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Accessing the American Dream An innovative
computer-training program helps Russian emigres develop skills for
quality jobs In a sleek business suite on the first floor of a gleaming El Segundo skyscraper, seven Russian emigres sit at computer terminals with their brows knitted in concentration. At Transnational Computer Technology, they work 12 hours a day, six days a week, mastering the technology that will allow them to "make it" in America. Not long ago, these newcomers, with Russian graduate degrees in computer science or engineering, were delivering pizzas or working odd jobs. They were struggling with a new language, a new culture, a new high-tech computer world. But now a unique training program offers them a passport to the American dream. A joint venture of TCT, a cutting-edge computer firm, and the Refugee Resettlement and Acculturation Program of the Jewish and Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, which has met the needs of tens of thousands of newly arrived Russian-speaking Iranian emigres for more than 22 years, the training program is an unprecedented partnership of business and nonprofit interests, according to JFC officials. Jewish Vocational Service, an affiliated agency of JFC, screens and selects "cream of the crop" emigres for TCT and provides a stipend. TCT, in turn, trains the refugees; the company has hired five of 10 trainees to date (two more are still in training, while three others have found jobs elsewhere). Both Russians and Iranians are considered for the program, though all the trainees, so far, have been from the former Soviet Union. The program can play a critical - albeit limited - role in the local economy, backers say, especially in light of California's estimated 12-percent unemployment rate and the increased cutbacks in government spending on job training. And while some businesses are hesitant to hire emigres because of the training cost, the refugees soon make up that shortfall. "What the companies are gaining are really terrific minds," said Jeanie Gaynor, director of JVS' resettlement program. "It's a win-win situation," said Tatyana Kodner, coordinator of JFC's refugee resettlement and acculturation program. "We hope it will be come a role model and that it will encourage companies of all kinds to start similar programs around the country." The partnership began early last year, when JVS was looking for creative ways to locate jobs for emigres. In El Segundo, meanwhile, TCT President Wond Wossen Mesfin was lamenting the dearth of qualified computer programmers who had responded to his "help-wanted" ads in the Los Angeles Times. A Jewish friend then suggested an idea: Since TCT would have to train new employees anyway, why not draw upon the pool of talented emigres scientists who were clients of Jewish Vocational Service? Mesfin, himself an emigres from Ethiopia, immediately warmed to the idea. He had always been quick to hire emigres (about half of his approximate 50 employees are from Vietnam, China or India); from personal experience, he knows that immigrants tend to be driven, determined, hungry. "They are drunk, turned on by the opportunities here," said the slim, elegant businessman, 43. "They know they'll have to work harder, to be smarter; this comes from blinding desire." So when JVS recommended a group of Russians from the training program last March, Mesfin did not mind much that they had no American work experience. He was not concerned that they seemed hesitant, a bit timid or that they needed to work on their English and computer skills. Rather, he glanced at their impressive resumes (one applicant had been a university lecturer in computer programming and applied mathematics, for example) and hired them all on the spot. The reason, Mesfin told a reporter, was that he "was touched by their desire to succeed, their ignorance of where to go, the waste of human potential." When one "brilliant" emigres with a prestigious engineering degree told him he was working as a bank teller for $6 an hour, Mesfin "thought that was a damn shame." The businessman also saw, in their faces, a bit of himself, though his background is, of course, different from those of the Russians. Mesfin grew up as a member of the Ethiopian royal family, his father was JA governor of a province and a general of the late Emperor Haile Selassie. The ninth of 13 children, Wond Wossen Mesfin's home was the lush royal compound in Addis Ababa, where he enjoyed the requisite nannies and English prep schools before departing, at age 16, to study computer science at UC Santa Barbara. His self-confidence soon earned him a prestigious campus research job with a prominent computer professor, although he initially found the United States "to be alien, like something out of Star Trek, with eight-lane freeways, gasoline coming out of pumps, rock 'n' roll." But, in 1974, came the Ethiopian revolution, when Mesfin's father was executed and buried in a mass grave, and his mother and sisters were jailed for years. Suddenly, the teenager who was "used always to first class" found himself a refugee forced to support three younger brothers: "I needed to succeed, and I learned the hard way how to stay alive," said Mesfin, who struggled as a businessman and as a consultant before founding TCT in 1978. "I learned, too, that there is no love for immigrants in this country." So it was not surprising that Mesfin empathized with the Russian emigres who arrived at his door last March. He advised them how to dress, how to groom themselves and about the inner workings of American big business. He rubbed their shoulders, told them "things will get better" and has been pleased with their progress so far. For this, the emigres are grateful. Fresh-faced, quietly self-confident Yevgeniy Freydenzon, for example, was previously the general manager of a soviet computer company before arriving in Los Angeles in November 1994 where he delivered pizza for $2.50 an hour. "Wond Wossen is like a symbol to me of how to succeed in America," said the 29-year old Freydenzon, who thanks to the training program, immediately snagged a good programming job when he had to move out of state two months ago. Intense 36-year-old Boris Entin, for his part, said the training program has been "the simplest way for a former chemical engineer to escape from poverty and unemployment." Today, he has been hired full-time by TCT, and his American dream is to provide his daughters with a terrific education. "In this country, I'll have the stamp of foreigner all my life, which is to be expected," the Russian said. "But my [girls] will be Americans." |
