'd like to think I've been able to a acculturate to the best of my ability [laughs], maybe not fully, certainly, to the American culture or cultures—the compendium of those. So I guess I had that voice and that ability to see both at the same time.

But I'm not sure. I know there was definitely huge demand. That's what I've been hearing. But when I started pitching this to literary agents, and they pitched it to publishers, a couple of responses I received were, “Oh, nobody's going to read this because there's not a huge demographic for that,” or “Who is going to read this book? There are not enough immigrant parents.”

But just like you said, we have the highest number of immigrants ever right now. And anyone I speak to pretty much—no matter what language, no matter when they came, even if they are children of immigrants—like, they want to understand their mom better, who was say, from Korea. Or maybe they teach immigrant children at the school where they work, or maybe they work with refugee resettlement. They all feel like this is relevant to them.

So I think it's also an issue of representation. And I think we've had been seeing a huge shift in that in the last few years, rightfully so, because there's so many voices that need to have their perspectives shared.

Masha’s story of immigration – 6:34

BLAIR HODGES: I'm glad you pointed that out, because the book you wrote is not like a technical how-to manual. This isn't a book that's just for parents who are immigrants, who want to read, “Okay, here are  

And so I think this book would be interesting for readers, whether they're immigrant parents themselves or not, to get a sense of what it's like to be an immigrant parent, what it's like to immigrate to the United States and deal with cultural changes, and deal with loss and grief and excitement and new opportunities, and all of these things that I could relate to in different ways, even though I grew up here in the US, my native country.

I'm not an immigrant parent. But your book has advice for immigrant parents, and also stories of immigrant parents as well.

MASHA RUMER: Exactly. This is exactly what I was hoping to do. And I would say this has always been my writing style. I try to share stories. And like you said, a lot of them are about grief and loss. A lot of people I spoke to speak about discrimination and racism, certainly, within their own community, within their family, in their outside community. And they share how they cope with it.

But at the same time, so I approached this as a journalist and as a parent, but I was really lucky to be able to interview experts and have a huge amount of research done, I'd say there's like twenty pages at the end that, maybe you've noticed, that’s just footnotes in really tiny, small print. So I really geeked out on research. And I wanted to make sure that everything that I shared is up to date, as much vetted as possible. I even hired a fact checker, that’s usually not provided by publishers, just to make sure there was very little room for error. And I talked to people—like I talked to psychologists. I spoke to experts in language development and bilingualism, including my professor from Canada, Dr. Ellen Bialystok, who received a medal of honor from Canada for the theory that she’s postulated, saying that kids who are bilingual tend to be better at multitasking and certain other cognitive abilities. And bilingual adults can also stave off the onset of dementia by about four to five years.

So I talked to her. I talked to people who are preschool owners, schoolteachers, sociologists. I tried to do as much of that as possible to kind of create a bigger picture. Obviously, there's so much more to say on the topic. But I tried to be as representative as possible. I interviewed, I would say, over sixty people across the country, probably could have been even more if COVID didn't happen.

BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Right. And also people from all over the world. This isn't just about—you came from the former Soviet Union, but you've got people from all over the world in this, and you weave their stories in with your own story. And you find great connections there. So it's got a lot of facts, it's got a lot of researched information. But it's all presented through these stories.

And this is why I think this book reaches a bigger audience than just parents who are immigrants. You mentioned a minute ago that you came to the United States when you were thirteen years old. The former Soviet Union. That's a big thing in the news right now, obviously, Russia is at war against Ukraine right now. And so, before we talk more about what's happening now, I'm interested to hear why you all left back when you were thirteen. Take us back. What was happening in your life at the time. You're a teenager, so it's already a difficult time in your life. And now you're facing going to a completely new country.

MASHA RUMER: Yes. And I would love to talk about what's happening, because it's obviously in the news. And it's been impacting so many people, including myself, and obviously, I'm on the other side of the world now. But yes, so.

Before that, which definitely we will talk about, I came to United States as a refugee. There was a huge exodus in the late 80s, early 90s of people from the former Soviet Union, and that includes people from Russia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Moldova—all former Soviet republics. I came basically because of anti-Semitism. I'm Jewish, my family's Jewish. But also political instability. The united Soviet Union has just collapsed and took all of its economic systems along with it. There was huge inflation. There was poverty. I mean, people were getting assaulted, left and right, just for like, earrings or leather jackets, and there was a huge alcoholism problem.

BLAIR HODGES: Did you see all this as a child?

MASHA RUMER: I did. Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: But you were a teenager, so is it like, “Wait a minute, I want to stay here!” Like, “I don't want to move!” Or were you like, “Oh gosh, let's move.”

MASHA RUMER: I actually did not want to move. I think it's because of my age. I saw those things happening. I saw teachers wearing their ski boots to teach because they couldn't afford shoes. I saw older war veterans of World War II pedaling in the street, their ink pens or their war metals, because they just wanted to buy food. And we had people come to our building, and regularly put little letters into every mailbox saying, “I will take care of you until you die, and then I will inherit your apartment.” So they wanted to like prey on older citizens. And obviously, you can probably imagine, like, how long would they actually “take care” of that person before inheriting their apartment? Right?

It was a really hard time. I used to like walk and see, like drunk people on the street, or like laying down—I mean, all kinds of horror stories, obviously rationing food. One of the things I describe in the book is I would stand in line for bread or for sour cream. I mean, lines are pretty normal, I grew up with that, but especially at the end of the lifespan of the Soviet Union, we started having them ration. So we'd be given coupons, like you can only buy this amount of grams of sour cream or flour, and we would stand in line, but the store could still run out. So that's something I would do after school a lot of times. And I remember this horrible incident when I was carrying this jar of sour cream back from the store after school, and I dropped it. And it shattered in tiny little pieces on the doorstep of the apartment building where we lived—And I don't think the sour cream was rationed. But it was still often not available. The rationing was like for flour and sugar—So yeah! [laughs] I'm trying to make it more positive for you! “Sour cream did not have coupons for it!”

BLAIR HODGES: [laughter] Actually, we had sour cream! It was amazing!

MASHA RUMER: Yes, except it was like really liquid sour cream, because the store workers would often take the sour cream, and then they would dilute it so it was really liquid, to make it last longer.

And I remember my mother came home from work and she was like, “As soon as I saw the sour cream broken into tiny pieces, I thought that might be you. Because I asked you to do it.” And she wasn't saying it to make me feel guilty. But I was just horrified.

And of course, anti-Semitism. I think I was spared—Like you asked me, did I perceive those problems. I saw it happen. Yeah. But I did not necessarily see it as this structural, political problem, because I think I was more focused on my own life—my friendships, school crushes, my piano performance that was coming up. Because I've lived in my building and I've had the same friends since I was like six years old. And I've planted the trees outside my building when it was just constructed—this like twelve-story apartment building—with my dad. I've known every nook and cranny there. When I went back to visit in 2004, I still saw my name that I’d crawled with my friend on the doorstep by the entrance. It's still there, which kind of tells you how maintenance goes, right?

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

MASHA RUMER: We did that when I was a child, and nobody painted over it, like, come on, guys. It's time to paint. Yeah. So actually, I did not want to leave. I had a lot of strong attachments to my apartment, to my room, to my friends, to my teachers, to my relatives.

Not the most welcoming place – 14:04

BLAIR HODGES: But you did have to move, and you all moved to California in the early 90s. And I kind of stereotype California as being a place of immigration, a place of immigrants. In your book, you report how it wasn't really a very welcoming place for immigrants when you got there in the 90s.

MASHA RUMER: Yes and no. So of course, when we came, I came with just my brother and my parents, and we received huge support. Obviously we came as refugees, so we received some government support for a little bit—not for long—but my parents, they had to learn new skills, new trades, although my father continued working in his field, but he couldn't find a job for a long time, and he worked on the night shift.

BLAIR HODGES: What was his field?

MASHA RUMER: He was an engineer in the Soviet Union. So at one point, we ran out of all of our savings, and we barely had enough money to buy tickets back home. But I think—this is something I learned later because I was still young. But later it turned out that we ran out of pretty much all our money and we had his tiny rental apartment, with furniture from the street that we found or that was donated to us. And we ran out and we were about to maybe ask to go back home because we couldn't continue staying here, we just couldn't afford it anymore. And then he found a job on the night shift like, measuring something, this minimum wage job. Then he and my mom kept learning English and learning new skills, re-reading their books that they read in Russian to reading them in English again, so they could be employable.

We came as refugees, so we had a little bit of help from the government for a short period of time. Also some local Jewish organizations really helped us with donations and stuff like that. I was immediately placed in ESL classes. There were a lot of really devoted teachers teaching kids. The school I went to had a lot of immigrants from, let's see, from Mexico, from Central America, from Asia, just a couple from the former Soviet Union, not too many, but there were just a handful.

But at the same time, when we came, there was this Proposition 187. The governor of California wanted to—and actually was rallying to pass this law, this proposition that would ban undocumented immigrants from receiving any kind of services, including public education and medical care. And he spent a lot of money and a lot of effort to make sure that he convinced voters to do that. Like showing these videos in black and white of the quote-unquote “illegals” running across the border, and this overlay of a voice like, “They are coming!” So there was this fear mongering against immigrants.

And also there was just a huge recession in California, right around the time we came. So it's almost like—and also a need of having somebody to blame. And I certainly, that wasn't necessarily—we came as refugees, so we had documentation. But you can't help but personalize it and think that maybe that's relating to you as well, because you're also an immigrant. Like, what do you know as a kid about who was documented and who isn’t?

And I'd imagine that a lot of American-born adults felt skeptical about a lot of immigrants. Certainly, we were asked when we’re going back home, asked about our allegiances. I had a teacher that I describe in the book, who was a history teacher, or social studies, who was teaching the ESL section of the class. So all the kids were from somewhere else. And he had a sticker above the board—which again, I didn't know what it meant—but I realized later and remembered the words it said, like: “Welcome to California, now go back home.” So I was like, “Oh, that's just a sticker.” But obviously, that was saying, “you don't belong here.” He had this really nasty attitude.

BLAIR HODGES: Like you realized “Oh, you meant home, the far away home—"

MASHA RUMER: Yeah, I don't mean like Texas, or like, go back to Portland. Yeah, right. And he was just incredibly angry. Like, he would always tell the kids to stop speaking Mandarin. He would roll his eyes. He would have—as I describe in the book—he would make announcements like, “Hey, guys, why don't you try out for the football team?” or “why don't you audition for the school play,” asking it like, as if you guys care about like school sports, or plays, you just like talk in your language all the time. So he was like, really mean.

He was an exception, I would say, there were so many kind people that helped us. But when you're surrounded with that kind of attitude every day, you can't help but kind of somehow feel responsible for his anger or like that you did something wrong, or that you're less than, and you don't know any better when you're a child.

BLAIR HODGES: There's a quote here where you say, “It's hard to stay mentally present in an unfamiliar world. Nostalgia tethers you to the past, worry pulls you into the future.”

So you're just trying to be a teenager. But you've got this memory of where you came from that's kind of pulling you back toward the past. You're also worried about your future. So you're focused on what's coming ahead. Which makes it really hard for a teenager to just stay in a moment.

MASHA RUMER: Yeah, I had a rough time. And by the way, my book is not like all very—I mean, it's got a lot of heavy parts to it. But there are some, I would like to say, funny parts.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, but we'll get to that. I want to depress people right out of the gate. I feel podcast listeners like to get real sad, you know? [laughter]

MASHA RUMER: Okay, well, I can bring that on. Especially, you know, I grew up reading Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky for fun.

BLAIR HODGES: Right, right!

MASHA RUMER: Yeah, I can bring that.

So yeah, I had a rough time immigrating. I mean, first of all, like I said, I had all my community there. When we moved into our apartment, it was still like these planks, like bits of cement, and there was like still water inside. It was just built. And we made it what it was, you know? We decorated, we planted all the plants. And when we moved, we left the entire apartment home. We'd sold some things donated some things—in secret, because we couldn't tell anybody we were leaving. Because if somebody found out that somebody's immigrating, that meant they have cash or dollars, and that's the sign that it's lying around, you can just come and take it, right? There was a lot of crime.

And then yeah, whatever we didn't sell—including plants and the piano, which as I found out later, the piano that I grew up playing actually belong to a ballerina who apparently had it with her during the siege of Leningrad during World War II. And so it survived that, and I loved that piano. So we left that. We left everything.

And I remember that moment of like moving on the platform at night, we took a train to the city to go to the airport. And all my family was like outside waving, we never knew if we’d ever actually see them again. And my friends that I've known for pretty much my whole life, on the night before we had a get together, they all walk me home, they gave me pictures of themselves, little souvenirs like some crocheted little chickens or a little teddy bear. Signed pictures. It was really hard because I told them like the day before that I was leaving. I couldn't say it earlier. I was heartbroken.

And when I came I didn't speak English. Like, obviously, no talk of fashion when you were poor, when you wore donated clothes and there's like some logos like the Fresno Marathon from whatever, like 1986. And people ask you, “Oh, did you run that marathon?” [laughs] Like what marathon? You don't really think of coordinating colors or like wearing GAP, which I remember, GAP was a big thing at the time when we came, everybody had these bags with GAP on it. To me, that was a very aspirational thing.

Yeah. So, it was tough. It was tough. And actually, a lot of immigrants I spoke to that came when they were teenagers, maybe even earlier, they report having these almost blackout moments, they don't remember much during that time. It's almost like they blocked it out of their mind. The adjustment. And writing this book has been an incredibly, incredibly curative, therapeutic thing for me as well. And I hope it can be helpful to readers, too.

I read, for example, this social psychologist John Barry, who basically talked about the various ways people can adapt to a new culture. Because we usually think, “Oh, immigrants just come, they assimilate, and then they just become like everybody else,”—which, of course, what does it mean, “everybody else,” right? Like we talked about this very complex tapestry of America and how many cultures and races and ethnicities that represents. But typically, that's been the golden measure of success as an immigrant: you assimilate. But John Barry says it's not true. There are many different ways you can adapt to a new culture. You can reject it. You can just embrace it—assuming you're not experiencing any xenophobia. You can reject both cultures and just withdraw completely. Or you can adapt both and become bicultural, which tends to be like the healthiest.

But one other thing John Berry also says is that adolescents tend to have the toughest time adapting to a new culture—also older generations too, like, grandparents, for example—but adolescence, certainly, and I was reading that, and I was like, “Yeah, that's interesting.” I try not to think about that period of my life. But I kind of had a rough time there. [laughs] Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: As we're reading your personal story, you also place it in the broader context of American immigration. And here we have the Statue of Liberty, which is supposed to symbolize hope and welcoming—the poem on the statue says, “Bring your poor, huddled masses yearning to be free.” It’s this really aspirational thing.

But of course, the history is much different. And you lay this out early in the book about the way that the United States both needed and feared immigrants. That there was this tension that existed there. That in the nineteenth century, there weren't a lot of restrictions. But then in the early twentieth century, a lot of these restrictions were put in place. There was economic instability, a lot of nativist backlash—basically poor people feeling like immigrants were competing with them for jobs and all these things. And you're a teenager, and you're just trying to not stick out and look weird and have weird clothes and sound weird and have people judging you for that. And again, it's right when you're coming of age.

So it makes sense to me when I read, as you're reporting, that a lot of teenagers, a lot of adolescents don't lock in a lot of memories from that time. It's a really unstable, unsettling time.

MASHA RUMER: That's right.

The beet test and finding love – 23:54

BLAIR HODGES: We're talking with Masha rumor. She's an award-winning journalist and a freelance writer, and we're talking about her book, Parenting With an Accent.

All right, I want to talk about the “beet test.” This is a chapter about getting married. And you say that about one in seven marriages today in the United States is either interracial or inter-ethnic which one in seven, that's a pretty high number. You also point to statistics that suggest immigrants are thirty times more likely to marry other immigrants. So a lot more likely to marry other immigrants did as you were coming of age to date and to, to think about getting married. Did you have aspirations? Were you aiming for something in particular?

MASHA RUMER: [laughs] The knight in shining armor? Right? No. I would say, probably not. I think I also went through a period when I came here when I rejected everything related to my culture, just because it was so traumatic. So I didn't really hang out in the circles from my homeland.

So my husband is American, from Ohio. [laughter] Definitely not Russian or Jewish. I think one thing I've learned from doing this research and talking to many multicultural families—whether they’re both from the same country or part of the country, or from different places, and then also talking to psychologists and reading is—it's really not about where the partner is from. It's all just about how they respect one another's backgrounds and traditions.

I've asked this very question: Is it harder if you’re an immigrant to date nonimmigrants, or just to date in general? Yeah, there's certain levels, extra levels of complexity that are attached to it, because it brings to light, what do people consider beautiful, are there specific religion-based restrictions? But it's also something we often see within the United States among people that were born here—different religions, different political beliefs. So it's not necessarily different, [laughs] dating other immigrants and marrying them.

But there's also, there's a level of complexity, especially when it comes to families. Because sometimes people from another culture might not want to be with those from their own background, because maybe they see them as, quote, “undesirable,” since they want to step away from that, especially if they see pictures of destructions or poverty back home. This is something that I've also had a chance to speak with Professor Nazli Kibria, who teaches at Boston University, in sociology, she did a lots of amazing research, specifically on the Bangladeshi diaspora. But at the same time, there's also this pool—that your community wants you to stay within your own community. It is literally an issue of survival, of life and death. Because if you're marrying out of the culture, you are maybe compromising the language, the traditions, certainly the religious aspects of it. And, of course, I would say my parents initially probably expected me to be with somebody like myself, then they eventually saw that wasn't happening. [laughs] Then they just wanted somebody nice with a good job.

BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Yeah. Expectations can get tempered pretty quick.

So you mentioned you kind of pulled away from your culture—you felt you wanted to sort of get away from that for a while. But you really boomerang back, to fall back in love with and appreciate your heritage. And this is where the “beet test” comes into it. So describe this thing that people you would date had to go through.

MASHA RUMER: Oh, my goodness, okay. That's a great question. [laughter] So the beet test I described—like, I didn't actually have this “beet test,” like how people tell you about having a checklist—

BLAIR HODGES: It wasn’t like written out— [laughter]

MASHA RUMER: Right, it would be in the back of my mind. So I think it was very important for me to try to find somebody who appreciates or understands my heritage. It didn't have to be somebody from my heritage, but just somebody that I got along with and shared my values. And one of them was food. The Soviet Union has very rich—

BLAIR HODGES: There's some interesting dishes over there.

MASHA RUMER: Yeah, there's some interesting dishes. And I mean, there's also the Russian heritage, and of course, the Soviet Union was—like, the output and the economy was greatly controlled by the government. There was such as scarcity of food, always. We had this book, a culinary book, just one book about “healthy and delicious food.” And it had a lot of pictures in it that were like really sumptuous pictures. A lot of it was like a can of peas. And it's like this close up, this dramatic close up of peas out of a can. Or like dishes that most of us have never even heard of, because it didn't really exist. We had very little food. Obviously, there was World War II and poverty because of that. There was also “Holodomor,” where Stalin basically starved millions of Ukrainians, millions of them died. It was an act of genocide. So we’re kind of seeing a continuation today—

BLAIR HODGES: Right, he manufactured a famine in order to, yeah—

MASHA RUMER: Yeah, it was to destroy a people. And that was part of it. There was like literally no food to eat. So there was very little food, and we had to get really creative with what we had.

I remember when the pandemic started, I was like, “We can handle it!” Because, you can have this canned tuna or canned whatever, and use it in these five different ways. So really creative. And when we had holidays and celebrations, you had canned food, and you had to get really aggressively creative with what you could do with a boiled potato, right? [laughs] Or you can have a soup made of pickles. And traditionally, even dating back—a lot of food in Eastern Europe basically consists of soups. You kinda have all of them for nutrition. You have like cabbage, potato, carrots, these are your staples.

And so the beet test was, I have this really weird salad that I love that I grew up eating. It's called “Herring Under a Fur Coat.” It's super weird. People either love it or hate it, but it’s there.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, the name of it gets me, I have to admit.

MASHA RUMER: Yeah! I have to probably describe what it looks like, the herring under a fur coat! [laughs] You could probably imagine a little fish walking around in this like sable coat. But it's not. It's a layered salad, which I think was a thing in the United States, too, for some time. Layered salads and like these things.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, and Jell-O salads, too. Which were different. Yeah.

MASHA RUMER: Which I think is so cool. And I know it's maybe not like those are all the rage right now. But so it's a layer of pickled herring covered with bits of onion. And then there's a layer of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is present and just about everything in the Soviet cuisine because it's available and it makes things delicious and creamy. And it makes you full.

BLAIR HODGES: It still is! I had a pizza—when we visited Russia we ordered a pizza because I wanted some “American” food. After several weeks I was like, “I've got to have something American”—

MASHA RUMER: Sure.

BLAIR HODGES: —so we ordered this pizza. And I get two slices into it and I realize after that, oh, something's off. And there was no pizza sauce. It was mayonnaise.

MASHA RUMER: Oh my goodness!

BLAIR HODGES: Anyway, sorry to interrupt, but it was a mayonnaise pizza!

MASHA RUMER: No, I love it! I'm so Googling that after the this this episode. That's amazing. I really want that. I think I'm going to try to make it [laughter] because I have to say my daughter tries to eat mayonnaise from the jar. I think is genetic.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh wow.

MASHA RUMER: Unless I stop her. So yeah, so then there’s a mayonnaise layer, then there's grated potatoes; mayonnaise layer; grated carrots. And then like at the top, you get beets, grated beets. So it's this beautiful magenta color, again, layered with mayonnaise. So it almost looks kind of like a UFO, but bright magenta, and on a plate. That's the beet test, it’s named after that salad, the Herring Under a Fur Coat, with the beets.

And eventually I realized that the people I was kind of dating didn't always take well to my cuisine. There was like, an Italian person I was dating briefly, who made fun of this salad with canned peas he was saying they were capers and that they grow them in Sicily. And I was like, “No, it's actually peas, and it’s a very traditional salad that we eat at every holiday. And he was like, “No, it's capers!” And I was like, no! This is not going to work out. Sorry, dude. [laughter] There were other issues, right, of course.

And then there was this other, somebody from Israel, who just could not understand the cuisine. He actually kind of made fun of it. Like he thought boiled chicken was disgusting—which I don't disagree with. He also couldn't understand why there aren’t so many spices, because in the Middle East, people have a lot more spices.

And so the list goes on. And then eventually, I took my husband to a restaurant in midtown Manhattan, and we ordered that Herring Under a Fur Coat, and it was put in front of him. And I already really liked him. And I was like, “Oh my God, I hope he likes a salad. I hope he doesn't start making fun of it”— which is not just about—you don't have to like it, you should at least not disrespect it, right? Especially if it's something so dear to you. And he was like, “Mmmm, that tastes like my mother's cooking.” And I was like, “yes!” So I ordered another thing and the waiter brought that and he liked that too, or at least pretended to. And then at the end, I asked the waiter to take a photo, because I was like, I think this is gonna work out. And then we used that picture when we announced our engagement later, I think on Facebook, shortly after [laughter].

BLAIR HODGES: You're not necessarily expecting him to like it. But I think it signaled on his part an openness and a regard for you as a person. I think he—once you get to know somebody, you know, you can kind of joke about some stuff—

MASHA RUMER: Of course.

BLAIR HODGES: —but early on in the relationship, I think it just signaled kind of an openness and a willingness to try things. And that would help make for a more successful relationship, especially an intercultural relationship. And as you were talking to other couples who had gotten married, what are some of the challenges that they talked about that they face in inter-ethnic marriages?

MASHA RUMER: The thing is, they don't really. That's the thing. I thought there would be like a host of—Because I kind of do it, like, organically. Here's this person from a different culture, we kind of try to make it work. But they didn't really talk about a lot of cultural issues. Just the basic stuff of life, like, the troubles they would have had—like, one Brazilian woman who married somebody from Syria, and they were both just heartbroken when there was a war, and this huge refugee crisis in Syria, they were just worried about the family there. Maybe both of them say they mispronounce the same words in the same way, because they're both nonnative English speakers.

Their religion was a big deal. For example, one person is one religion, the other one is of another, how do we balance that. But again, that can happen anywhere, right? But there were not that many, I would say, challenges that I've seen people come across when they’re already married. I think it's a lot of it was just the stuff of life, like religion, maybe fertility problems and challenges. But that has nothing to do with immigration, right? Or in-laws that are trying to like butt in and give advice.

I mean, but I think also, there was a couple I spoke to who, the woman was born in the United States, and the husband was from Mexico, and his mom came when their child was born and then a little bit later. And she had a lot of ideas of how the child should be really bundled up all the time. Really warm, right? The wife was worried that the child might get overheated because she read the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend bundling, because that might lead to SIDS or something. So she was always really worried, right? Or there was some tinctures she would bring, or certain ways of binding the belly. And she didn't understand why’d you do that.

But again, is it really related to immigration? Or is it just a cultural proclivity? So things like that. I think it just all comes down to respect and the willingness to be open. A lot of the people I spoke to, they didn’t even share or speak the language of their partner necessarily, that's not the deal breaker. It's all about respect and understanding where the person comes from, and just trying to make it work.

Losing language – 35:09

BLAIR HODGES: And speaking of language, part of your book focuses specifically on the issue of language in families. So more than half of the world, you point out, is bilingual. So it actually surprised me to find out that a lot of second generation immigrants—so children, like you would be a second generation, right? Your parents immigrated over and—or I guess your children are second generation!

MASHA RUMER: My children are second generation, so I’m first. But I'm very close to being generation 1.5, yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: Right. Okay, yeah. So you’re kind of in-between there. It doesn't follow along these neat lines. But the point is that language gets lost really quick. And that surprised me, that a lot of parents find it actually can be difficult to pass language on. And children don't necessarily grow up bilingual.

What was your experience with that, thinking about being a parent—I would imagine you would want your children to speak your native language. That's where feel most comfortable speaking, you can really convey your feelings most that way. So talk a little bit about that—about being a parent, and maybe worrying a little bit about language.

MASHA RUMER: It was a huge issue for me, too. I didn't really plan on how I'm going to pass down my language to my children. When my daughter was born, it just never really occurred to me, I think I just assumed it would just kind of happen, you know? Like, you just learn to talk, and if at least one parent in the household speaks the language, the child is going to just automatically kind of babble in it, and then just be almost like a native speaker. Which is absolutely ridiculous and not true, as I learned!

One of the most humbling things I've learned from talking to other parents and researching is that historically and now, it takes like three generations for the native language to disappear. So, the first generation of folks, the people that come from abroad, they speak it. Their kids usually are bilingual, typically more or less. And then their grandkids do not speak it at all. And this has been the case like a hundred years ago, or just a little over a hundred years ago with the great wave of European migration. And it's certainly the case now.

So immigrants are losing their native languages and gaining English at the same speed. Certainly, there are exceptions. But that's kind of the general trend. And that shocked me! When my daughter was born, I found myself speaking exclusively in my language with her, because I just could not find any other way to be authentic. It just kind of came flooding. I could not speak English with her at all. I tried. And it just felt completely inauthentic.

BLAIR HODGES: You said it didn't even seem like a choice. It’s just like, this is how you spoke.

MASHA RUMER: Yeah. Which was really strange. Because again, I was thirteen when I moved, and I thought that—I'm pretty fluent in English at this point, I would say. [laughs] I taught it. It was a really weird, rude awakening. But there was a language just coming out. And it seemed like the only way I could talk to her. And I did, certainly.

But when she went to—and the same happened to my son, when they went to American day cares, they became a lot less fluent in my language. And there is a lot of resources and a lot of time that’s needed to maintain the native language. It is possible. But it's not going to be perfect

BLAIR HODGES: You even talked about resistance, too. You talk about how with your daughter sometimes, you would be speaking in Russian or maybe doing Russian stories or something, and she was like, “No! Stop. Do English.”

MASHA RUMER: That’s right. There was so much resistance. And of course, the tendency is for the parent to feel, “Oh, maybe I'm not doing something right, or they're unwilling to learn my language.” And it feels like—actually, it's really kind of hurtful to a parent, no matter what language it is and where they come from.

I remember, I was trying to play for one of my kids this holiday song I grew up with that is very old, and that kids used to listen to around every holiday season. And she was like “Nah, not into that,” you know, “can we just listen to daddy's Jingle Bells?” And I was so hurt!

BLAIR HODGES: [laughs] Oh, yeah!

MASHA RUMER: I remember going to the grocery store later and I was like almost in tears, I think I was. It felt like—and it wasn't like, “Oh, I’m not listening to mommy,” or like, they didn't eat their vegetables. It was so much deeper. It's about the link to the heritage. It's about the jokes, the songs, the ability to speak to the grandparents and great grandparents. It's all of the family that still there, who they're going to hopefully get to meet one day. And it just feels like a huge rejection of you when a child seems like they don’t want to speak it.

But, little did I know that it's actually a very common phenomenon. Because ta-dah! Kids want to be like everybody else. I had a very similar experience when I immigrated. And when they hear other peers speak English and not their native languages, they kind of don't want to really stand out. It's not a personal thing. It's just, they just want to fit in. And also maybe they just don't know the language as well yet. They can't express themselves as comfortably. So of course, they're going to switch into English if they're more comfortable and more supported in that.

But it's not the end of the world. And as I've mentioned in the book, there are so many resources out there to try to help maintain the language. There are multiple ways that can be done. One parent speaks one language, the other one speaks the other, which is not, I have to say, what I do in my household because it's very difficult and very regimented. But people do the “one parent, one language” approach and it has about, notably, about a 75% success rate, but even the word success is a little fuzzy based on research. Because what do we mean by bilingual? Does it mean that they can speak and read and write in all those languages native-like? Can they swear in it? Also very important! [laughter]

So it depends. But as I've said, the more I learned and the more I persevered and tried different things, the more I was able to find an approach that works for me. And that's what a lot of parents do. Some are more strict than others. But forcing a child to speak a language doesn't usually work. They might start rejecting it. It's all very individual. But just because a child is not into speaking the language doesn't mean it's the end of the world. And there are ways to maintain bilingualism at home, even if you're just the only person in the household that speaks it. It's just going to be a bit more challenging, but the support, society’s support and external support outside of the house is incredibly important.

BLAIR HODGES: And you talk about some of the myths, too, you clear up some of the myths that people wonder about, like, if it will cause speech delays to try to have bilingual children; whether it confuses children. And you clear up a lot of those—that it doesn't cause speech delays. It's not confusing. Children are very good at doing all this.

Have you seen over time, over the four years of writing the book, did your daughter become—Will she listened to the song now?

MASHA RUMER: Absolutely. She loves those songs. And so does my son.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, good.

MASHA RUMER: I think there was a period of time when I actually gave up speaking—not speaking my language with her, I was just, I kind of put it on hold, because I tried to speak to her. And she just—I mean, she was like two, and at that time, I was working so much, I hardly saw her during the day on weekdays. And the last thing I wanted was to not communicate with her, like, have some rules about how she can speak to me, you know? I mean, some families do it, that that's fine for them. But I just did not want to do that. So I switched to English.

But at the same time, I still had the cartoons I offered her. Plenty of books in my language that were available. We socialize with my friends and peers that had kids that spoke that language too. So my parents who certainly speak the language—certainly not every weekend, but quite a bit—and it was still in the background. And she eventually, I would say maybe a year later, came back to it. And she showed interest. And that's when I saw my opportunity. And I taught her to read and write and speak. She wasn't necessarily completely fluent at the time. And certainly English is more comfortable. But later on, she started taking lessons, so I was not the only source of the language. And as she took lessons she didn't just learn about how to speak it. She learned about the culture, and she saw other kids speaking it, and it was less weird and less unusual.

BLAIR HODGES: There's a different authority figure, too. To have a teacher doing it rather than a parent, I think, can probably even make a difference.

MASHA RUMER: Exactly. And it's documented that the more external support there is, the better. Coming from school, coming from peers, even if it's a babysitter or nanny, it all really, really helps. And it doesn't always happen right away. A person can become bilingual at any age, even though there might be an accent present, certainly. But of course, the most opportune time to learn is during childhood, like the early years of childhood. But yeah, everybody has their own approach.

Facing racism and xenophobia – 43:22

BLAIR HODGES: That's Masha Rumer. She's an award winning journalist and freelance writer. We're talking about her new book, Parenting With an Accent. She’s also been published in places like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere.

Masha, your book appears at a time when it seems like xenophobia is more publicly pronounced than perhaps before, we've—Part of it's my own privilege, that I've been ignorant to how persistent racism and xenophobia have been. But also, it does seem like we see more of it on social media, we see more of it in the news. And people are more likely to film it and put it up so we can see these things happening. Have you felt? Being an immigrant, you have a bit of an accent, do you run into xenophobia? Has it felt more pronounced?

MASHA RUMER: I guess one part of my answer will be pre-war, because right now, as we're speaking, it's been about a month since Putin invaded Ukraine. I've seen that, again, it depends also on what kind of immigrant it is.

And Blair, I just so appreciate all the work you do to bring those issues to light that you've mentioned. It's so critical to have a better understanding, and I know how hard you work to discuss them and to make sure those issues are seen, of xenophobia, racism of inequities.

In my case, I've certainly run into it. I've had people ask me, when am I going back home. Asked me if I'm really a citizen, or like, did I steal elections in the United States. I've had people imply like, why did I marry my husband, did I do it for a visa or something? But it doesn't happen very often. I did once apply to teach English when I was in graduate school at a private school and when they found out I wasn't born in the United States, they suggested I'm better off teaching my own language instead.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, wow.

MASHA RUMER: Yeah, I’ve certainly had that happen.

BLAIR HODGES: And it's amazing, too, I just want people to know—I've followed your writing for years, and you are a fantastic writer, you're fantastic in the English language. And to hear about that sort of prejudice is so frustrating because you are skilled!

MASHA RUMER: [laughs] Thank you so much. That's very kind of you to say. Certainly, there are ways I can still improve, I would think!

I think it's a lot harder—particularly with some people I spoke to, and especially since I wrote this book, when. . .we had a different president—

BLAIR HODGES: Yes, exactly so.

MASHA RUMER: —in the White House, and we saw, not just perceived, a very documented increase in hate crimes and prejudicial statements against immigrants, or pretty much anyone who was different. I mean, the whole campaign, the presidential campaign was built on anti-immigrant rhetoric, right? How they send us “the worst” from Mexico, so to speak. And who—I'm not gonna say the word, the “S-hole” countries, right? Like how immigrants come from there. So it's like, unbelievable.

BLAIR HODGES: And I want to say, too, I want to be really clear—The fact is, it's not an exaggeration to say that racism and xenophobia were a significant part of the campaign, and that many people who voted for that President shared those sentiments—or at the very least, those sentiments were not disqualifying to them, which is itself xenophobic and racist.

People who would say, “Oh, well, I don't agree with that, and that”—but it was still not a big enough deal, it wasn't a deal breaker, which itself is a manifestation of racism and xenophobia.

MASHA RUMER: That's exactly right. Thank you for saying that. People that I interviewed actually reported to me they felt unsafe. There was a woman who is Indian and brown skinned, her husband is Indian, they have adopted two girls who are born here who are white, Caucasian. And she said she was really concerned how people are going to look at the family because of that, and are they gonna think that she is not part of this culture?

And I mean, I've spoken to a number of other people that are also mentioned in this book, where they had their partners be asked if they married for visa, and why don't they speak English well, even though they knew that the partner speaks English well, or when are they going back home? So it's unfortunate, it certainly affects us, just like I mentioned, when I came to the United States, there was this anti-immigrant sentiment from Pete Wilson, the governor at the time. It affects people. It's not a direct, kind of like cause and effect, but it absolutely trickles down.

And whatever is said in the media, and by our policymakers and politicians, it certainly affects people's mindsets. And we see that changing people's minds and how they think, even if it's not true. Like, yeah, immigrants did not come from s-hole countries, and they do not send us offenders and criminals, contrary to what was said during that presidential platform. But it does make people feel afraid for their safety. It does absolutely hamper immigrants’ assimilation or acculturation efforts, because in order for a person to assimilate, they have to feel like the society receiving them is open to them, and is accepting them, and it's not xenophobic, is not racist, is not judging them or rejecting them or fearing them. That's very important.

It's understandable—people do fear anyone who is different, that's just how people are made. But if you have that, kind of, throwing coals into the fire or whatnot, it's going to affect the way people are received. And it especially—I have to say—especially affects people who are undocumented, because they are afraid, even kids of parents who came undocumented who might not even know about their undocumented status until they grow a little bit older, and they have to apply for financial aid, or go to school, or get a lot of driver's license. They don't even know that they’re undocumented. And it creates so much fear, those people are less likely to seek help when they need it, medical care, legal help when they might need it. It creates a culture of fear and distrust and violence, this kind of rhetoric.

The war in Ukraine – 49:03

BLAIR HODGES: I want to talk a little bit now about what's happening. I was at a presentation yesterday where some Ukrainians and Russians spoke about their backgrounds and what's happening right now. And the Russian speaker really stood out to me. She talked about loving her country, but feeling so disappointed and sad, and almost guilty of what Russia was doing. And she would contact her family back in Russia and say, “This is what's happening.” And they wouldn't even believe her. They've been watching state media. They aren't aware of all the things Russia is doing. And so as I was preparing for this interview, I obviously couldn't help but think of you—I know you came over when you were thirteen. But this is where you came from you. So I'd love to hear your thoughts and what you've been going through as the war—Russia invading Ukraine—has been unfolding.

MASHA RUMER: It's been very hard. I am in a complete state of shock, to be honest. I came from Russia. I'm part Ukrainian. Both of my grandmothers are from Ukraine. They grew up there. I have Ukrainian family now who—part of my family, they're from Odesa. At the time the war broke out, I had my cousin's family in Kiev and they had to evacuate. So I have relatives still in Russia that are absolutely opposed to this invasion, to this horrible invasion, and one was jailed for protesting war. It's unconscionable for so many reasons.

I'm ashamed. I mean, it's like the infrastructure of the country of Ukraine is partly destroyed. It's not about, is it going to be rebuilt. There is now more than three and a half million people who are refugees who have fled Ukraine, including my family members and millions of others that are displaced internally. And it's horrible.

At the same time, Putin’s—the iron curtain is back upon us, I'm afraid, on Russia, because thousands of anti-war protesters are being detained. Some of them are being violently treated and abused in detention. It's documented, the Human Rights Watch actually documented this physical abuse against those who are taking to the streets saying, “No to war, no to war.” In my family's case, the wife did not know what was happening to the man, like she knew where he was taken, but they were not given information about when he's going to be released, they would not take packages from her. Again, that's not the same as people being bombed in Ukraine. But there are so many people in Russia that are aghast about this.

And independent media has been silenced. Access online has been blocked, a lot of it has been dissolved. And a lot of liberal western journalists I follow from Russia, a lot of them have fled Russia as well, they're no longer reporting from there. And if you basically say anything against the war, or call it war, or call it invasion, instead of “special operation,” that's—

BLAIR HODGES: Even using the words—

MASHA RUMER: Even using the words “war,” “invasion,” like that can give you a sentence of up to fifteen years in jail, and who knows what's gonna happen to you there. Russia has a history of repression. I do not know what's going to happen. I know that people in Russia are being brainwashed. Also, Facebook is no longer available. I think Instagram too, but Twitter is no longer available. So people cannot even share what's going on, or even understand what's going on. The majority of people do not speak English, so they're just being brainwashed and fed this information about a “special operation.” They're being told that Ukraine—

BLAIR HODGES: When it's the only media you can access, that's the only story you even have to make a judgment about.

MASHA RUMER: They do not know what's going on. They're being told that the soldiers—there are just a couple hundred soldiers killed so far, whereas in fact, it's in the thousands. And nobody's taking them to bury them back in Russia. A lot of times the mothers did not know, the wives did not know where their husbands are, nobody can identify them, because nobody's coming to collect them. That's a huge problem.

BLAIR HODGES: Do you think a reckoning is coming, at least because of that the fact that people aren't going to be coming home? Like there's going to be a lot of people that don't come back from this. And how are everyday Russians that don't have access to this kind of information, going to even learn about it eventually?

MASHA RUMER: I do not know. It's hard to say. Russia has a really long history of burying facts. The Holocaust was not discussed for my family, my Ukrainian and my Belarussian family perished also, they were killed by the Nazis. The Gulags were not discussed.

BLAIR HODGES: You’d think Russia would be trumpeting that, because Russia ended up fighting Hitler and making a considerable difference in how World War II wound up. So you'd think that would be something to be proud of.

MASHA RUMER: And that's the thing. A lot of people at the border now that are evacuating, they're sharing the exactly same stories that our grandparents have shared about evacuating the Nazis, both Russian and Ukrainian that we're fighting side by side. And like I said, my family is part Ukrainian. So many other families I know who have one spouse from Ukraine and the other is from Russia, or both are, or my best friend in Russia was Ukrainian. She was born in a small village outside Zhytomyr and she told me all about it when we were friends, until I left so, I’m sorry I can't be more eloquent about this.

But I do not know about reckoning, because people are afraid, they're silenced. And they're thinking that there's nothing really happening. There’s a special operation, and nobody's really dying. And Russia is there to quote-unquote, “fight Nazism,” to de-Nazify Ukraine. Which is like, yes, there's a problem with white supremacy in Russia and Ukraine, as it is in the United States, obviously. But, I'm sorry, we have a Jewish president elected in a landslide in Ukraine. Russia just bombed the site of Bobyn Yar where over thirty thousand Jews were shot in just a matter of a few days, the bombs fell on it. Like, how is that de-Nazifying? It's shameful. It's horrible.

I know that people in Russia are already running out of money or food, their medicine, they’re not gonna have—my friend's mother's there, also being brainwashed—she's going to have no access to medical equipment that she needs to stay alive very soon, because it's western, because of all the sanctions. And of course, there need to be sanctions. I can tell you also that, just as an example of Russia's repression, so my great aunt was digging ditches when World War II started, she was digging ditches around Leningrad for the soldiers as it was being occupied by the Nazis, and she was taken as a prisoner of war by the Nazis for the duration of the war. And when she came out, she was put in the Gulag by Stalin because she had been a prisoner of war! It was a punishment for “seeing the West.” And she was there until Stalin died.

I also just found out two days ago, surprisingly, that my grandfather and my different grandfather, he served during the entire war, he was in the Air Force, an officer, protected it from the Nazis—he changed his last name so that in case he was taken as a prisoner of war, and later, imprisoned, put in a camp by Stalin in Russia, that his family would not be punished for his being a prisoner of war. So that's why he changed his last name.

So it's a history of violence and repression by people who run the country, sadly. And we're seeing that now. And I just, I'm just praying and hoping it's going to end as soon as possible.

BLAIR HODGES: Thank you for spending a little bit of time on that. I know that's a really emotional and difficult topic, and I appreciate you talking about it with us.

MASHA RUMER: Thank you. thanks for asking about it

A feeling of statelessness – 56:17

BLAIR HODGES: Masha, there's a lot of reflection in this book about how you feel like you’re between worlds. You had a place where you came from, and you're in a new place that's also home. But there's a section toward the end of the book that I thought would be nice to hear you read to our listeners. So it's on page 168.

MASHA RUMER: Sure. Thank you.

“Having lived in the United States most of my life, I've raised dozens of champagne and vodka toasts to America, at every major family function, from New Year's Eve parties to birthdays. I have voted in every presidential election since becoming a citizen. I have made flag cakes on the Fourth of July, and for friends receiving their Green Cards. It’s basically a frosted rectangular sheet cake festooned with strawberries and blueberries in a Stars and Stripes pattern. It’s quite good. This is where my children were born. And where I've lived most of my life. This is home. But no amount of patriotic cake and country music can erase that occasional feeling of statelessness.”

BLAIR HODGES: I wanted to hear you talk a little bit more about that feeling of statelessness and what that's like.

MASHA RUMER: It's really hard to pin down. But it's basically, I think, the feeling of being between two cultures. It can feel like you're occupying them both the same time, but also not really belonging to them, either. Because on the one hand, you're not completely American. You might miss some references to—and it's beyond sports, you know, some references that people grew up with as kids. I mean, there are some social cues, or understanding, what is a smile? Is a smile a genuine expression of goodwill, or is it just part of a message that's otherwise meant to be negative and the smile just makes it less negative? That's something a lot of immigrants struggle with. Or words like, “I don't love that,” or “I'm not sure I agree with that,” or “Maybe there's another way of looking at it.” Is it somebody saying, “Okay, I agree with you, but maybe there are other ways of looking at it,” or “I don't love it, but I like it,” or does it mean “I hate this!”

Because, for example, where I grew up, you have to be really straightforward. Like, if you don't like it, you're gonna say, “I hate this,” or “This is ridiculous or crazy,” which also, I don't necessarily recommend. [laughter] But understanding how to read between the lines, that can take a while.

But at the same time, going back to my birthplace, I found myself also feeling like an outsider. I smile way more, and you don't just smile at people in the former Soviet Union or they’ll think something is wrong with you, or you're planning to steal something from them, or you're just crazy. [laughter] That's also not considered okay. And, you know, I might have a bit of an accent, maybe. I don't know the latest lingo and jargon in Russian—although that also comes back pretty quickly, usually, when you're immersed back in the culture.

But when I went back in 2004 and met with my friends that I grew up with, that I've been dreaming about, their lives and being back there, and they always appear in the same age in my dreams—thirteen, interestingly. Yeah, I looked at all those yearbooks, they showed me, for those two days I saw them, and I saw myself absent from those yearbooks, and it was incredibly heartbreaking. And they talked to me about their jobs and families, or how they're trying to get families and struggling. And I felt like I didn't speak the same language. My problems are different problems from theirs. Obviously, we could talk, we can reminisce, but I was already different and changed. And they saw me as different and changed. It was quite tragic, actually, even though I was really happy to see them.

In the book. I also say, maybe it takes time to see anything at all when you're of both cultures, but it really offers, sometimes, the best seat in the house. And that's how I like to look at it.

BLAIR HODGES: And I think, too, just the fact of parenting with an accent, it's almost to me as though you're also building a world with your children and with your spouse that doesn't have the same amount of disconnect. The world your children are growing up in is their world, is their home. You're part of that. And I wonder if that helps make a difference, too. The fact of building a new world with children in the mix, and that home can really exist there.

MASHA RUMER: It's been incredibly empowering to try to build traditions from scratch, I would say, for me and for my husband too, who, like I mentioned, is not Russian. He's from the Midwest, and he grew up very different. But also actually, in many ways, similar. I find there's a lot of overlap in ways we grew up. From food we ate, to how people tend to approach conflict—whether people tend to discuss it or whether they’re conflict averse. And just the general demeanor, I think. We had a lot of similarities.

But at the same time, we were negotiating from the very beginning. How are we going to celebrate holidays? How are we gonna treat religion in our home? How am I going to treat my religion of my ancestors, when I did not grow up with it, because it was taboo? We were supposed to be atheist. We were supposed to be hiding our religions, whether it's Christianity or Judaism, or being Muslim, for people who are living more like in the Central Asian republics.

But especially being Jewish was obviously taboo because of antisemitism. But how am I now going to bring that back into my household, after not really observing that, or only having seen that among really older family members that have not been with us for a long time, who’ve changed their names to avoid persecution for being Jewish, and I only found out later.

So how do I revive that in my family and in my household, and at the same time, honoring my husband's roots, and bring back my culture that I grew up with that, despite of what's happening now, the terrors that we're seeing, it's still the culture I grew up with. And there are so many good things about its music, its writing, the people, and try to teach my kids—they're certainly seeing what's happening with the war, and we're telling them about it, and they're donating their tooth fairy money to causes, and I don't want them to be ashamed of it, but I want them to be ashamed of Putin and know that this is not what the country is, and its people are. And it's a very hard task, especially now.

But at the same time, it is like rebuilding from scratch. And it's really exciting. And it's really empowering.

BLAIR HODGES: And I get the sense, throughout the book, that it was healing for you to connect with people from a lot of different cultures who were experiencing a lot of similar things. It seemed like one of the main messages of the book was that a lot of the adversities you faced, being an immigrant and now being a parent, aren't necessarily rooted in immigration itself, but are fairly common human things about communication, and about trust, and about nostalgia, and about having a home and safety.

And so, all of these human concerns. They happen to be played here in the register of being an immigrant, but that you can find connections with people from a lot of different cultures that can resonate with you.

MASHA RUMER: Absolutely. So many of these issues are, I would say, they're not just related to my culture. Or I can find, I guess, similarities among other cultures and ethnic heritages that are quite universal. We can discuss parenting differences, because of where the person originated, where they come from. But at the same time, there are many parenting differences based on where people grew up in the United States as well. And it's certainly rooted in immigration—a lot of those issues—but they're not necessarily immigration-related. They're very universal.

And the more I talked to people about this, the more I just saw how everybody has different concerns, but at the same time, a lot of them are shared, no matter where they're from.

BLAIR HODGES: That's Masha Rumer and today we talked about her book Parenting with an Accent: How Immigrants Honor their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for their Children. You can find a link to purchase that book and other books talked about on Fireside at our website, firesidepod.org. We're going to take a quick break and come right back to talk about best books.

[BREAK]

Best Books – TIME XYZ

BLAIR HODGES: We're back with Masha Rumer, it's Fireside with Blair Hodges, and today we talked about her book Parenting with an Accent: How Immigrants Honor their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for their Children. I highly recommend this book.

And now that I've highly recommended this book, it is your turn, Masha, to highly recommend another book, a best book. It could be something you read when you were a kid that changed your life. It could be something you read this month—a lot of different possibilities. I'm always excited to find out what people brought to recommend. So take it away. What have you got for us?

MASHA RUMER: Oh my goodness, so many things come to mind! But I would probably have to recommend right now a book by a Ukrainian-born Jewish author who is also an immigrant who just released it a couple of years ago, but the paperback version was just released a few months ago I believe, or maybe it was last year. It's called The Nesting Dolls, and the author is Alina Adams. She's a prolific writer, and she also used to write for soap operas, so you know that the plot is going to be very good. [laughter]

It's a novel. And it traces the history of three different generations in one family, starting with Odesa, Ukraine, and it ends in Brighton Beach in New York. So I think it very interesting, and especially now, it's relevant. It describes the history of persecution in the former Soviet Union and in Ukraine, and how it seemed through these people's eyes, and at the same time, through family sagas. It's incredibly captivating.

And if anybody's interested in learning more about oppression in the Soviet Union, or the key historical events, I think they would really find it fascinating. It's a historical novel. It also really captures the immigrant experience in the last part, and it captures the experience of being discriminated against in terms of antisemitism, and certainly the issues related to gulags, and so on. It's fascinating, and I just found it very healing and informative to read it.

And if I may recommend just one more—I know you asked for just one—

BLAIR HODGES: Sure, yeah, well a few people sneak in extra ones. It's not unprecedented, so—

MASHA RUMER: [laughs] It's also related to what's happening right now. And it's so important to elevate voices from Ukraine right now, and the immense literature and poetry that's happening there. So one other book I'd like to recommend is a book of poetry translations of Ukrainian poets that write in Ukrainian and Russian, and this is translated into English. It's called Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine. It actually came out in 2017, which kind of tells you a lot about how long people have been— the conflict has been going on, the war, since 2014. So it deals with those issues—

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, Russia has been pushing into and taking over areas in Ukraine—

MASHA RUMER: Oh, yeah. Since 2014, if not longer. So it's a really touching tribute to that, and describes what people are experiencing, and how it's been for them. So those two books

BLAIR HODGES: Great. So Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, and the other one was The Nesting Dolls, by Alina Adams. Again, people can check out the book Parenting with an Accent: How Immigrants Honor their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for their Children.

Masha, thank you so much for spending the time here at Fireside with us.

MASHA RUMER: Thank you so much, Blair. It was a pleasure.

Outro – TIME XYZ

BLAIR HODGES: Fireside with Blair Hodges is sponsored by the Howard W. Hunter Foundation—supporters of the Mormon Studies program at Claremont Graduate University in California. It’s also supported by the Dialogue Foundation. A proud part of the Dialogue Podcast Network.

Alright, another episode is in the books, the fire has dimmed, but the discussion continues. Join me on Twitter and Instagram, I’m at @podfireside. And I’m on Facebook as well. You can leave a comment at firesidepod.org. You can also email me questions, comments, or suggestions directly to blair@firesidepod.org. And please don’t forget to rate and review the show in Apple Podcasts if you haven’t already.

Fireside is recorded, produced, and edited by me, Blair Hodges, in Salt Lake City. Special thanks to my production assistants, Kate Davis and Camille Messick, and also thanks to Christie Frandsen, Matthew Bowman, and Kristen Ullrich Hodges.

Our theme music is “Great Light” by Deep Sea Diver, check out that excellent band at thisisdeepseadiver.com.

Fireside with Blair Hodges is the place to fan the flames of your curiosity about life, faith, culture, and more. See you next time.

[End]

NOTE: Transcripts have been lightly edited for readability.