I will point out the main problem with an example that shows the common unawareness in the American society, the "Russian Mafia". In Fact, the "Russian Mafia" consists of people attending many ethnic groups, but hardly any Russians. The "Russian Mafia" is a relatively new phenomenon that appeared approximately 30 years ago, when the Soviet Union first opened its borders due to pressure from the US. But at first only members of specific groups were allowed to leave the Union. Those groups mostly were Jews (about 90% of the total amount), Germans, Armenians and some Ukrainians. These emigrants are people the Soviet Union did not want back then, because either they were disliked because of prejudices in the own population or because they were criminals. This way many criminals went to America, the Land of Opportunity, to start their own "business". This "business" turned out to become the "Russian Mafia". I have to emphasize again that among those criminals there were hardly any Russians! But due to the population's lack of background knowledge about the "Russian Mafia", all members simply were "Russians" to them. Today we still can't observe any countermeasures being taken and the prejudices about the Russians are everything but dissolving. Delaware Senator William V. Roth "justified this misrepresentation in his opening remarks only thusly: "When we use the term "Russian organized crime" in the course of this hearing, we are referring to organized crime from all republics of the former Soviet Union, not only from the Republic of Russia. We realize the limitations of this definition but have chosen to use this phrase because of its widespread recognition and acceptance."".
The CRA (Congress of Russian Americans) is an organization that tries to improve the life of Russians in the US. When the bad reputation of Russians, which had been manifested by the term "Russian Mafia", began to inflict moral, economic or physical damage upon the Russian-Americans the CRA took steps to change the situation.
