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Molokan NEWS

Adapted from: Bookmarks, Chico Statements, 
Spring 1999 Volume 5 Issue 1 (www.csuchico.edu/pub/cs/spring_99/departments/d.eb.bookmarks.html) 
Find it at the bottom of the archived web page.

Why do gangs sometimes emerge in immigrant groups? 

My book asks a simple question: why do some immigrant groups have waves of immigrant crime, and others do not? More to the point, why do many immigrant groups have lots of immigrant crime at one time, and very little at others? A good example is with immigrants from Mexico. In the 1910s and 1920s, large numbers migrated to Los Angeles where they quickly developed a reputation for being�law abiding. At the same time, the Los Angeles police were aggressively pursuing gangs of Russian youth who had developed a reputation for fighting and stealing. 

This pattern is repeated today. For example, poor Vietnamese immigrant families have a reputation for producing both valedictorians and some of the West coast's most notorious gang-bangers. What gives? You can't have it both ways. Or can you? Is there something about migration itself which makes such groups different than more settled groups?

The argument of my book is that migration is viewed as a process, waves of youthful crime will emerge in poor immigrant communities. These waves have a beginning as children socialized in the United States come of age, and begin to form particularly strong peer sub-cultures. Some (but not all) of these sub-groups turn into gangs. Notably, they do not have a root in the culture brought from the home country, experiences in war, or other events which occurred before migration. Rather they have their roots in the process of migration itself.

The book notes that this process is a particular problem in immigrant groups having having high birth rates. But it is not so strong in immigrant groups which have few children. 

These arguments are developed by using stories from people who have been involved with outbreaks of youthful crime in Laotian, Hmong, Mexican, and Spiritual Christians from Russia Molokan Russian communities. 

The conclusion of Crime and Immigrant Youth focuses on the policy implications of this study. Notably, it concludes that as long as the United States has a persistent demand for cheap immigrant labor, the "second generation" issue of gang activity will persist. I hope that the book will be of interest to students of the juvenile justice system, law enforcement, criminology, school counselors, and other working with immigrant youth.

Tony Waters   < email:  twaters@csuchico.edu >
Department of Sociology and Social Work
California State University, Chico

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I created the Molokan Home Page to correct dis-information about
Molokans and often search the web for "Molokan" references. I found your
thesis last year and reported it to Ethel Dunn who got a copy and said
that you had no new material, but used Pauline Young's work.

Update: 2019 March 29 � Before 2011, the term Molokan broadly
referred to all "Spiritual Christians from Russia."
See: Taxonomy of 3 Spiritual Christian groups:
Molokane, Pryguny and Dukh-i-zhizniki �
books, fellowship, holidays, prophets and songs.

I haven't yet seen your thesis, and now find available in paperback. So
I just added what I found at Chico Statements and your self-review from
Amazon.com to my Molokan NEWS web site: (If you don't mind.)

Can you get discounted copies of your book for Molokans? Also, I'd
appreciate any old copy you could spare. If you got any, I'll pay the
shipping, or come by an visit. I have a cousin in Sacramento. Now I live
in Arizona.

Did you interview any living Molokans in your work? I knew several, and
heard stories of many, Molokan gang members in the Flats. An uncle
(mother's sister's husband, deceased) was a member who chickened out
when his buddies got into big crime, thus he avoided the jail time his
cousins and friends served. Another gang member lived here in Arizona.
His son didn't know of his dad's criminal record until after his father
died. Most Molokans talked about Pete Galizten, an excellent safe
cracker. Unfortunately, Pete Jr couldn't stand his fathers history and
left the Molokan church.

One story I remember (the teller lives in LA) occurred during a Molokan
church service in the Flats. Pete, then in his teens, recalled as he was
"on his knees" (head bowed on the floor) in church. A buddy quickly
entered the church, spotted Pete and got down on the floor next to him,
like everyone else who was praying. Soon Pete peaked up and saw a
policemen looking through the door and leave. Pete then whispered, in
jest, "What did you do this time?" I never pursued these stories because
they were embarrassing to many of the families, and the Molokans wanted
their oral history to be spiritual christian.

I find your analysis useful in helping the American Molokans put their
early American history in perspective. This may alleviate some of the
shame still felt by many families for their grandfathers deeds.

I'm also interested in seeing your references.
 

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 Dear A.J. Conovaloff
     Thank you for your note.  Also, I found your observations about your
own family, and those of others you know who lived in the Flats interesting.
Should I ever be in a position to do a second edition of the book(maybe in a
couple of years), I would like to include such observations.  In the
meantime, I would like to take the liberty to mention them at a conference I
will be speaking at in Sacramento in September. Should you know of others
with similar recollections, I would find it useful.  Notably, I think, too
that more recent immigrants to the United States may very well find your
observations about the "second generation" problems of interest as well. 
     Ethel Dunn is right that my primary source was Pauline Young's book.
My own ethnographic research was primarily done in the more recently arrived
Laotian communities (Hmong, Lao, Mien).  What I found interesting about the
Molokans was the parallels between their experience with immigration and
that of the Hmong in particular.  Both arrived in the California with a
strong leadership, and a strong commitment to traditional ways and religion.
Both had high birth rates after persecution in their home countries, and
arrival in the United States.  Both had a tough time controlling their
children some years later, with one result being a great deal of juvenile
delinquency.
     In the book version of the dissertation, I did expand my reference base
regarding the Molokans a bit.  As Ethel Dunn noted, the primary source in
the dissertation was Pauline Young's book, and a 1918 article about by L.
Sokolov.  In the book version, there are also references to the Dunn's
writings, and that of Susan Hardwick.  The one original piece of research I
did about the Molokans was to consult the original census schedule for the
Flats.  I sampled from South Pecan, South Gless, and South Clarence Streets
(p. 81) for the 1920 census.  If you have seen them already, I think that
you would find these reels most interesting.  They list the names, ages,
parentage, native language, etc., of all people living along these streets.
When I showed some of the names to Bill Waroff in Sacramento (a colleague of my father's), he recognized a number of the names, and is mentioned briefly
in the book.  For my purposes, though, what was interesting was the
demographics of the group.  In 1920, there was a large number of young
people coming of age.
     If you are in a position to review the book for your web-site and/or
other publications, I would recommend that you contact Julie Ellis at Sage
Publications (julie.ellis@sagepub.com) and request a review copy.  Indicate
that you are in a position to review the book; they are usually pretty
generous about sending out such copies in exchange for the potential
publicity.  You might also send her the URL for the web page that you have
already prepared.

Sincerely,  Tony Waters
 

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Sure. I'll ask around.

You probably missed: "East Los Angeles : history of a barrio"  by Ricardo Romo, 1983, (now at Univ Texas, Austin) who somehow missed Young's
published work but by inspecting 1920's Congressional immigration hearings references much of her interesting testimony. 

>What I found interesting about the 
  Molokans was the parallels between their experience with immigration and
  that of the Hmong in particular.  Both arrived in the California with a 
  strong leadership, and a strong commitment to traditional ways and religion. 
  Both had high birth rates after persecution in their home countries, and 
  arrival in the United States.  Both had a tough time controlling their 
  children some years later, with one result being a great deal of juvenile 
  delinquency.

And they moved from rural villages to a big metropolis. The Doukhobors who were neighbors to Molokans in the Caucasus and moved to Canada just before the Molokans came to America, were settled in the Saskatchewan prairies and had no youth gangs. During immigration, Molokans leaders were split on following the Doukhobors or California. California offered jobs, so they "chased the dollar", not the spirit, as one elder told me. 

>   In the book version, there are also references to the Dunn's 
  writings, and that of Susan Hardwick.

Hardwick saw my presentation on Molokan migrations patterns given at the West Coast Geographers Conference about 1980, when I was a business grad student at CSU Fresno. The anthropology dept had just gotten a grant to document the SJ Valley ethnic groups and encouraged me to help with the Molokans and that presentation. I either spoke or wrote to her once, though she kept in touch with Ethel. I wanted to review her work before she published, as I do all researchers. Many American Molokans hate the outside researchers who are making money on their religion, but when offered to proofread manuscripts they feel like they have some control on what is said about them. We have a broad spectrum of fears among our people. Anyway, she continued to publish about Molokans with very little personal contact with us, and hasn't returned any e-mail for over a year. I finally found a copy of her 1980's publication and have a few things to post about it. (One of many projects.) 

> I sampled from South Pecan, South Gless, and South Clarence Streets 
  (p. 81) for the 1920 census. 

They were declassified in 1990 or 1995 (70-75 years later). I did spend 2 days at the Mormon Temple in Santa Monica to realize I needed a few weeks. There was also an early phone book that listed occupations. The UMCA has a copy. The most valuable document on the Flats are the insurance maps archived at CSU Northridge, Geography Dept--each house, out-house, stove pipe is shown, all drawn, most Molokan churches are labeled. I tried getting elders to sketch who lived where in the Flats, but by using original documents, their memories are helped. Interesting, in the 1920 census, was that P.M. Shubin (the leader in front of Young's book) had 20+ people "living" at his house, or using his address. 

>In 1920, there was a large number of young people coming of age.

Did you note the impact of the UMCA's cutting arrests by 50% in 1926. Someday I'll graph that data from Young to really illustrate the impact of forming a youth organization, giving the kids an alternative place to go at night. Note that about a dozen young couples feared melting into America and built something not know in Russia--a youth organization--to compete with the
local Baptist church that attracted kids. Discussion with elders confirm that Molokans have no place for kids in the church. Kids were left at home, older tend to younger, while parents attended church. One is not even acknowledged until marriage when they become "whole"--before each is "half". Then it's a struggle, in the church, to gain recognition--singing, jumping, reading in Russian. Without an elder relative on the front row to bring you in, a single person is alone. Most Molokans do not greet visitors with a smile and a "welcome brother, glad to see you". Handshaking is American. Russians kiss. Kids who adapt American values can hate church quickly. 

Andy Conovaloff 
 

The reference for Sokolov is as follows:

Sokolov L. (1918)  [Lillian Sokoloff]
The Russians in Los Angeles 
(Sociological Monograph No. 11).  
Los Angeles: University of California Press.

     She was a teacher in a Molokan school, as I recall.  She was a Russian, but not a Molokan.  She very much liked the Molokans in L.A. and described the students as being particularly hard-working and diligent (different than Young).  As I recall, she also had some details about World War I era draft resistance, when a number of young Molokan men were sent to prison in Arizona.

     The monograph is somewhat hard to get; I would suggest that you try inter-library loan.  I had to go to the California State Library in Sacramento to get a copy.

     The most recent reference for Hardwick is a book "Russian Refuge:: Religion, migration, and settlement on the North Pacific Rim." Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  It is primarily about Orthodox churches in Alaska and California, I recall.  There are thorough sections about both Molokans and Dukhobours.

Tony Waters
 

Waters bases his analysis of Molokan gangs on Pauline Young's records from the 1920s and 30s, and some original sampling of the 1920 census records now available for the Flat's area. Though he had not interviewed any Molokan who was a gang member, we can learn a lot from his research. Most important is his conclusion that when immigrant rural families with lots of kids and strong religious and family traditions move to a big city, gang membership and crime is a natural result that, perhaps, cannot be avoided even with intense intervention. (More on his finding later, when I read everything.)

Years ago, when I studied The Pilgrims of Russian-Town,  I saw a table of the number of juvenile delinquencies recorded for Molokan boys by the Hollenbeck police station. Notable to me was the 50% drop in delinquencies as soon as the UMCA was started in 1926--from about 140 to 60. (See graph on left.)