more often than not, the slavic immigrant comes to this country with a working understanding of english. accented, sure; formal, maybe; clunky, in certain cases—but an understanding nonetheless. the slavic immigrant comes to this country to get hired (but mocked), educated (but outcast), safe (but alone). the slavic immigrant comes to this country and they do not go back to the old one, save for annual pilgrimages with their children, if they can afford it, and even the ones who can look at the home country with a sense of derision. it’s not their home, not anymore. they don’t consider themselves as such. they might leave again, you never known. the slavic immigrant has a flipped coin chance of having grown up in a war zone. the slavic immigrant had his new running shoes stolen at the bus stop, was shipped off to san francisco halfway through high school for her safety, spent half their childhood waiting for the other shoe to drop. the slavic immigrant says yugoslavia, sometimes, by mistake. the slavic immigrant does not teach their children their native tongue. they espouse the comparative use of french, spanish, even german. halfhearted, they recite vocabulary words and forward outdated websites, if the children are curious, but any attempt at bilingualism floats away on the wind before the child’s fifth birthday. the slavic immigrant cooks sarma or ćevapčići and calls them cabbage rolls and kebabs, even among family. the slavic immigrant is afraid of going home again. the slavic immigrant is a victim of europe’s ‘brain drain’ and they are the villain of that story too. the slavic immigrant wants to go home again but is not sure where that home is. the slavic immigrant is american, canadian, settled into the new world. the slavic immigrant does not think of themselves as an immigrant at all.
the canadian government’s website defines first-generation immigrants as persons who were born outside canada. the canadian government’s website defines second-generation immigrants as persons who were born in canada and had at least one parent born outside canada. for the most part, these are the children of immigrants. after the third generation, the trail goes cold. the canadian government’s website lists definitions for four different types of immigrants and three generations of immigrants and cannot define for you what being an immigrant’s kid is supposed to feel like, if anything at all.
the second-generation slavic immigrant is a mouthful. the slavic immigrant’s child rolls easier off the tongue. the slavic immigrant’s child calls themselves serbian. bosnian. croatian. ukrainian. the slavic immigrant’s child does not identify with their new country. the slavic immigrant’s child wears their shoes until they fall apart. the slavic immigrant’s child finds people from their country at school, people who are also the children of slavic immigrants, and cannot find kinship with them at all. the slavic immigrant’s child is friends with the children of other immigrants, but no one from their country. too close for comfort. the slavic immigrant’s child reads russian literature and messages their english-speaking grandfather on a regular basis, but goes to their home country for the summer (the slavic immigrant’s child will always think of that country as home, the slavic immigrant never will) to form one sentence in patchy cyrillic. this is met with applause from the other slavs, as if the slavic immigrant’s child is still a child and not a teenager, who can express themselves with significant eloquence in english but manages to ask for the bathroom in their native tongue only under pressure. the slavic immigrant’s child spoke the language as a child but lost it because no one would speak it back to them. the slavic immigrant’s child doesn’t like sarma much. the slavic immigrant’s child doesn’t understand why they cry at every immigration story. the slavic immigrant’s child has never seen a movie about their country, about immigrants from former yugoslavia, but forms a disjointed picture of what this might look like from old serbian films and modern films on someone else’s immigration story. the slavic immigrant’s child cries when they tell their parents what they want to study. the slavic immigrant’s child takes biology, physics, and chemistry no matter what university they’re hoping to get into. the slavic immigrant’s child takes it as a given that they must go to university. the slavic immigrant’s child knows they must make their parents proud and the slavic immigrant’s child knows that they want to leave their parents. ironically the slavic immigrant’s child never stops to consider that the slavic immigrant had to leave their parents too.
the slavic immigrant is a slavic parent in north america. perhaps this makes them kinder. perhaps the years away begin to soften them, hollow them out, until even the standard academic excellence they expect of their children becomes routine, almost a joke. how harsh the slavic parent is is a function of how long they have been away from home. ‘i would be okay if you failed,’ says the slavic parent, twenty years gone. ‘i would be happier if you did because you have worried so much about it.’ the slavic parent is trying to be kind and doesn’t know why their child’s eyes are filling with tears. the slavic parent does not understand why the child feels slavic at all. is that not why they moved here, to this country? so their child could be american, canadian, not a european? the slavic immigrant finds henry james boring. uninspired. maybe they even consider him a liar. maybe they consider their child—who longs for europe, who stumbles through mathematics, who sees every gift horse as nothing but the mouth—a liar too. the slavic parent does not known how to reckon with the person they have created or the person they have become.
the slavic immigrant and the slavic immigrant’s child alike have not been to the home country for almost three years, but that will change soon. and so will they.