how’s about an introduction?

before i tell you what i do, i’ll tell you about who i am, and you’ll understand where my sensibilities for marketing come from….

i was born in the former ussr to a jewish family. by the time i was six my parents had been “refuseniks” for nine years. the ussr government claimed that my father, an engineer in the russian space program, had highly valuable government secrets because of his job, and possession of such secrets would, of course, never allow him to leave the country. (funny to consider i’m now writing about this out on the open range of the internet 20 years later). in the fall of 1987 we were finally allowed to leave. i think it was probably the first time either of my parents left the country.

in the ussr the jewish population was generally very highly educated. education was free and the opportunities it allowed were seen as one of the only hopes of defense against the country’s rampant antisemitism. the jewish community’s educated reputation lent a great deal of pride to one’s jewish identity, and at the same time made it incredibly resented by the less educated non-jews. this struggle was never mine, but i understand it as it informed the experience of the people who raised me.

we arrived in the US with ‘fugee visas, and my parents changed my name. at home and with family i was jenya, but to all the new americans i met, teachers, friends, bosses, boyfriends, i was jane. before i was old enough to analyze such things as context and identity critically, navigating between them became an inescapable part of my daily experience.

as an immigrant, you are on a constant quest for assimilation and acceptance. yet simultaneously you are instilled with a deep-seated pride for your history. much deeper than would be necessary were it a history that could be taken for granted. refugees from communist, or otherwise oppressive regimes have it even worse, as they carry with them a long history of distrust and secrecy. thus the pressure is always on not only to become americanized while retaining your heritage, but on top of that, to hide as much of this identity-juggling as you can possibly get away with.

growing up in the states, however, it becomes apparent by the time you’re in elementary school that the american ideal is, of course, a direct contradiction to the immigrant worldview. if you want to be cool you’re supposed to rebel, not fit in. you should aspire to stand out, be different, not assimilate. and above all, you’ve got to “be yourself.” a schizophrenic task for any teenager, even if you’re not a cultural hyphenate whose background is heavy on encouraging hiding who you are.

the summer between high school and college i spent in israel. by 1999 pretty much all of my family had relocated there from russia. from the 50+ cousins, aunts, and uncles, to my half-sister and her family, my relatives are spread out all over the country, and i spent every weekend i was there visiting various people who shared some portion of my DNA–lots of whom i’d never met before.

if toggling between two completely conflicting cultural influences in the united states hadn’t been enough to make me question the nature of what drives “identity,” the time i spent in israel drove the point home.

once the ussr government stopped refusing people from leaving the country, jews emigrated to israel in a staggering exodus. (there’s a russian–jewish joke that goes, “what did the second to last jew in russia say to the last jew? ‘don’t forget to turn the lights off at sheremetyevo airport.'”)

in israel the language barrier between russian and hebrew meant that even people with ph.d.’s became janitors, dishwashers, and taxi drivers. it didn’t matter who they’d been in russia, as far as israelis were concered, russians were all lower class.

americans on the other hand are considered VIPs in israel. they’re served first, deferred to, let in the front of the line, and generally treated by bartenders, bus drivers, store clerks, and all manner of other attendants like welcome guests. yet most american tourists don’t speak hebrew, of course. they don’t have to. all the signs are also written english, and practically all israelis in the service industry speak english to some degree that allows for more or less easy communication even if you don’t know a single word beyond “shalom.” hebrew is for israelis. it’s where the native-born sabras talk about the americans behind their unsuspecting backs.

being a former russian immigrant, turned american resident, living in israel, and speaking russian, english, and hebrew fluently would consistently disorient people’s understanding of what my “identity” was and how they were supposed to be treating me.

my perfect english could get the university to fix the refrigerator in our dorm even before my roommates’ perfect hebrew could. most people wouldn’t imagine i was anything but american until my russian uncle would show up, unable to speak a word of hebrew to save his life, and then suddenly what did that mean about my VIP status? and if i knew enough hebrew to laugh at the inside jokes, did that mean i was savvy as a sabra?

in israel i was faced with a very concentrated experience of what had been diluted all throughout the solution of my life: people constantly trying to decipher where i fit in, getting lost in the convoluted spectrum of all my different “identities.”

this experience in israel is, in retrospect, where my understanding of identity comes from: just how mutable it really is, how much of it is a constructed performance, how important a role context plays in that performance, and how the process of choosing who to be is just that.

sometimes more consciously than others, but always a constructed choice.

the deconstruction of a mixed identity is not any kind of revelation, but i offer this history as an introduction to what drives my work in marketing. now more than ever, for a message to be effective it has to be relevant, authentic, and it has to approach people on their own terms. the construction of communication is governed by the same rules that dictate the construction of identity. the two go hand in hand. making a message that has to fit in, has to rebel, has to speak to the VIPs, to the underdogs, to the clever ones playing all sides, and is keepin‘ it real the whole time is a practice i’ve been working on my whole life.

it’s now also one i consider my work.

so now that we’ve got the first date out of the way….let’s get on with the action.