Ours in the USA: why being poor in America is expensive

Biophysicist Ivan from Russia went to the States in search of interesting work, traveled to different cities and met with completely different Americans. Lenta.ru publishes a Russian story about life in the United States.

Photo courtesy of the hero of the material

Such a different America

I moved to America at the end of the year 2014 after defending my thesis. Unfortunately, science studies in Russia do not yet imply a decent salary, so I began to look for options abroad. The best offer came from a laboratory in the Food and Drug Administration (Food and Drug Administrationabbreviated as FDA). For those who do not know: this is a very influential organization, an analogue of Rospotrebnadzor. No serious medicine appears on the market without the approval of this structure. I was taken to one of the scientific laboratories where applied research is being carried out, which lasts for years.

The science center where I work is located north of Washington, Maryland. I was lucky with the place of residence: there is relatively easy access to both urban entertainment and natural beauty. Washington is a clean city with a developed metro and public transport. True, the local metro is inferior to Moscow in terms of flow frequency, on weekends you can easily wait for the 20 train for minutes.

It was decided to make the city still the capital during the construction, so there have never been plants and factories here. Architecture is also atypical for America - there are no skyscrapers here. The color of the buildings is dominated by strict gray tones, which is why many say that the architecture in Washington is dull. As I understand it, this is done in order to emphasize that the government does not spend taxpayers' money on excess. The exception is the district of Georgetown with its small multi-colored houses in the British style and the building of Georgetown University, stylized as medieval Gothic.

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Representatives of peoples and cultures from all over the world live in Washington and its suburbs. It seems that even in New York there is no such diversity. People come to me from around ten countries for my birthday. There are no isolated national ghettos in the city, so everyone lives together and actively communicates with each other. As a result, there are a lot of restaurants of various national cuisines besides the traditional Chinese and Mexican states. For example, in the northern suburb of Washington, the city of Silver Spring, there is a cafe of original Ethiopian cuisine.

There are quite a lot of immigrants from Russia and the countries of the former USSR, although by an order of magnitude less than, for example, in New York and Los Angeles. The unofficial cultural center of Russian life here is the restaurant "Mari vanna"- you go in there and you understand that you have come to Russia. All the staff speaks Russian, you can taste the dishes of our cuisine, which you miss here, especially if you do not know how to cook. Also Friday lunatic discos, various cultural events are organized here, and on Sundays - a brunch accompanied by accordion. Local accordionist Artem, in addition to playing at Marie Vann, and his wife Victoria regularly organize concerts of Russian music.

From Washington, you can go to the state capital of Maryland, Annapolis, or to Frederick. Their centers very much resemble the good old Europe. Baltimore is very close to Washington, and it really is a city of contrasts. Against the backdrop of the well-developed Chesapeake Bay waterfront, the rest of the city looks like a gangster gangto: dirty, a lot of people under the influence of drugs, in the evening on the streets openly offer all sorts of crap and girls. In general, the city is an amateur.

Three and a half hours north of New York is located, people go there often to have fun. But I personally didn’t like this city, at least its main district of Manhattan.

I expected to see something like Moscow, but in fact in New York there is much less space, and the concentration of people is very large. In addition, the city is frankly dirty, rats run on subway tracks. And, of course, prices are simply exorbitant.

Of all the cities of the USA in which I was, New Orleans impressed me the most. I was there during the Mardi Gras festival, watched parades, enjoyed Mediterranean architecture and the atmosphere of the city in general. After strict Washington, gay New Orleans is perceived so easily that you even begin to think differently. I experienced about the same feelings when I traveled from Moscow to Odessa. New Orleans - this is really American Odessa, where you can splash and rest, but I absolutely do not understand how to work there.

If you drive 50 miles from Washington towards Virginia, you realize that something has changed around. This is the agrarian south of the United States, where saleswomen turn to you "sweet" (sweetie), the percentage of whites increases dramatically, and you plunge into the atmosphere of a farming province with simple, but very friendly and sociable people. By the way, the drummer of the band in which I play country music owns a wood farm in Virginia. Once Upon a Time in Charlottesville Gogol Bordello I met a couple who already showed me the neighborhood the next day. They brought me to the mountains on a small farm, the owner of which, among other things, kept the wolves in cages so that they would not be shot. Being a guest, we all went to the cages, and although in the first five minutes, being close to wild animals, I was nervous, as a result we had a great rest.

Dear poor life

However, it is worth mentioning the negative aspects of life in the States. The prices in New York are really huge, but Washington is not far behind. Usually in a restaurant you rarely eat for less than 13-15 dollars. I rent a room in a suburb of Washington College Park, and with heating, internet, and electricity, about 800 dollars a month go out. I have to have medical insurance that meets the specific requirements of the employer, it costs me 400 dollars per month, and I have to pay from 20 to 40 dollars for each visit to the doctor.

In addition, if I need a surgery or testing, I will pay for it myself until the amount exceeds a thousand dollars, and so every year. For such money, the service in the clinics could be much better.

Photo courtesy of the hero of the material

Another major problem in the States is racism. Blacks believe that they are still oppressed, while many whites are beginning to feel oppression on themselves. I got the impression that these problems are largely contrived, as in Bulgakov's “Heart of a Dog”: racism is not in the streets, but in the minds. Sometimes it even seems that the main racists here are exactly black, because African Americans mention the racial theme through the phrase, which neither whites nor Latin Americans, nor Asians, nor Indians do.

I believe that white Americans can learn from blacks their immediacy and emotionality. For example, the first try not to show negative emotions. They always answer “good” to the question “how are you”, regardless of how they are actually doing. Here it is considered just an element of politeness, but to a person from Russia after our directness this seems to be a fake.

I think that racism will disappear by itself when the concepts “black” and “white” are replaced with the categories “rich” and “poor”.

By the way, the level of poverty in the United States compared to other developed countries is quite high. I saw a lot of homeless people in different cities, and once I met Christmas with a poor American family in a real trailer park where the so-called “white trash” lives. In fairness, I will say that in that trailer park lives not at all trash, but very nice people.

Due to the high cost of living, it becomes very difficult to rise to the previous level of income if it has fallen for some reason before that. As Bernie Sanders said, it is very expensive for the poor in the United States. This means that no bank will give you a low-interest loan if you have a low income. In principle, it is the same everywhere, but in the States everything is so expensive that even the middle class buys everything on credit. And if it is not given, then you automatically have nothing.

Education in the States, at least in the natural sciences, also leaves much to be desired, and not everyone has enough money for it. After graduation, many Americans are in debt, as in silks. And you have to pay 30 percent tax. When I tell Americans that I went to university for free, they say that I was very lucky.

And, perhaps most importantly: paranoia spread throughout the country due to fears of being condemned. Here is a completely normal situation when, after a traffic accident, a lawsuit for thousands of dollars for minor injuries such as a broken lip is brought against the culprit. I think that is why legal, insurance and medical services are so expensive here.

Life difficulties of an immigrant

Personally, I still get a lot of trouble my stay status. I have a J1 visa, which is issued to foreigners who come to the States to exchange cultural and scientific experience. It is issued for a year - in accordance with the duration of the contract, and each year it must be renewed. In addition to the annual hassle with the extension of the contract, I have a problem with going abroad: while I am here, I do not need to renew my visa, but if I leave the country, I need to apply for it at the American embassy.

Photo courtesy of the hero of the material

Typically, the design takes a couple of weeks, but not in my case. I have a very dangerous profession - I am a biophysicist. And therefore, in theory, I can construct an atomic bomb, fill it with anthrax and blow it up somewhere near the White House. So I have to prove that I am not a camel, so the design may take at least a month, which the authorities do not like at all, since I cannot conduct experiments in a Moscow apartment due to the lack of equipment.

Despite all the difficulties, the big salary outweighs them, so while I live here, I communicate with interesting people from all over the world, do research and play bass in a country band. But if the visa is not renewed again, I will not grieve much. In this case, I hope to find work in Europe or in other developed regions of the world such as Canada, Australia or New Zealand.

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