Connecting to our Second Culture

Colleen finds ways for her family to connect with her husband's culture

By Colleen Laing

When I began dating my Russian husband, I would get excited for him when I heard other Russian speakers.  “Go talk to them” I would say.  “I don’t know those people” he’d often reply.  To me, the novelty of two Russian speakers in the same foreign locale seemed enough, but just because they speak the same language doesn’t mean they have anything to talk about.  My husband is more than ‘a Russian’; he’s an individual with many aspects to his identity, some common to Russians others not.  Now that we have a child, however, being Russian and having kids is sufficient to pique our interest. 

We’re often on the lookout for ways to connect with Russian people, culture and language in the Seattle area.  One Russian connection we enjoy is visiting the Deli of Europe in the nearby suburb of Bellevue, which we fondly call ‘the Russian store’.  As we stock-up on favorite foods our daughter, Alina, gets to experience tastes and smells from my husband’s childhood, creating a connection and common experience across generations.   Food becomes a means for getting excited about things Russian and way to create family memories and rituals.  The owner, whom we fondly refer to as Totya Lyuba (Aunt Lyuba), speaks Russian with my husband, allowing Alina to hear two adults conversing in her second language.  Totya Lyuba also speaks to Alina in Russian and gives her crackers and candy, ensuring Alina will continue to be enthused about visiting the Russian store.

We are lucky to live in a region with a large Russian community.  According to the Census Bureau, of 1 ¾ million county residents, 11,000 speak Russian at home.  Not only do we have four Russian food stores (that I know of) we have a Russian bookstore with quite a decent inventory (my husband found a Russian translation of Wind in the Willows there, for example).  While the Seattle city library isn’t very strong in its Russian collection, our county library has a truly broad and deep selection of Russian books, music and videos as well as occasional Russian story times.    Having access to these things as they occur to us (rather than having to make a list and place a mail order or wait for a trip to Moscow every few years) is an important way of keeping relevant and engaging Russian language materials in our lives.

Our latest effort to connect to Russian culture is starting a Russian playgroup.  So far the response has been lukewarm, but we are hoping to build some momentum.  I am guessing that Russian families with lots of relatives in town don’t feel the need to connect the way we do.  We have noticed how much more motivated our daughter is to speak Russian when she’s around other Russian speaking children, and we hope the play group times will provide her an opportunity to use her Russian and to build friendships with Russian speaking kids.  Such friendships can serve not only as opportunities to practice language skills; we hope they will also provide a community of common identity.  This will become critical when she reaches the age where she begins to notice and care that most families only speak English at home.

The Russian Orthodox Church in Seattle is a center for Russian religious and cultural activity.  While we are not members of the congregation, they have been welcoming to us, inviting us to children’s holiday events.  We have attended their bazaars to eat home-cooked Russian food, meet people and buy crafts.  They have a free half-day Saturday language school that our daughter will begin attending in the fall, which provides secular Russian language instruction.  This will be critical for our daughter’s ability to read and write using the Cyrillic alphabet. 

By all these means we hope to create connections to our family’s second culture so Alina will feel at home in Russian culture and will value it as an integral part of her identity.  For residents of the greater Seattle area, the Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network is a wonderful resource for identifying similar means to connect with non-English/American groups and events.  Check them out at the Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network website: www.biculturalfamily.org (check out the playgroups, childcare and school links).

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Colleen Laing is a freelance writer living in Seattle. She has a 3-year-old bilingual daughter. Colleen is a monthly columnist for Multilingual Living Magazine where she writes about single-language parenting a bilingual child. She welcomes feedback and article ideas at cblaing@oz.net.

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