Tucked into the woods of south-western Michigan on the shores of Long Lake in the Three Rivers area is located a Latvian jewel on American land: camp Garezers.
Once you turn off the road into the Garezers campsite, you cannot tell whether you’re still in Michigan, or went through a warp to Latvia. Tall evergreens and pines, the nearby lake and Latvian speech heard everywhere make it seem as if it could have been in Latvia. For me, the campsite and its surroundings seemed like MazLatvija (Little Latvia), a Latvian oasis in the American land.
Multitude of cars with various U.S. state and Canadian province license plates parked along the road and on the campground with one thing in common. There was something Latvian attached to every car: from a vanity licence plate that spelled out “
Last weekend, Garezers — which means Long Lake, the lake adjacent to the property — held its annual song days. My 20-month-old son and I attended.
We stayed for four hours on Saturday late morning/early afternoon mostly for toddler activities: playing games along with– or rather beside — dozens of other blond-haired blue-eyed toddlers. Throwing balls through the hoop, catching plastic fish in a small pool were my son’s favorites. He can’t help it: he likes round things and fish.
Someone said that most Latvians have blond-haired, blue-eyed children. I know I was one, if I can trust my mother’s words.
We left when he got too tired to play and I got too weary of trying to control him. Judging by the amount of sleep he got on Saturday night, my son had a blast.
This was the second time I spoke Latvian since I left Latvia in 1997. While reading and understanding are easy to maintain away from home, speaking the language, however, requires a partner. I don’t meet other Latvians in this part of the country very often.
The first time happened just two weeks ago, when I happened to be invited for dinner at a Latvian house in a town of Bristol, Indiana, U.S. Ironically, the lady of the house and I grew up in the same Riga’s neighborhood, Sarkadaugava. We had a lot to talk about. That was a delight.
I must admit that I was a little apprehensive going to a place where I may be deemed as an enemy as my Latvian probably has a flavor of English and Russian accents mixed together. Besides, I don’t look anything like a typical Latvian (yes, there’s such a thing). I was bound to stand out. Typically, Latvians are not exactly open-arm welcoming crowd. They may come off as stand-offish at first. And they did. Yet, for a reason I cannot explain, I felt a sense of belonging at Garezers. Perhaps, one needs to be a Latvian in one’s heart, rather than in one’s passport.
My son and I also finally met someone with whom I corresponded by e-mail off-and-on for the past couple of years and with whom we share the same virtual friends and nemeses on several forums, including soc.culture.baltics newsgroup. That was a pleasant surprise.
On the way back to Indiana, I couldn’t help but imagine sending my son to a Latvian school learning the culture and the language, so that he too would have a sense of connection to the old country and the culture. From a personal experience, I think I have more in common with people from Riga or Liepaja, than with people from Moscow or Saratov. And that’s what I want to impart to my son.
When Russians immigrate to the West, they often assimilate into the culture; they learn the language, forget their own, especially if the whole family moves to a Western country. By the second or third generation, it is very likely that the native language will be lost. That, of course, does not mean that Russians don’t gather together in a club, or any kind of Russian organization, but they tend to be all-inclusive. It is only true for the first-generation immigrants, however. And it is more of a social gathering than a cultural one.
Not so with Latvians.
I had met several Latvians who were born in the United States, whose parents or grandparents had to immigrate to the West in the 1940s. What I admire most about the Latvian people is how — from generation to generation — they preserved their culture, their traditions and their language. As a friend of mine said, they have experience they’d been persecuted for generations historically. And I tend to agree.
Until recently in Latvia at least, Russians never had to work to preserve their own culture, including the language. My hypothesis is that for Russians there are two kinds of culture in the world: higher-than-Russian and lower-than-Russian. A Russian would gladly embrace and assimilate into the higher-than-Russian culture such as American. (To be honest, this is why this blog is in English) On the other hand, A Russian will not assimilate into a culture that a Russian deems as inferior — such as Latvian.
