ABSTRACT
Russian mail-order brides represent a very small proportion of immigration to the United States. Although no definitive data exist, it is estimated that the mail-order bride industry arranges 4,000 to 6,000 marriages between American men and foreign-born women each year. These female seekers of permanent U.S. residency account for 0.4 percent of all immigration to the United States and less than 4 percent of immigration involving female spouses (INS, 1999). 1 How many of these women are from Russia? The data are not available, but Russian women certainly represent an insignificant number of immigrants, since many mail-order brides still come from Asia (especially from the Philippines) or Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the newly independent republics of the former Soviet Union. However, Russian mail-order brides and their marriages to American citizens and permanent residents generate more media attention and public controversy than any other ethnic group in the industry. Local and national newspapers publish numerous reports on this group of women; TV shows and radio talk shows devote their programs to them; legislative and judicial institutions (Congress, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, etc.) discuss the consequences of this kind of marital arrangement; academic researchers study the issue as part of the globalization of the sex industry and trafficking in women; and even Hollywood pitches in by producing a new blockbuster in which Nicole Kidman stars as a Russian mail-order bride (Birthday Girl, 2002). In this chapter, I examine various representations of Russian mail-order brides at different levels of American public discourse and analyze the symbolic meaning of these cultural stereotypes and the role they play in American public perception of post-Soviet women.
