CLOSE-UP
drop the "Dr." so as not to appear
over-qualified, but his pride
wouldn't let him.
That pride did bend, however:
after 3 1/2 months, Gesse was ready to
take any job. He and Vera were
hired as draftsmen, for a total wage
of $12.20 an hour.
Gesse, who had been a chief project
engineer in the Soviet Union,
couldn't hide his dislike for the me-
nial work. Both he and his wife were
fired after two weeks.
Buoyed by the Jewish Family Ser-
vice's continued support, Gesse
"became extremely aggressive. In the
next two weeks, I had 19 inter-
views" and found work in an
automotive-related plant in Livonia.
The physically tiring job became
60 hours a week; "I learned of an-
other 'freedom' I was not used to —
working more hours than I wanted."
He was sending resumes every-
where when he spied a January
1979 Chevrolet ad seeking a draft-
sman.
Once hired, Gesse found advance-
ment wasn't straight up, but
sideways. After two years in the
same slot, Gesse again went knock-
ing on doors — this time down the
hall to Chevy's stress analysis
department. In January, 1980, he
joined that department. Igor's
distribution of Vera's resume helped
her land a drafstman's job with an-
other Chevy division.
Today, Gesse, who helped design
the aluminum suspension still used
Alexander Shpigel tries to explain how much he likes life in Detroit.
th, when she began cooking in Sinai
Hospital's kosher kitchen.
For the most part, the Shpigels are
beginning to settle down in their
new country. Although they still
struggle to find the careers they
want and to overcome the language
difficulties, the family doesn't miss
their former homeland.
"We have a future," Michael says.
"We didn't have one in the Soviet
Union." ❑
RICHARD PEARL
Staff Writer
A
merica, says Igor Gesse, "is the
most friendly country in the
world. I can't imagine any other
country that would be so patient, so
tolerant of newcomers who don't speak
the language."
However, there's a caveat, too: if
you're lazy, don't bother coming,
says the General Motors engineer:
28
FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1990
"This country is for aggressive peo-
ple."
Finding work, and then working to
find better jobs, has been a major ad-
justment for many of the Soviet
Jews who came to this country in the
last decade. It's the same for
newcomers.
As Igor's wife Vera, also a GM en-
gineer, puts it, "When I think about
the newcomers now, I wish them
luck. I don't want to be in their
shoes."
On the other hand, helping those
following in their footsteps is some-
thing all the earlier generation of
immigrants strive to do.
"Our house is always open," says
Emma Berman, born in Kishinev in
the Soviet Union.
The Gesses, Bermans and Con-
stantin and Ludmilla Liberman - all
native Soviet Jews — have, through
their efforts and those of the Detroit
Jewish community, become typical
American families: a home, two jobs,
two cars and at least two children.
They have moved into mainstream
American life and have done better
than they could have in their native
land.
But the move was a sobering expe-
rience. Despite being skilled Soviet
professionals — five of the six are
engineers — they had to start at the
bottom, sometimes at $4.50 an hour.
They quickly learned to use help-
wanted ads in the newspapers and
also learned, as Ludmilla Liberman
put it, "You didn't get jobs just by
answering ads." Friends, acquain-
tances and a will to succeed were
critical.
The story of Igor Gesse, a native of
Leningrad, is fairly typical of what
all three went through.
Gesse, who had a Soviet doctorate
in mechanical engineering, sent
hundreds of resumes, to no avail,
before and after arriving in Detroit
with Vera and their three children
in June 1978. Friends said he should
A look at three
families a dec-
ade after they
made the tran-
sition from the
Soviet Union to
Detroit.
on Corvettes, is a senior analysis
engineer, with the appropriate
perks. "I like what I'm doing," he
says, "and I've got a company car, so
my dream has come true."
Vera, meanwhile, learned compu-
ters, hydraulics and statistical
analysis and now is an engineer who
sometimes drives Chevy trucks on
the test track.
Work isn't their only interest. The
Gesses, who live in a ranch-style
home in Bloomfield Hills (two chil-
dren still are in school), also enjoy
skiing. Igor, who says he wanted to
be a millionaire, has dabbled in real
estate, mainly as a landlord, and has