Comment by int_19h
12 days ago
Anecdotally this does seem to be true in US. I know several Iranians in US, from completely different social circles, but all of them strongly anti-clerical and not shy about it.
Also, as a Russian who left Russia, it's certainly a familiar pattern.
Note, by the way, that this doesn't really imply anything about whether those people are wrong to be antagonistic.
> Also, as a Russian who left Russia
I've noticed there's two distinct 20th century Russian diaspora groups in the US. Those who came here prior to the fall of the USSR, and those who came after.
In talking with the ones who came after the fall, life wasn't glamorous but got truly unlivable in the wake of the collapse.
In talking with the ones who came before the fall, they wanted to make money.
There's a group here, largely those expats kids in my experience, that swears they had things better back in Russia and ravenously consume Russian media. I used to encounter them a lot in Sheepshead Bay.
Most immigration in 00-10s was economical, and yes, for that group of people it's often the case that they are very much still enmeshed in Russian imperial agitprop. It's common enough that there are memes about this: https://lurkmore.media/%D0%9F%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%91%...
However there was a smallish wave of political immigration after the 2011 protests and 2014 conflict with Ukraine, and a much larger one since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And those people tend to be very anti-Russian-government for obvious reasons.
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> I used to encounter them a lot in Sheepshead Bay.
My friend is one but wasn't always like that. He was never critical of Russia or the USA and was pretty quiet until befriending some Russian dude in his apt building during the blackout of hurricane Sandy. Now he frequently criticizes and rants about capitalist USA then sings praise of Russia. We keep telling him to go back but he doesn't. He's unfortunately "that guy" in our group of friends now -_-