Word: russian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Steve, who says he has kept up his Russian in courses here, is taking this term off. He leaves next month for Micronesia, where he will put together a documentary film on child behavior. Schecter, who is an anthropology major, first developed an interest in film after attending an ethnographic film conference at the Smithsonian Institute as a senior in high school. In Micronesia, he will be working under the auspices of the Smithsonian's anthropological film center, which sponsored a documentary he had worked on in South America last year. Schecter admits that his Russian experience will seem very...
...Most Russian school children wear red scarves to signify their membership in the Young Pioneers, a group which is the first step on the road to becoming a Party member. "All Russian kids were Pioneers," he recalls. "It was a disgrace to have your scarf taken away when you misbehaved." Schecter, who was unable to wear the symbolic scarlet scarf as an American, said that this did not alienate him from his friends...
...Russian children who befriended the Schecters were very curious about them, and life and politics in the land they came from. "Some people just asked about American cars and skis. Others asked about racism, unemployment, the war, and the horrible picture that the Soviets paint of America. And still others would put down America, and say what's wrong with you, what kind of capitalist are you? And then I would argue with them...
...practice the conventional American form of racism. "They are always complaining about our racism, but over there it's just blatant and open," he says. The Schecters made several friends in a special university for African students near their home, who frequently complained about the discrimination practiced against them. Russian women who dated black men were sometimes stoned in public, according to Schecter...
...this paranoia "even lingered when we first got back. We were secretive in talking about certain things, but gradually loosened up." After two years of inhibition, the Schecters did indeed loosen up--enough to to produce a book that seemingly leaves no stone unturned in its recollection of their Russian experience...