Review Essay: Resilience in Russian Immigrant Stories: An Alternative to Deficiency Models

Abstract

At first glance, "Red Blues: Voices from the Last Wave of Immigrants" is simply a collection of immigrant stories. However, SHASHA and SHRON capture immigrant experiences from a rich array of social landscapes such as "Privilege Lost," "God and Religious Dissent," and "Scientists and Doctors" and make special note of the common strand of the ingenuity necessary for these individuals to survive. This review suggests that these resilient attitudes contrast sharply with common perceptions of immigrants as deficient and identifies several faces of resilience evident in excerpts from these stories. It also notes that this sort of collection is of particular importance to educators and other community leaders who need a greater awareness of the heritage and the strengths of the immigrant students in their communities and schools. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0701190