Emigration
California is not just the song California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & The Papas, the seacoast, and the mecca of 60s hippie culture. Over the last decades, the region has undergone significant changes. In our “American Dream” series, Kasia, a Belarusian, shared her impressions of modern California, where she has lived for 14 years. About racism on the state’s streets, the legacy of hippies, and how immigrants feel in the USA—read more in this new article from “Not Today, Not Yesterday, Not Tomorrow.”
Kasia, an immigrant from Belarus
Photo from the heroine’s personal archive
— How does life in California feel, knowing its history as a place of freedom, discovery, and social revolutions? Does this context influence your perception of life there as an immigrant?
— At first, I even felt a bit of euphoria. My family chose this state precisely because of that “rose-colored glasses” view of it, and while we were looking at San Francisco as tourists, we were very much drawn to the city’s vibes. However, over 14 years, I’ve become so accustomed to the new realities that I hardly think about the context at all. Except, perhaps, when I read about some hideous laws in other states; then I mentally thank God that I live here today. But the point is exactly that I don’t have to think about certain freedoms every day precisely because they aren’t being taken away from me. I believe this context seriously affects my quality of life.
— California played a central role in the hippie movement of the 60s. How, in your view, has the legacy of that time changed in modern society? Is the spirit of freedom and protest still felt in the state’s culture?
— It’s hard to give a definitive answer.
The spirit of protest isn’t particularly felt, but freedom of expression and self-identification for people of my generation is simply handed out on a silver spoon; many don’t realize it wasn’t always this way, it’s just perceived as reality.
And you often hear people here judging the actions of people in other places, and you see how they don’t understand their own privileges or notice that those they judge live in much more difficult conditions.
It’s worth noting that California is not homogeneous in this regard. San Francisco is quite different culturally and economically from Los Angeles, just as many small towns and communities are very different from the central locations.
Photo from the heroine’s personal archive
— After George Floyd’s death, we saw a wave of protests across the country. Why, three years later, has the police force in California still not undergone significant reforms, and violence continues? How do you explain this, if you can explain it at all?
— In some cities, there actually were reforms! Но there is also the issue that every city has its own resources, and by no means is there a demand among the population everywhere for changes to vote for a decent person in local elections. In San Francisco, so many people grew to hate the—in their view—overly liberal ideas embodied by the mayor that they removed him from office. There are many problems with “crime and homelessness” that are truly difficult to untangle and cannot be solved magically in a moment. I believe the entire system needs to be changed, but such ideas are too radical for the majority, and we have a “democracy,” sort of. What can you do…
— In 2020, many believed the Black Lives Matter movement would change the system. What went wrong? Why did such deep changes prove so elusive?
— On one hand, a change did occur in that more people finally understood the problem. They started listening and discussing it more on a mass scale. When the BLM movement was just starting, that was exactly the time when I began to more or less orient myself in the country’s context. I was horrified by how much the surrounding environment hated this movement back then, in 2013. Even online, it was scary to express my political views. Unfortunately, I never gathered enough courage to go to the demonstrations then. They could be violently dispersed, plus I somehow thought I didn’t quite have the right to express my position since I wasn’t a citizen.
But after 2020, it is considered bad manners not to support BLM, and it seems to me that everything is just beginning. Unfortunately, in history, changes often don’t happen in an instant; they had long years of building a foundation upon which countless activists laid almost their entire lives. The fruit of this work definitely exists and will continue, but one might not live to see that moment.
Why are changes elusive? At the state level, perhaps half the country isn’t ready for them—a real revolution is needed here. In more progressive states, what frustrates me is how slow the authorities mostly are. You need at least a few very ideological people doing their job while holding positions in governing bodies. And that rarely happens.
Photo from the heroine’s personal archive
— In the 1940s, California experienced racial segregation in schools and public places, but the civil rights movement helped abolish it. How deep do you think racism is rooted in society, given that decades later we still see systemic inequality?
— Stereotypes and the belittling of Black people have not disappeared. Yes, segregation isn’t legal, but it’s still difficult for them to buy a house in a “white” neighborhood, for example. People don’t want to sell to them, the bank doesn’t trust them to give a loan, because you can’t instantly throw out views on the capability and honesty of Black people from people’s heads just by introducing laws. Not to mention that white people had the opportunity to live, grow, and study in wealthy places and pass on accumulated wealth from generation to generation, while for the poor population, such conditions won’t suddenly appear with the abolition of segregation. It effectively still exists. For example, you enroll children in school based on the address where you live. So you have no chance of sending your daughter or son to a school with highly qualified teachers, theater, music, sports, and other programs that have money invested in them. You have to go to a school with one teacher for 30-40 students, and schools simply lack the resources for sufficient attention and knowledge.
I worked for a while as a photographer in American schools, and I cannot describe in words the enormous difference between them depending on the area.
In Silicon Valley, you will have all the innovations of the world, but in a farming town, you will find yourself in a school that feels like the 19th century, where everyone still speaks Spanish, children are thin and dirty as can be, wearing a single uniform that is a bit grimy and very worn out. On the other hand, the Lunch Ladies are the sweetest and most caring women you’ve ever met in your life. And the Black teachers in schools where 90 percent of the students are Black for some strange reason (sarcasm) also treated me very politely; total comfort comes from them. It seems to me that oppressed communities have stronger ties to one another, and the communication style is more like being at home, close.
It was funny to watch the scandal involving wealthy people (including an actress from Desperate Housewives). There was an organization that helped them falsify university applications. They added information claiming the students had a high school sports career, which helps the chance of admission. And for those parents who paid for such a service for their children, the court, in the worst case, sentenced them to a few days in jail and some house arrest. Meanwhile, when they find parents who lie about their residential address to put their child in a better school, they have to sit in prison for years. A typical sketch of the US judicial system, by the way.
In both the police and judicial systems, it is very common to view Black people as a threat based on their appearance. While they more often see others as someone who has the right to make mistakes, loud expressions of emotions, and simply existing in public places. So much time has passed, but the roots of policing, which were created specifically to isolate Black people from the white community, remain in the mentality to this day.
Among the Indigenous population, for example, the rate of disappearance of young women is much higher than among other population groups, and the police never put effort into looking for them.
At the same time, if someone from the white community disappears, they will use the whole “force” to search for as long as needed—a week, a month—until they find the body and the killer. And this selectivity exists in every aspect of life.
The abolition of immoral laws doesn’t make everything just in an instant. For example, in the 70s, residential schools for Indigenous people ceased to exist, where children were taken by force, forbidden from speaking their native language and keeping their traditions through violence, physical and sexual. But what to do with the consequences of these “schools”? With the thousands of traumatized people who went through them? Not to mention those who died on school grounds under unknown circumstances. How to account for the forced sterilization of Indigenous women when they came to the hospital for other issues? This happens extremely rarely today, but it was massive not so long ago, right during the 60s, by the way. Maybe the destruction of Indigenous peoples happens over time in a more and more “gentle” style, but it’s impossible to view the situation without context, regardless of why it turned out that they are the most oppressed community in the USA today. In Scorsese’s latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon, there is a montage of the deaths of many relatives and acquaintances of the main character. Unfortunately, a similar reality exists for the average Indigenous person now; only the scenarios of those deaths and disappearances have changed.
Photo from the heroine’s personal archive
— California is often presented as a “refuge for migrants,” but real stories of deportations continue. Is this hypocrisy or a forced necessity?
— I haven’t seen that phrasing. Tell it to the descendants of Japanese people in the USA during World War II. The level of racism toward some parts of the population is sometimes such that it wouldn’t surprise me if history repeated itself in our time. The detention centers for children and adults from Central and South American countries are an incredible horror where abuse and torture occur, and the detainees have simply no rights. However, the beastly treatment of migrants is a worldwide problem. If you compare, California is still okay. There are even sanctuary cities here, where police and doctors won’t turn you in for a lack of documents, which is already not bad. (The point here is that ICE shouldn’t exist at all, but if this institution isn’t destroyed at the state level, then making such a “patch” at the local level is better than nothing). By the way, the system treats Belarusians quite gently compared to others. I know several stories of applying for asylum that were resolved well. One of them worked for BT (state TV) and had zero proof of repression, in my view, but his family was given all the documents (back in 2012). While people from Muslim countries need to have a million proofs that they definitely won’t survive upon return, and their interrogations are conducted in a rather abusive style.
I don’t understand how today’s migration system can be called a necessity. I am for the regulation of migrants, but not in the form that exists now. The climate crisis and wars will only get worse, which will increase the influx of people. The answer to this is not in walls and attempts to stop this process (it can no longer be stopped), but in developing a proper integration system. Whether humans, animals, insects, or plants—migration has always been a part of existence for all of us. Artificial borders and bars to stop this are, in my view, madness.
— Many immigrants still live in fear of deportation. How can state politicians continue to claim support for migrant rights without providing them with real security?
— They promise so much to citizens too, but security for many vulnerable population groups isn’t visible on the horizon. Well, isn’t this ordinary behavior for politicians? Sorry, I haven’t lived in a country yet where it was different.
Thank you to Ms. Sviatlana for forcing foreign politicians to at least pretend they remember Belarusians. Of course, I’d like something more decisive and effective, but it seems to me that even this is much better than it could have been.
Photo from the heroine’s personal archive
— We know that California’s environmental agenda is quite strong, but fires and droughts are no longer the future, but California’s present. Why do California authorities still cooperate with companies that use fossil fuels? Is it just business or a crime against future generations?
— Because these businesses are large donors to politicians; unfortunately, the situation with politicians paid by corporations harmful to the planet is completely legal. What’s also legal—the obvious destruction of nature, water, and people (as Shell does in Nigeria, for example, or Johnson & Johnson with baby powder that causes cancer in children)—and simply paying a fine and continuing to work.
Funny story number two: Indigenous people of California were forbidden by law from performing practices to protect the forest from possible fires, which they had traditionally done for generations. They tried anyway and were arrested. In 2020, a series of terrifying fires occurred (I feel like I could write a book about that summer, it was just insaaaane). And suddenly local authorities here in the Bay Area (SF Bay Area—where I live) decided that the forest protection systems developed by Indigenous people sound like a decent idea, and they turned to their community for help in implementing it this time, which they have been doing in recent years.
And story number three: 30% of California’s firefighters are people serving time in prison (another topic—the wonderful system of holding anyone in prison “for nonviolent crimes” for as long and as often as possible). They earn something like eight dollars a day. And the funniest part—upon release from prison, they have no right to work as firefighters. Meanwhile, we (not only in California but in other states too) have a massive shortage of firefighters: when big fires occur (and they can last a month or two), we borrow them from other states, then send ours there… I wonder what will happen if a crisis situation occurs simultaneously in different places. Well, we’ll see soon, I guess.
— We see climate activism gaining momentum, but are people truly ready to sacrifice their comfort to save the planet, or is it just “convenient outrage”?
— Activism—yes, but I don’t notice support for it among the population. The end is already coming to our homes, but for some reason, many don’t see the connection. I have absolutely no positive forecasts in this field, to be honest.
Photo from the heroine’s personal archive
— The decision of the Supreme Court in 2022 was a shock to many. Why do you think that even in progressive California, protests for abortion rights did not lead to more radical measures to protect women?
— Oh, damn, how frustrating are those for whom this was a shock… I try not to get angry and treat such people with understanding, but I’ve been worrying among them all my life. Everything that happened in Belarus in recent years, we had feared it long ago and tried to change something, while everyone around thought we were crazy. I can’t express in words how much in California in 2016 people were mostly completely relaxed and couldn’t even imagine Trump winning. He appointed three supreme judges with incredibly radical, near-Nazi views—how can their actions be surprising??? When they themselves, alongside Trump’s statements, expressed their views very clearly?
Some states (California among them) created a kind of sanctuary policy, which means they won’t allow other states to request extradition of those who come here for an abortion. Because in other states it’s a criminal offense. And there’s a similar law for transgender people; in response to anti-transgender laws, they strengthened protections, under which they won’t give people to the police of other states who come to receive transgender care. I understand they also accept doctors who offered such services—sanctuary states take them in, meaning they don’t let other states take them to trial and prison. But by no means does everyone have the means to move, plus in these situations, you can never return home in the future. In reality, this help can only be used by well-to-do people.
— Many Californians are proud to live in a state that actively protects reproductive rights. But how, in your opinion, can California influence other states where access to abortion and protection of women’s rights are under threat?
— I’m not sure that influence of that kind is possible, who knows.
— What do you think about countries where abortion is banned, like in Poland, where this issue reaches the point of absurdity? When raped women who fled the war in Ukraine cannot get access to an abortion?
— In some states, it’s the same thing. It’s horrible, what else can I say.
Photo from the heroine’s personal archive
— California is the place where the hippie movement was born. One important aspect of the hippie movement was linked to the sexual revolution and the desire to break taboos. How do you assess its influence on modern debates about women’s rights and gender identity in California?
— I feel I’m not knowledgeable enough about exactly how and when the lens on this topic changed in history, and how changes arrived on a global level. I know more about specific moments, but I can’t assess changes on the scale of a historical layer so well. You read, damn it, feminist things written a hundred years ago, and the theses are the same one after another; the feeling is that society hasn’t shifted at all in its views on women.
And the hippie movement, it seems to me, was much more about the destruction of taboos and sexual openness specifically for men, not women.
— Freedom of love and the rejection of traditional social norms were key in the 60s. What do you think drives young people in California today in their quest for change in relationships, gender roles, and sexuality?
— It seems to me that now there’s more emphasis on communication and respect for each other in relationships than there was before. From the BDSM movement, concepts such as consent and aftercare have entered the general space, as well as traditions of communicating and explaining your desires to each other to find ways for everyone to be comfortable in the relationship. I see fewer gender stereotypes and assigned roles in relationships here than in Belarus. People talk more openly about sex in general. But, from what I’ve heard, life in small towns is more conservative; it’s just that we here in San Francisco and the surroundings are “corrupt.”
— California was the center of 60s counterculture, but now it is one of the wealthiest US states with a dominant tech industry. Do you think California’s core values have changed since then, or is the spirit of freedom still alive?
— I can only speak for San Francisco: it is a city rich in culture and art. In the time I’ve lived here, the exodus of culture has been huge. There were cool musicians (The Oh Sees, Ty Segall, for example), street artists, tattoo artists, creative people of any kind here. But gentrification and the influx of IT professionals caused them to move south to Los Angeles or even further. Living in the city is so expensive that you have to leave. There was a Latino district very rich in culture that is slowly falling into decline. The hippies left earlier; they are now in towns in the mountains north of the city, deeper in the Bay Area, or even further. And the IT guys have rather conservative views, which affects the city’s general vibe. So there is a certain dissonance today.
Photo from the heroine’s personal archive
But it’s worth understanding that, for example, in the 60s, San Francisco had the Castro district, where queers from all over the country came. Because here was the hope that the struggle for freedom would bear fruit. There was already an established community here that would support you after you were beaten by cops during a raid on a gay club. But hatred toward gays in the community was open; they were accused of perversion everywhere, and non-stop hate speech toward them was broadcast on television. Harvey Milk arrived there in the 70s and became a famous politician fighting for LGBT rights. But as soon as he was elected to office, after 11 months of his work, he was killed. Liberal politics were “still on the fringes of society”; LGBT people were not accepted by all of California. Martin Luther King Jr. during his life was “the most hated man in America” according to polls of that time. When changes in political rhetoric occurred, the backlash and hatred toward them in society were enormous. The level of that hatred decreased slowly and still exists, but in smaller quantities. So it’s hard for me to generalize social moods—this matter is never unambiguous.
Overall across the country, there is now an rise in open statements congruent with eugenics, for example. However, it seems to me there isn’t great support in society. There is too much indifference to everything, which provides fertile ground for the strengthening of hate speech. This is enough for the far-right to come to power and establish a dictatorship (and attempts to seize power have already happened, and there literally exists an open plan for the next one and a gradual listing of the systematic destruction of human rights—Project 2025). I hope these attempts will be unsuccessful, but the risk is there, and it’s not small.