In Black America; Journalist and Author, Yelena Khanga

From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of New York University of New York, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. The reason why I couldn't get a job was not because of racism because my grandparents were American. Now if I was white, in the second generation I would be already white-right and when I applied for a job, not many people would know that my grandparents came from America. Or I would just report that my father was from Tanzania and Africa was never actually red to Soviet Union, so they would tolerate dead backgrounds. But being black, they automatically checked my background, they go, okay, for grandparents came from America.

Now this is suspicious and contrast. If you know what MacArthur Era was in your 50s, we went through that till Gorbachev came in time. You couldn't escape that. So I applied for many jobs and that said, we love you, we like what you did, but sorry for the disappointments you know. And only when Gorbachev's into power was like a security job for the Moscow newspaper. And in this book I write a lot about what is it to be a journalist before Gorbachev and after Gorbachev were about all this glassness thing. And just one small example of how did I find out about glassness. Russian journalist and author Yelena Kanga, author of the book entitled Soul to Soul, a Black Russian American family, 1865 to 1992, published by WWNorton and Company. With the support of the New York-based Rockefeller Foundation, Yelena Kanga undertook and extensive two-year research project into her family's history. The journey took the Russian journalists from the post-Civil War south to the hotline night clubs of the late 1920s from the Soviet Union, started by Stalin's brutal dictatorship to the heavy early days of glassness from Zanzibar, a tiny island off the coast of Tanzania

east Africa to Chicago, Los Angeles, and the bright lights of New York City. The book also details her observations about life as a black in Russia and as a black Russian in this country. I'm John E. Hansen, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. This week, Soul to Soul, a black Russian American family, 1865 to 1992, with author Yelena Kanga, in Black America. I was in Washington when Gorbachev came to sign this treaty with Reagan and I found myself in the newsroom and there were thousands of journalists and all of them were white and I guess I was the only black female and also I was young. So everybody thought I was a janitor in the room and I was like, okay, make sure that the telephone works and the facts can't just call me and I would say, yes, sir, I'll do everything. I was so afraid and nervous. And then this American journalist was sitting and he said, where's the then Gorbachev? Always we have to wait for these Russians and I said, now when the minute, why are you accusing us of something?

Maybe that is your term Reagan has laid this time. He looked at me and he says, all right, sure, look at this Russian woman. And everybody started laughing at me and I didn't say word. When the summit started, this spokesman came of the president and the spokesman of Gorbachev happened to be my first boss because he had been the editor of the Moscow newspaper, Gennady Ganesimov. So he looks in the crowd of this white face as the only black spot and he recognized me. He didn't see me for five years and he says, hi, Yelena, how are you? All the journalists, I tried to figure out what was going on between a black genital and this spokesman of Gorbachev. And then this journalist realized that I was in fact a Russian journalist. At a very young age, Yelena was acutely aware of the difference between herself and the pure Russian children living in her neighborhood. She can't remember the astonished look of a white classmate's mother who accidentally walked in while she was changing clothes and was shocked to discover that black people are black all over, not just on their faces and hands.

Born and raised in Moscow, Yelena is the offspring of American communist grandparents who left New York City in the late 1930s to live in the Soviet Union and search of a better life. To promote greater understanding between this country and the Soviet Union, the Christian Science Monitor magazine launched a journalism exchange program with the Moscow News. Yelena was the first Russian journalist selected to the program. Last April, I spoke with Yelena Konga while she was in Austin regarding her book and growing up in Russia. I was born and raised in Moscow and in my country, people are very proud of their ancestors. And if you come to somebody's house, there will be lots of voters and the first thing they'll do, they'll say, well, this is my grandmother, she was doing that in that in early 30s or 20s. And then when I was pregnant, father, he was during on the side of their whites or on the side of their reds, so that's what he was doing. And basically, I was usually standing, I didn't really have lots of things to say because the only thing I knew that I had a mother and I had a grandmother.

And I didn't know my background and I felt as if I was born from the middle of nowhere. I knew that my grandparents came from America, but what was their background when we didn't have any photos and it was never an issue in my family. And every stage of the life, people start thinking, who am I? And for me, I wanted to answer one question, whether I'm a Russian person with a Russian soul who just happened to be born black or whether I'm a black person who just happened to be born in Russia or am I Jewish? So that's why I decided to make this trip from Moscow to Daris Alamtenzenea from Daris to London, England from England to Mississippi and Russia and answer this question. And I guess I answered it. I'm the citizen of the world. Which your mother supported in your research? Yes, she really helped me a lot. And she also is his historian and she knows a lot. And without her, I wouldn't be able to find my roots.

She was a brief synopsis of what it was like being a African ancestry, living in Moscow. Did you ask your question, how come I'm the only or one of a few dark-skinned Russians while you were growing up? Well, my mother made it clear since I was a small girl. My father was, he was a Tanzanian, very high official politician and he had been assassinated when I was two or three years old. So I didn't really remember him, but she always, my mother always taught me about African history. She has PhD in history and she's specializing in African art. And in our house, I could always hear African music and we had beautiful polto-poto paintings and music of drums and my mother made a movie about African drums. So I was not a confused kid, though I had a white grandmother. But for me, it was very natural to see a white grandmother. Yes, in the family, you don't really see the color.

You see the color in other people's families, okay, but not in your own family. When I was a small girl, there were not that many black people around. But since, you know, last 10 years, I guess we have lots of black kids who are Soviet and these are the products of African students who come to study to my country and marry Russian or Ukrainian or whatever Soviet females and the population is growing. Did you grow up in Moscow? Yes, I was born and raised in Moscow and I'm a typical Moscowite with a terrible Moscow accent in Russian language, of course. What is typical? A typical, well, do you know what is New York accent that everybody hates? Well, that's Moscow accent that everybody hates, but everybody recognizes. There has to be a different mindset, we in America, someone look at Russia as that distant continent who are adversaries for one reason or another. Growing up in the Russian culture, is that the same mindset that Russians have about Americans?

Well, the Russians know about Americans much more than you know about us. First of all, because since you're a kid, you read American books, for example, Pinocchio. When you were six, seven years old, you had your favorite book, Pinocchio. Then you were grown up, you enjoyed Tomsoor and Heiko Verifin. Markman was very, very popular right in my country and then you read, you know, Jack London and then you read Gone with the Wind, then you read Uncle Tom's Cabin and we really enjoyed reading all these books. And secondly, in my country, you're actually forced to learn foreign language and we'll learn it a little bit better than you learn Spanish language, everybody this way. In other words, if you, without a word in Russian, come to Russia, you shouldn't be worried. Every third person, I guess, will help you out with English. I mean, they won't be fluent, but at least they would understand what you have to say.

Lots of people are interested in American culture because, you know, we're getting more more Americanized and we watch movies in English right now. Eddie Murphy is one of the most popular actors and unfortunately, kids learn English from Eddie Murphy films and they don't know grammar, but they know all these short words already from these movies. So we had always interest in foreign countries, not only in America, but in foreign countries. I guess that's the main difference. Is there a difference in growing up? You've seen American culture you've been here for a while, but being a teenager in Moscow versus being a teenager in America. Are there similarities, teenagers or teenagers around the world? Well, first about differences. I guess we since our society was very strict, we were much more disciplined kids. And I don't want to say that now we're as disciplined as we were.

I guess now we're like American kids. And when I was a small girl, you could sit in the room and hear the fly flying. It doesn't mean that I was listening to my teacher, but I didn't want there making any noise. You know, I was just sitting and reading something. But here when I go to speak at schools a lot, I mean, kids, I don't see much of respect in average public school. I know there are private schools and I know there are good schools and bad schools, but generally speaking, kids can answer back and address their difference in my country. When I was for ten years at school, we had to force to weigh at the same universal form all over the country. In other words, everybody were wearing the same thing. What I like about American teenagers, they're very active, sport active, very into sport. In my country, we had very good sport, but for elite, for professional, so-called professionals.

The kids that were going to the clubs, professional clubs, like I was playing tennis professional for ten years for the Soviet Army team. So I was a very disciplined kid. But if you were not very talented all the way and you wouldn't be considered a future star and nobody would invest time in money, and basically there's no way you would get your sport. You could fool around in the streets playing football or hockey, but it's not like here wherever school has a basketball team, baseball or swimming pool, we didn't have that. First of all, I want to say that the title sold to sold. I didn't steal it from a very famous British rock band, sold to sold. They're consuming. Because expression sold to, talking sold to sold comes from a very old Russian tradition sharing the sold only with a very close friend. For many years of oppression, Russians were afraid of sharing the sold with strangers because next day your telephone will be bugged, KGD will be on your case, and it's

much easier not to hear your soul. So, talking sold to sold to Shabdushu, meaning talking with a very good friend. And also the word sold is very important in African American culture. I learned it through soul food, through soul music, and I thought that my book would be something like from my Russian soul to African American and American soul. And I was inspired by Alex Haley when I was writing the book, and I wanted to answer one question. Who am I? A Russian person with a Russian soul who just happened to be black, or black person who just happened to be born in Russia, or am I Jewish, period. So I had to take a trip from Moscow to the rest of the mountains in the east, from there to London, from London to Mississippi and Chicago. And I guess the result of it was the book, and the answer was that I found out I'm the citizen of the world. And I started tracing my roots in Mississippi. Oh, there's one more thing I wanted to mention from the very beginning. The reason I was so confused with my roots is because my great-grandfather on the Mississippi on the side, he was a slave, and later he became the minister in the Methodist Church.

He was a minister in the Methodist Church. My other great-grandfather on the mother's side was a rabbi from Poland who had immigrated from Warsaw to New York. Now my grandfather on the Tanzanian side, on the father's side, was Imam, the head of the Muslim Church. And, you know, nice combination. And I was born and raised in communist-ethnic pressure, so I had so many things to consider. So I started the research in 1865 in Mississippi, where my great-grandfather was a slave, but he was a favorite slave, so he knew how to read and how to write, and when black people were freed, he became one of the biggest black land owners in Mississippi. He married a Native American lady, so I have Indian blood also. And they built a beautiful big house, and they made one mistake. They hired white people to work for the family. And next day, the house was burned down by the clan with the documents, and in the morning the sheriff came, and they could prove that the house belonged to them no longer, and they were forced out from Mississippi, they moved to Chicago.

And that is where he met a beautiful young Jewish lady, he fell in love with her. She fell in love with him. Next day, her father, a rabbi, came to bail her out, and she said, Daddy, could you please bail me out together with my new friend, all over Golden? And daddy looked at the new friend, and he says, well, you're staying in jail with your new friend. He left them there, and that was the beginning of a beautiful love story. And not that I recommend the jail as the best pick up place, but as we say in New York, hey, you never know. My grandmother was rejected from her family, the minute she announced that she had been, she wasn't in love with a black man, and says, this moment, she never saw her parents anymore in her life, they just crossed out of their memory. She moved to Harlem together with my grandfather. And because of racism, they had to pay twice for the rent, then, if they were just white and white couple, black and black couple. And they started dreaming about going to another world where everybody was equal, where nobody worked out by the color of the skin, where there was free education, free healthcare,

and all this wonderful, free things that communism promised. And in these years, there were thousands of white Americans working in the Soviet Union. And if you know that Ford was making his cars in the Soviet Union, I'm talking about 20s and 30s. Lots of people followed Lenin's advice to move to build the new society in the Soviet Union. And actually, the newspaper where I had made my career, the Moscow newspaper, it was started by American journalist, Anna Luisa Strong. She was a feminist from Seattle. She flew all the way from Seattle to Moscow, she went to Stalin, and she says, we Americans need our own newspaper, Americans and Brids and Canadians. Stalin said, fine, do Moscow news. And I guess that was the only time when Stalin said yes to a woman, but that's how Moscow news was started. My grandparents decided to make a group of 16 African American families, specialists in agriculture, and move to Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan, as you know, is the republic on the board of Afghanistan in the former Soviet Union.

And the reason why my grandparents chose Uzbekistan was because these people are very dark skinned there. And sometimes they are as dark as African Americans are, and my grandparents thought there would be a concept between African Americans and Uzbek people. So they learned Russian language, and they moved to Uzbekistan. The first disappointment was that Uzbek people didn't speak English, but they didn't speak Russian either. They spoke Uzbek language. So the whole group had to learn Uzbek language, and they were very happy living there. My grandfather was teaching agriculture, how to grow up cotton, that's what he used to do since his childhood. My grandmother was teaching English in the university. Now the people were also involved in the agriculture. The first black baby was born on the Uzbek soul, guess how they called this baby? They called the baby Joseph Rolls-Stalin. Now I interviewed this guy, right now he's in his 50s, he lives in Virginia, a place called Tremlin. Do you know that there is a place called Tremlin? There is. There is a photo. I made this photo.

I wanted to be there. I asked him his idea, and he showed me his driver's license and said, Joseph Rolls-Stalin. And it's a talk with your parents, dude, I feel. And he said, you should realize that that was the first time in their life when they were not discriminated. And they preferred to close their eyes on the reality of what Stalin did and call him this way. Now I had my own explanation why the key was called Stalin. Because even though these were Americans, they didn't dare saying no when Soviet officials said that that would be a very nice idea to call your baby Stalin. So I have my own explanation of what happened. But anyway, Stalin was getting more and more xenophobic and he was afraid of conspiracy and he announced that all the foreigners should either change their citizenship if they wanted to stay in Soviet Union or they should go back to their own countries. Half of the group returned back to America and actually they lost their Russian wives and children because Russians wouldn't let the Russians part out of the country. My grandparents decided to stay in the Soviet Union for a simple reason.

My mother was born and she was black and my grandmother being a white woman was afraid to return back to racist country with a black kid. So that's how we became Soviet and I'm already the third generation of Soviets. Their life changed dramatically, the minute they changed their citizenship. They were treated as Soviet people since this moment, meaning terrible. Plus they were Americans and that made it even worse. For example, one day they came from vacation and the neighbors said the secret police was at night trying to arrest them. And my grandfather being this idealistic, he went back to the secret police and he said, how could you do that? I came from America to help to build Union society and they said, oh Mr. Gordon, don't worry, go back and work because we had already fulfilled the plan for arrest for this month. Now this is a story that lots of Soviet people could tell you. Police survived, people survived only because they happened not to be at home and this time when police came to arrest them. And another story was kind of funny.

My mother was already all woman in her 50s. She was in Moscow and she loves to go to the restaurant called Uzbekistan for her. This is a soul food restaurant. So she loves to take her American friends there. And one day a man approached her and she started teasing her and hugging her and he says, really, I'm so happy to see you again. And she says, well, I'm not sure we know each other. And he says, no, no, no. When you were two years old, you remember you fell down and they rushed you to the hospital. And when you were ten years old, you came from school with bad grades and that's what your mother told you. And she says, well, how do you know all these private things? And she said, oh, I forgot to tell you. I was KGB agent keeping eye on your family since you were born. And she really liked my mother because she liked to for 15 years. I mean, she was looking, watching her from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. She saw her more than his own kids. And then he started complaining that now he was promoted, now he's stuck in this restaurant American smoke all the time, bad environment, where are all these good years in your record study? You know, that's job.

So that's kind of funny, but this is the reality. My grandfather died when he was young because his kidneys had been damaged by a New York policeman during their menstruation. And my grandmother ended up being a single mother. And even they were treated, even the fact that they were treated not that good, they were treated as all Soviet people, let me put it this way. And still, my grandmother thought that was a good thing for them to stay in the Soviet Union because she could give the education to my mother that my mother would never dream about being black and female getting in American early 30s and thought it. My mother graduated from high school, from musical school. She was playing tennis for the Yusvik team and she was very proud of it. And later she graduated from Moscow State University, which is considered to be the Harvard of the Soviet Union School of History. So she was very successful. Our family was very close connected with prominent African-American people. As a young Russianite, were you denied opportunity or access or entrance into a particular club, a particular section of town due to the documents of the scheme?

Oh, no way. No way. We never had an institutionalized racism. No, I could go to any club to whatever I wanted. The thing was that there would be some neighborhoods where I wouldn't go on my own. But again, regardless, whether I was invited or not. But again, that's the question, just there were rough neighborhoods where even a white person wouldn't, you know, they're going. And if we compare racism here in America and in Russia, I guess in my country that's more the question of class than the color. Yes, we have bigots. Yes, we have racists. But if you are successful, if you have financial support, you can avoid racism here, no matter how successful you are and how much money you have, basically, you can experience racism sooner or later, no matter who you are. Question of our ones as is Russia is as cold as it looks that we see on television. Well, you know, it depends upon what part of Russia, we have southern part of Russia,

which is not cold at all, but then we have Siberia, it depends upon whether you watch the movie, Dr. Javaga, but, you know, it's in summer, it's not that, I mean, it's hot. It's human in Moscow, you can't breathe. But it went to its okay, it's getting warmer and warmer. When I was a small girl, it was real, real cold and I remember I would come to school and first off, and I would be silent because my mouth was frozen to the teeth, but I guess there's something wrong with global environment because now it's not that cold. Is there a year-round schooling there or they're basing on a nine-month system, like we have here in America? Three months, three months, three months, three months for kids. Having lived through the revolutionary to the modern revolution in Russia, could you give us some insight of being born on the key to cruise ship and then working more less covering the kill-gover job?

Well, it's a very big period of time you're talking about. I mean, I can speak for hours about difference between the Gorbachev time and Yeltsin time in the differences one year, two years, and I don't think I can just cover half an hour with the differences when I was, you know, through shift time and brazenly of time and drop of time in Chernyanka time. But there were this thing differences. Not sure. Yeah. Do you think the new Russia will be for the better of the independent states in the Soviet Union? That's a very complicated question, but I believe that we are on the right way, and in the long run we'll survive, but in the short run that'll be held, especially for the EU. How did you happen to be drawn into journalism? I was a chat about since my childhood, and my mother said, you may as well make money on, you know, running your mouth, but that's a joke. Seriously speaking, during profession of journalism was very prestigious in my country when I entered

the Moscow State University, and actually my school of journalism was considered to be the School of Brides, because that's where all parents wanted to put their daughters. Because later, big cheese, you know, those future for, you know, diplomats and journalists and government officials would come to pick up their wives at the School of Journalism Moscow State University. But my mother wanted me to go there because the school gave a very good basics for everything. I learned foreign literature, Russian literature, Russian history, foreign languages. I learned Portuguese language in university, so no matter what profession would you take, we had a very good base. I guess it was like for Americans, lots of people go to the law school regardless of what they're going to do later, because having the law degree doesn't hurt. What was it like getting that first job? It was very hard for me to get a job for three reasons.

First reason was that, and the most obvious reason I was a female and in my country, everybody knows that if you are male, no matter how dumb you are, you're going to get this job if this is a good job. And if we're talking about washing the floor in McDonald's, yeah, there'll be a competition. Because nobody wants to do that. But if you want to be a journalist, you have to be twice smarter as a female than a male. In my country, we don't even pretend that there was equality between males and females. In your country, you pretend that there was equality. Secondly, I was black. Now I mentioned to you that we had bigot and racist, but they were not supported by the system. That's why that was not my big problem. The problem was that if I was white, if my grandparents were white Americans, in the second or third generation, I would be already white Russian. And I would apply for a job, and nobody would have any questions about my background being black.

People would ask, wait a minute, why is she black? Then they would check my background, okay, her grandparents came from America, that's it. That's it. And regardless of the fact that I was sorry, I was born here, and I paid taxes, and I was a consummate in a pioneer, you wouldn't be considered to be a loyal citizen in the prestigious important professions. So it was hard for me to find a job, because, you know, KGB, it's not like in America, where somebody doesn't give you a job, you say, fine, you go and look for another job, and my country is in the system, that's it, you can't hide it. So that's why it was very hard, and then being a journalist in Moscow, period, it's very difficult to get a job in Moscow, because all the best journalists come from all over the country and try to find a job in Moscow. Is there one state news agency for the country? Well, before we had, but now we have several. Elena Kanga, Russian journalist and author of the book entitled Soul to Soul of Black Russian American Family, 1865 to 1992, published by Norton and Company. I would like to thank the University of Texas at Austin Center for Post-Soviet East European

Studies for their assistance in the production of this program. If you have a question or comment or suggestions asked to future in Black America programs, write us. Views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for in Black America's Technic Overducer, Dana White here. I'm John L. Hansen Jr., please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes. Unicorn Horn Radio Network, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in Black America cassettes. Longhorn Radio Network, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, this

is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John L. Hansen Jr., join me this week on in Black America. It was very hard for me to get a job for a number of reasons. First of all, I was a female and in my country, for females it's much more difficult to get a job for a seated job than for male. We have this thing, but also I was black. Russian journalists and author Yelena Kanga this week on in Black America.