The Labor of Refuge: Kalmyk Displaced Persons, the 1948 Displaced Persons Act, and the Origins of U.S. Refugee Resettlement By Jessica Johnson B.A., University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 2003 A.M., Brown University, 2006 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of American Studies at Brown University Providence, Rhode Island May, 2013 © Copyright 2013 by Jessica Johnson This dissertation by Jessica Johnson is accepted in its present form by the Department of American Studies as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date_________________ __________________________________ Robert Lee, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date_________________ __________________________________ Ralph Rodriguez, Reader Date_________________ __________________________________ Naoko Shibusawa, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date_________________ __________________________________ Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii CURRICULUM VITAE Jessica Johnson was born in Wichita, Kansas on July 17, 1981. She received a Bachelor of Arts in History and Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2003 and a Master of Arts in Public Humanities from Brown University in 2006. As a doctoral student at Brown University, she worked on public history projects at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, the John Nicholas Brown Center and the Smithsonian Institution. She also coordinated programs for the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center and taught several undergraduate courses. Johnson’s work has been supported by the Joukowsky Family Foundation Presidential Dissertation Fellowship and the Mary L.S. Downes Dissertation Fellowship from Brown University; the Myrna F. Bernath Fellowship from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations; and the Andrew Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. She has been a dissertation fellow at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and a faculty fellow at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.” – Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners This dissertation is not a work of fiction, at least to the best of my knowledge. Yet Flannery O’Connor’s words nonetheless ring true. Writing a dissertation is a terrible experience. I begin my acknowledgements by acknowledging and honoring this truth. For in naming, making sense of, and coming face to face with this terribleness, I not only survived this dissertation, but I grew tremendously as a person. I have the deepest gratitude to the constellation of friends, colleagues, and communities who were there for me during this process. This constellation is vast. Wendy Lee gave great advice. Amanda Katz got me out of the office and into a canoe. Cynthia Ellis saw me and helped me see myself. Hollis Mickey was a wise and generous friend and teacher. Renee Evans made a secret and magical world with me. Angela Mazaris, Liza Burbank, Thomas Chen, Sara Matthiesen, and Sarah Wald were extraordinary colleagues in the Brown University Department of American Studies, as well as dear friends and persons who I admire very much. Gwen, John, and Vera Dane were so much fun. Liz Tomsich and Miranda O’Hayer were like sisters. Ashley Trull, Azar Trull, Kerry Bergin and the WTGQ Caucus showed me a different way of listening, feeling, and caring in the world. Mireya Loza, Alma Carrillo, v Jin Suk Bae, Jasmine Tang, and Julia Timpe were among my first family in Providence. Scratch Farm and everyone on it provided vital community during the last months of this project. More than just brilliant scholars, the members of my dissertation committee were laid back, personable, supportive, and compassionate. They believed in this project and they believed in me. Thank you Robert Lee, Naoko Shibusawa, and Ralph Rodriguez. If I could add two lines to the signature page, Susan Smulyan’s and Gail Cohee’s names would also appear there. Their mentorship was invaluable. Steve Lubar and Evelyn Hu- DeHart offered critical support at critical moments. Erika Lee was my first mentor and teacher and an exemplary one. Naia Cucukov introduced me to the history of the Kalmyk DPs through her 2003 student documentary The Haven – Revisited. Eli Feiman, Amanda Katz, Ani Mukherji, Julia Timpe, and Silja Maehl translated faded, hand-written letters from French, German, and Russian into a language I could read. The Department of American Studies, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, and the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center offered sustaining intellectual community. The Joukowsky Family Foundation, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation provided essential funding for this research. Archivists at the Brethren Library and Historical Society, the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Harry S. Truman Library, the Immigration History Research Center, the National Archives, the New Mexico State University Library, the New York University Tamiment Library, and the Presbyterian Historical Society helped me to navigate the maze of archival research. The staff at the Rockefeller Library circulation desk, especially Roland vi Harper, Jennifer Kennedy, and Jennifer Martenson, went above and beyond. So did many other Brown staff, particularly Patricia Balsofiore, Jeff Cabral, Carole Costello, and Jean Wood. So many others have done so much. With much gratitude to everyone—friends, mentors, colleagues, and confidants, including those whose names I may have neglected to mention: Ghada AbdelQader, Jack Amoureux, Devon Anderson, Claire Andrade- Watkins, Horace Ballard, Patricia Balsofiore, Sasha Berkoff, Susanna Bohme, James Campbell, Clarissa Ceglio, Joe Gin Clark, Andrew Cook, Janet Cooper-Nelson, Abe Dane, Jan Faust Dane, Matthew Delmont, Sean Dinces, Pier Dominguez, Julia Drew, Bev Ehrich, Jennifer Eyl, Caroline Frank, Sara Fingal, Stephanie Fortunado, Elena Gonzales, Lizzy Gore, Jonathan Hagel, Sandra Haley, Laura Hess, Megan Hinton, Benjamin Holtzman, Elizabeth Hoover, Andrew Hund, Melanie Kohnen, Karl Jacoby, Sheyda Jahanbani, Hilary Kaplan, Majida Kargbo, Eric Larson, Erika Lee, Heather Lee, Jooyoung Lee, Sanford Lee, Karen Lepri, Hilda Lloréns, Patrick Malone, Derek Matteson, Emily McCartan, Gabriel Mendes, Katie Miller, Chana Morgenstern, Laura Mulley, Crystal Ngo, Jonathan Olly, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Patricia Perea, Leah Perry, Nicole Restaino, Annette Rodriguez, John Rogers, Gabriel Rosenberg, Malgorzata Rymsza-Pawlowska, Felicia Salinas, Robert Self, Katerina Seligmann, Derek Seidman, Sarah Seidman, Rowan Sharp, Aiko Takeuchi, Aslihan Tokgoz, Kathryn Tomasek, Tam Tran, Anne Valk, Molly Wallace, and Miel Wilson. Finally, I thank my parents and my sisters for their love and for their commitment to each other and to me. Mary Johnson, Matt Johnson, Ali Johnson and Emily Stump: this project is from you and it is for you. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 An Introduction from the Margins UNIT ONE Kalmyk Resettlement, 1951-1952 Chapter One 45 A Planned Migration: Purposes, Priorities, and Power Dynamics during the Planning Period Chapter Two 92 Placing Refugee Workers: Kalmyk Resettlement in Practice UNIT TWO The Social Movement for DP Admissions, 1946-1948 Chapter Three 132 Refugee Advocates and the Promotion of Refugee Admissions as a Labor Importation Chapter Four 171 Maids and Farmhands: The Construction of Refugee Resettlement as an Endeavor to Force DPs’ Assimilation, Exploit their Labors, and Exclude Jews UNIT THREE The Legal Acrobatics of an Obfuscated Labor Migration: The 1948 Displaced Persons Act Chapter Five 211 Workers by Law: A Multifunctional Labor Migration Chapter Six 241 Constitutive Connections: Patriarchal Families, Moral Economies, Religious Work/ers, and the DP Labor Migration UNIT FOUR Policy through Practice: Administering Resettlement, 1948-1952 Chapter Seven 290 By the End and From the Start, a Story of Structural Choices: Federal and State DPCs Orchestrate the DP Labor Migration Conclusion 327 Another Labor of Refuge Bibliography 331 viii INTRODUCTION An Introduction from the Margins In late November of 1951, the first group of Kalmyk refugees bound for the United States finally received their embarkation notices. The displaced persons camps where they had lived since the end of World War II were to close in just a few weeks, and at the turn of the New Year, those who had not resettled elsewhere would be left to fend for themselves in post-World War II Germany. Among this first group of just over 100 persons were Bembe and Eketarina Atschinow and their fourteen-year-old son Stewa. Originally from Russia, the Atschinows were living in Belgrade, Yugoslavia before World War II, and during the German occupation, they were deported to Austria as forced laborers in a Linz factory. Also receiving an embarkation notice was Mashla Ashtanow, a 34-year-old man from the Astrakhan region of Russia who had been taken to Germany in 1943 as a forced laborer on a German farm. During the war, Ashtanow’s legs were so badly frozen that he afterwards spent a year and half in a hospital.1 1 “Application for Immigration Visa