The Saga of My Life in NYC: Latvian boyfriend edition

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So having recently dumped firefighter boyfriend over the texting incident, I’ve been making time with a new, so far delightful, young man. The amusing thing is that although he grew up in Soviet-era Latvia, he has lived in New York City long enough that his English is flawless; in fact, if either of us sounds foreign, its me, the Southern transplant. I’m just waiting for the day that someone runs up to me and screams “Terk ur jerbs! Go back to where you came from!” and I reply, “Uh, Mississippi?” But I digress.

This is the exact conversation I had with my mother today when I called to tell her about my new sweetie.

Mississippi Mama: What’s his name?

Mississippienne: [His name]

Mississippi Mama: What the hell kinda name is that?

Mississippienne: It’s Latvian.

Mississippi Mama: … he’s a lesbian?

Mississippienne: :rolleyes: Yeah, Mama, he’s a lesbian. Nah, he’s Latvian!

Mississippi Mama: … Lebanese?

Mississippienne: LATVIAN.

Mississippi Mama: Oh!.. What the hell is a Latvian?

Mississippienne: Y’know, Latvia. Parta the former Soviet Union.

So now my mother thinks he’s Russian. I decided that’s close enough so I stopped torturing her with information about a small Baltic nation she’s never heard of before.

2

I know it’s only next door, but now I have “Letts do it” for an ear-worm… :rolleyes:
:smiley:

(First poster to say they are Estonished by this will find themselves in Riga Mortis! :p)

3

Actually, he’s closer to being Finnish than he is to being Russian.

4

Gotta watch out for those Latvians! Why, the President of Latvia once cut me off on the way to work!

It’s true. I was on the bus to work, we were just merging onto the 427, and suddenly a police car got in front of the bus and blocked the entrance to the express lanes. We continued in the collectors while I looked at the empty express lanes. Suddenly a motorcade bearing an unfamiliar maroon-and-white flag rushed past, heading for the airport. Then the cops were gone and we continued as normal.

Turns out the Latvian president was a former Canadian citizen who had returned to Latvia after its independence.

5

Are you going to have to convert to Latvian Orthodox?

6

Does he look like this ?

7

Yop davai oh my

I’m sure that’s not spelled correctly, but saying it to your boyfriend may elicit a surprised response.

8

So you’re dating a Russian?

9

Question? What happens when Natasha finds out about you?? And what’s his beef with the Moose and Squirrel??

10

Doctor Doom once cut Sunspace off? DAMN YOU, REED RICHARDS!

11

You know, a long time ago, I read a story that involved a character whose hobby was joining groups with oddball or impossible goals - kind of like action versions of the Flat Earth Society.

One of these groups was the “Free Latvia Society,” the implication being that of course it’s insanely ridiculous to imagine that Latvia would ever be a free nation.

So I say this only to say that it’s perhaps slightly forgiveable that your mom, OP, would have trouble processing ‘Latvian’ as a nationality. If it’s Soviet, it’s Russian. So your boyfriend is Russian.

12

It’s quite understandable of course – technically “Soviet” would have been accurate at one time but “Soviet” and “Russian” are pretty intermingled in the American mind-- but Latvians of my aquaintence will deny heartily that they are, or ever were, Russian. Back in the Cold War days it seemed like they hated the Russians even more than more than Ronald Reagan did.

PS - Sveiks!

13

And it can be even messier. My grandfather, for example, was born in Latvia in 1904 (so pre-Soviet). To complicate matters, he wasn’t ethnically Latvian - he was Jewish. And they spoke German in the house (which was quite common then for urban Baltic Jews). You should have seen how pissed off he would get when people suggested he was Russian.

And this, folks, is why I launched into a 20-minute discourse with the Census enumerator a few years back who wanted me to check a single box regarding my nation of ancestry. Which one? There are at least 4, depending on how you count, and depending on what period in time you’re counting from, because the borders in that neck of the woods have moved around so much. My grandmother always swore her parents came from Austria, but when I got more docs, it turned out that it was a chunk of the Austro-Hungarian empire which is now in southern Poland, near the Slovak border. But no, she ain’t Polish, either…

14

Tas loti biezi radas ka cilveki doma ka latviesi ir krievi. Bet musu valoda un kultura ir pilniga citada.

Es ceru ka tavs draugs nav liels dzerajs. Latviesiem loti patik dzert un mes biezi dzeram visu nakti! Bet mes ari esam loti stradigi. Ja vins ir godigs pret tevim, tad tev ir laba laime un es jums abiem nosvinu daudz laimi un prieku!

Just to reiterate what Hello Again said: Latvians are not Russians. We have a distinct language, culture and history. The Latvian territory has been occupied by many different nationalities since the capital city, Riga, was founded in the year 1201.

15

The president I referred to was Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga.

Lotta people from the Baltics in the Greater Toronto region when I was a kid. My best friend was Estonian. And I found out later that Toronto had one of the largest groups of overseas Estonians in the world.

16

God, it’s like you’re not even listening - she’s dating a lesbian.

ETA: Does he look like this? (Yes, I know Goran Visnjic isn’t Latvian.)

17

I used to have a coworker who was Latvian-American. Her grandfather had been killed in WW2 and her grandmother had ended up in a Displaced Persons camp, where her mother was born. They ended up in the US as refugees - my coworker’s mother ended up marrying a non-Latvian, much to the horror of everyone everywhere, apparently. My coworker told me stories of her time at Latvian camp as a kid - some of the kids were instructed by their parents not to speak to her because she was only half Latvian.

Be prepared.

18

Can’t you just say Ashkenazi? My Ashkenazi ancestors were from Lithuania, Estonia, and Ukraine.

No wonder sometimes we just shortened that to “Russian Jews”. Too complicated, and they all lived in the Russian Empire before emigrating anyway.

19

That’s more like Estonians. Both them and the Finns have closely-related languages, and with it a surfeit of vowels.

Confusing Balkan with Baltic, hmm?
I was driving one day and noticed a car with a Latvian bumper sticker (something like this). Not too odd, I’ve seen all kinds. Then I notice another a bit later. Then another. The area wasn’t known for Latvian ancestry as far as I know, maybe they were all heading to the same place.

20

I tried that - no dice. Apparently the US Census has a box to check for Samoan, but not Ashkenazi. I’m taking a wild guess that there are a ton more Ashkenazi people in the US than Samoans. Thus, the debate with the census enumerator.