How Uzbeks live in America and where the diaspora settles

Few people know the exact number of those who left Uzbekistan over the past 15 years. I haven’t met any statistics yet. But it is known that most of all citizens of Uzbekistan are seeking to leave for the United States, South Korea, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

Фото: Depositphotos

About 70% of the “new Uzbeks” live in the United States illegally, since their American visas have long expired. Most of them entered the United States on a B1/B2 tourist visa and filled out Form I-94, which is also called a “white card.” This is the main document regulating the stay of a foreigner in the country. It is filled out by the border service, which decides how long you have the right to officially stay here. Upon expiration of the “white card”, each holder automatically becomes an illegal immigrant and, in case of leaving the country, may be deprived of the right to re-enter it for up to ten years. These rules are currently being revised because INS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) has moved into Homeland Security.

Many of the Uzbeks who came to the United States find different ways to legalize. And do you think the majority acts? They get married and get married. Or rather, they enter into a fictitious marriage. They find American women (most of whom can safely be called “granny”), get married and after some time receive a “green card” - the right to permanent residence.

Фото: Depositphotos

Says a young Uzbek living in New Jersey:

— I came here three years ago. I work in a store. Your visa has already expired. I can’t go back because they won’t let me back in. So what should I do then? After all, I am the only breadwinner for the entire family left at home. He married two sisters and became a father, but he had to leave before the birth of his daughter so as not to overstay his visa. Gradually I hired a lawyer and asked him to help me get legalized. A year ago he found me a wife in Ohio, and we entered into a fictitious marriage. She is 52 years old, I am 25. It cost me a lot of money: $8000 must be paid to the lawyer for drawing up all the necessary documents and for finding a suitable candidate. So what should we do? I had to do all this so that later there would be no problems with entry and exit to America...

Next door to the state of New Jersey is the state of New York with the city of the same name. New York is one of the largest metropolises. How to ignore them, because this state is home to representatives of different religious faiths and ethnic groups. Every former Soviet person knows what Brighton Beach is. To be in New York and not visit this legendary place would be an unforgivable omission. Brighton can be reached by tube on the Q line.

The central part of Brighton is Brighton Beach Avenue. This is a street running parallel to the coast, on which all the key objects of “little Odessa” (as the Americans call this area) are located - shops, snack bars, restaurants, the Millennium concert hall and other objects with signs in Russian. A subway line runs over much of Brighton Beach Avenue, with occasional trains noisily passing through. Perhaps, in spirit, Brighton Beach is the seventies and eighties of the Soviet era, transferred to America. This spirit is felt in the way people dress, talk, signs on buildings and the design of stores.

In order to stroll through Brighton Beach, it is not necessary to speak English. After all, among those living in this area, Russian remains the main language of communication. Over the past 15 years, former CIS citizens have managed to settle in Brighton.

Photo: Pavel Terekhov

My next interlocutor is Dildara, who works as a saleswoman in a local pizzeria:

— Time passes so quickly... I’ve been living in the USA for five years now. Before that I lived in Tashkent. She was married and raised two children. Then my husband and I stopped understanding each other, and I divorced him. And, thank God, I got divorced. Otherwise, I would still be sitting in a concrete house and would not have seen anything in this life. Having arrived here, I started earning money. I bought an apartment with a mortgage and a car. In a word, I got back on my feet.

A hundred meters away from the Dildara pizzeria, Durdona works in a bag store. She is also from Tashkent. She moved to New York three years ago and got married:

— My grandfather has lived here for a long time. He is originally from Uzbekistan, but lived in Urumqi for a long time. And later he moved to live in America. I have many relatives here. My sister recently got married, and later it was my turn (smiles). Now I live not far from the store where I work. I am raising a daughter who is one and a half years old, and I work during the day.

Feeling hungry, I decided to have a snack and went to the Kashgar cafe, which was recommended to me. Kashgar is the name of a city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China, bordering Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where ethnic Uzbeks and a related ethnic group, the Uyghurs, live. On the street in front of the cafe there is a billboard with the inscription “Uzbek cuisine: osh, lagman, manti, samsa, shish kebab, etc.” This cozy cafe is always packed with guests. Yulduz Usmanova's song sounds loudly inside. You walk in here and it’s like you’re at an Uzbek wedding. All those entering are greeted as guests, according to Uzbek custom, exclaiming “kelin-kelin” (“come in, come in”). After placing my order, I looked around: almost all the visitors were former citizens of the USSR and the CIS. At the next table, a group of drunken Uzbeks are excitedly arguing about something, swearing every word.

A waitress who came up, an Uzbek woman of forty-five, putting a teapot of tea in front of me, said in a whisper:

“I’m ashamed of our men.” Do you hear how they behave? People drink here almost every day. They have wives and children who are waiting for them. And they sit here and drink. They probably came to earn money to help their family. And here they spend their earnings on drunkenness. I'm tired of them. A shame! All they can do is wag their tongues.

After spending about an hour at the Kashgar cafe, I travel to Manhattan to stroll through the evening New York. Here is Time Square, Rockefeller center.

On Broadway I talked with a couple of guys from Uzbekistan who sell paintings here:

- We are students. We study here. Studying costs a lot of money. They took out money on credit for their studies. Now I would like to earn money for textbooks. Hard.

A seven-hour bus ride from New York brings me to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where many Uzbeks are said to work. And everyone works for one company, which is headed by Poles and Jews. In general, Pittsburgh is a major trade and financial center of the United States, one of the important centers of heavy industry: ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, heavy engineering. Electrical, radio-electronic, machine tool, glass-ceramic, chemical, printing, food industries. Universities, Carnegie Institute of Technology. Art Gallery.

Most of the Uzbeks living here have been working in local hotels for many years as service personnel: dishwashers, laundresses, housekeepers (maids), toilet cleaners, in a word - unskilled laborers. The firm that hired them operates 16 hotels in and around Pittsburgh. Hotels pay the company $10 per hour, the company pays its employees $6-6,5 per hour. Mostly Uzbeks live here in the Green Tree area, which they themselves nicknamed “mahalla”.

Wherever you look here, you are sure to see an Uzbek or a representative of other Central Asian republics. They rent an apartment and five or six people live in it - it works out cheaper. Each person pays about $125 a month for housing.

Every morning at five o'clock three minivans from the company transport people to hotels and hotels. At the same time, they pay the fare from their own pocket ($ 1,5). The drivers of these cars, at other times carrying guests of hotels, are also from the CIS. Local Uzbeks say that additional jobs can always be found in Pittsburgh.

They work on average ten hours a day. But there are also those who work 16 hours straight. Moreover, these are middle-aged people. The place where you can stay for a part-time job after your main job is the Radisson Hotel, which is located in the Monroeville area. My interlocutors call this hotel “police”, and some even call it “Gestapo”. The reason for this is the very rude, and sometimes cruel, treatment of guest workers by American personnel. So, every hotel employee, as I was told, constantly monitors any move of the hired employee, checking whether he complies with the rules established for staff (it is prohibited to talk on a mobile phone on the hotel premises, you can only go outside at a set time, etc. ). The offender may be fired immediately. The American personnel themselves ignore these rules, although they apply to them as well.

Junior staff calls this hotel "zone". I was hurt to hear how small managers of kitchens and warehouses put out their anger and irritation by loud swearing at the migrant workers who did not understand English.

— Americans talk about human rights, they are considered the most democratic people in the world. But where is this democracy? Do you know how they mock us? They didn’t like some little thing and they immediately kicked you out. I don’t remember the last time I heard the word “thank you.”

There is a manager in the kitchen - Jim. If you only knew how stupid and evil he is, if you only saw how he treats us. I simply have no words! There is another Cerberus in the warehouse - Carmela. He always believes that he is right and will never even listen. I was also amazed that all the staff here are watching each other and gossiping. They just talk about each other. It’s even disgusting to talk about it,” my interlocutor told me, who wished to remain incognito.

The girl who cleaned the hotel rooms, also asked not to tell her name, told me:

— All days of the week except Sunday, I start work at 8 am. I need to quickly clean 15 rooms. Clients usually leave tips for the maid. But we don’t get this money. The minibar worker, Christie, who delivers drinks to rooms before our work, goes through all the vacated rooms and collects our tips for herself. I'm already used to it and have come to terms with it. Alas, now I know who the Americans are...

Working hours have expired. Some stayed to work part-time at the Radisson Hotel, others went to other hotels. Uzbek migrant workers return to spend the night in rented apartments, where they can discuss the past day with their relatives. For some it was unsuccessful, but for others it brought additional income. Two women (they looked to be over fifty) invited me to talk to them. The two of them live in one room: a kitchenette, two beds, newspapers in Uzbek and a small fan - that’s all they live. A stuffy and hot evening in Pittsburgh bears little resemblance to the native Uzbek heat.

Perhaps this sets the tone for such a sad story of my interlocutors:

“We didn’t come here because of a good life. There wasn't enough money. This is the main reason for coming here. Would we have left if it were possible to live normally in Uzbekistan? Look at us, it's time for us to sit at home and babysit our grandchildren, enjoying life. And you have to do menial work in a foreign land. But here you can improve your financial situation. As a result, some will be able to help their children get a good education, others will be able to provide a normal life for their family...

Фото: Depositphotos

My next interlocutor, Kamila, is a girl living in the “makhalla” next door, which is inhabited mainly by young people (Poles, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Russians). Camila arrived in the USA two months ago. And now he regrets his visit:

— You shouldn’t go to America to work. It’s better to be nothing, but at home, than to work for one of “these.” It's better to do this work at home.

- Kamila, could you earn at least one third of what you earn here at home?

- A man, if he tries really hard, can find a job... In general, I didn’t need this America for nothing... And I really regret that I came here. I lived there very well. I didn't lack anything. The question is, why am I here?

Neighbors began to call on Camille. And having learned that I was a journalist interested in the life of immigrants, they immediately entered into a conversation:

- Now we’ll tell you everything! And about Uzbekistan and about America! Recently, the number of people wishing to go to America has increased significantly, but not everyone manages to obtain an American visa. And they go not only to America, but to other countries. We have good relations with each other, we live normally. Recently, we have become even more active in communicating and making friends. If it weren't for gossip that ruins everything. Some guys here began to take an interest in faith and read prayer. Very often we discuss hadiths among ourselves and look for, so to speak, the right path in life. And everything would be fine if they didn’t start reproaching each other about their behavior. After all, whether to pray or not is something everyone decides for themselves. Why impose your opinion and reproach others? For example, I live with an Uzbek neighbor. Every day he lectures me with what he considers to be spiritual content. And one day he began to forbid me to cut my nails at night...,” a guy from Kazakhstan complained.

— Guys, what, in your opinion, is the difference between the laws in America and in Uzbekistan?

— The law is the same everywhere. If we take the laws of Uzbekistan, they are, in principle, normally developed. But the question is: who lives by these laws? In America, every citizen listens to the law. If something is not recommended to be done, then it is not done. Why can’t this be done in Uzbekistan? It always hurts my soul when they say that cotton and gold are the wealth of Uzbekistan. Where is this wealth? Who sees him? They say: the president is worried about his people... I can’t say that he thinks about his nation. If he had thought about his people, then everything would have been different. Do you think that the president does not know what people are saying about him? He knows this very well. Why are his daughters worthy of driving nice cars, dressing cool and eating whatever they want, but ordinary people are not worthy of this?

— Do you often read about the situation in Uzbekistan? What can you say about the events in Andijan?

— The Financial Times newspaper published articles about the Andijan events for two weeks in a row. In one of the newspaper issues there was even a caricature of Islam Karimov with an ax in his hands. The death toll is said to be 169. But we think there were many more.

By the way, after all of America learned about the Andijan events, the Americans began to be interested in us, ask about our loved ones whether any danger threatens them.

We talked for a very long time and on different topics. And I increasingly got the impression that somewhere deep in the soul, each of those who spoke wanted to return to their homeland. But only when everything changes. When the president resigns, when customs officials stop engaging in extortion, traffic cops will become wiser, and judges will become honest. But when this will come, none of the speakers undertook to predict. “...Maybe this will never happen at all?”

* * *

Especially for Fergana.ru The material was prepared by Samandar, a correspondent for the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty. The names of some respondents have been changed at their request. Some simply refused to identify themselves out of fear for their own well-being.

* * *

An interesting fact: in the US, representatives of the Uzbek diaspora, as written uz-rek.com are the most law-abiding: out of almost 56000 Uzbek immigrants in the United States in 2013, according to the latest census, almost half live in New York.

“About 12000 Uzbeks live in Brooklyn. Immigrants from Uzbekistan come to New York via the Green Card Lottery. The State Department issues 55000 Green Card annually and in 2014-15 there were 4,368 lottery winners among Uzbeks, ”the newspaper notes.

In New York, Uzbek-Russian newspaper Vatandosh (Compatriot) is published for Uzbek-Russian residents.

In the period after the Second World War, several Uzbek families arrive in the United States; in 60 — 70, the number of Turkestan families in the United States reaches over a thousand. Most of the Uzbek migrants arrived in the United States from Turkey, and in the 80s from Afghanistan as a result of the Soviet intervention in this country. Starting from the 90-s to the present, there is a tendency of migration of ethnic Uzbeks from Uzbekistan to permanent residence in the United States under a contract or green card.

Most migrants are engaged in business, science, work in various institutions and enterprises. Part of the Uzbek diaspora is involved in government institutions, schools and colleges in the country, in areas such as the bar, aviation and medicine. Others hold positions of responsibility in the executive structures of US states. In America, according to law enforcement, representatives of the Uzbek diaspora are the most law-abiding and rarely violate the law. Among them are many exemplary families. Over the past 5 — 6 years, annually around 1000 — 1800, citizens of Uzbekistan have won the green card lottery and settled in America. So, more than 20 thousands of ethnic Uzbeks today are US citizens.

Famous Uzbeks in the United States: Sylvia Nazar - economist, writer and journalist, professor of business journalism at Columbia University; Alexey Sultanov - famous pianist; Alik Sakharov - film director; Varvara Lepchenko - professional tennis player; Milana Weintrub - actress; Nazif Shahrani - professor of anthropology at Indiana University; Margarita Volkovinskaya - actress and model; Nargiza Zakirova - singer.

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