The Slavic community is defined as those from the former Soviet Union. It is the largest refugee-based
community in Oregon, with most arriving in the decade from 1990 to 2000. In 1988, then Russian
President Mikhail Gorbachev allowed some religious minorities to leave the country. Numbers grew
when in 1989 the USA eased immigration laws to permit Soviet immigrants. With the demise of the
Soviet Union in 1991, the Slavic community arrived in large numbers. Migration has slowed to a relative
trickle with immigrants more frequently being family-class immigrants as families seek to repatriate
their members.
It is a little unusual to consider the Slavic community as a community of color, for conventionally the
community is considered White, and in all databases reviewed for this research, the community is
included within the White community. So why this variation? The Slavic community has arrived in this
part of the USA facing similar forms of discrimination and exclusion as did the Polish, Irish and Italians
many generations ago. These communities struggled with language, employment, education and social
exclusion. In much the same way, the Slavic community faces these barriers to parity and to equity. As a
result, the Coalition of Communities of Color has formally recognized the Slavic community as a
community of color. The experiences of the Slavic community have much solidarity with other
communities of color. Earlier waves of immigrants from the former Soviet Union were known to achieve
parity with other European immigrants to the USA within five years of arrival.1 Today, parity has moved
further out of reach despite the fact that the local Slavic community has resided in the USA for an
average of 20 years.
What does the community face today? A plethora of challenges in both economic and social arenas,
with key issues named below:
• Access to higher education is limited, with only 25.6% of the adult population holding a
university degree compared with 43.1% of Whites holding degrees
• The achievement gap among high school students is pronounced: ¼ fewer Slavic students meet
or exceed getting satisfactory scores in standardized tests in both math and reading
• One-in-five high school students report being harassed due to their language or ancestry
• Twenty-three percent of students report working while at school with ¾ of them finding that
this becomes a barrier to academic success
• Fully 38% of high school students are looking for but unable to find part-time jobs
• Only ¼ of Slavic students report finding no barriers to impede their academic progress
• This is a rapidly growing community, holding the highest fertility rate among other communities
of color, and with a rate that is triple that of Whites
• Some migration out of the area is occurring as families seek employment and affordable housing
• Youth are primarily hopeful for the future with 83% feeling they will succeed and create the life
they want in the future
• More than one-in-five have no health insurance
The Slavic Community in Multnomah County:
An Unsetting Profile 2 | Page
• In every measure reviewed for this report, local Slavic community members fare worse than
those in King County (home to Seattle)
• The economy has had a terrible impact on the Slavic community. Between 2008 and 2011...
o Levels of employment in good jobs shrunk by about 50% while they doubled in service
jobs
o Incomes were decimated with the average household losing ¼ of their annual income.
Married couple families lost, on average, more than $20,000 per year
o Poverty levels got worse in every category. Child poverty rates surged from 16% to 30%
o Unemployment more than doubled from 5.6% to 13.0%
o More of the Slavic community lost their homes. Homeownership rates dropped from
57.6% to 54.4% and the average Slavic homeowner lost $100,000 of home equity over
just three years; the White community lost $24,000
• In a total of 15 measures that we could track over time, disparities between Slavics and Whites
widened in 13 categories while they improved in only two – but even for these two, progress did
not occur. The disparities improved because Whites lost ground faster than Slavics.
А вот сейчас обидно было
https://www.coalitioncommunitiescolor.org/ccc-news
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