Artem Serebrennikov has been in this country only three months, but already he’s seen quite a lot.
He has explored every inch of Yukon Territory, taken in all the sights at nearby Yankee Harbor. He even managed to catch a few shows at Gotham City Theater.
But the one area the 20-year-old Russian college student has come to know best during his stay here is Orleans Place, the bustling French quarter that lies inside the tiny, garish universe of Six Flags Great America in Gurnee.
“No matter how long I stay at this, I cannot get used to the cheesy music — I dream it in my sleep,” Serebrennikov said as he handed a large stuffed Tweety Bird to a young boy who had just made a basket at his free-throw stall. The incessant clatter of bells, whistles, arcade machines and an endlessly repeated Scooby Doo soundtrack floods the air around him.
Sometimes Serebrennikov has to shake his head to get the noise out.
“I’ve heard and seen so much about America that I had to come see it for myself,” he said. “But so far I’ve seen only this, all day and all night. And it’s not reality, it’s a fairy tale.”
With the U.S. labor market increasingly tight, employee-strapped companies this summer are relying more than ever before on bringing in foreign workers to fill the gap. Crying out the loudest for extra seasonal help has been the nation’s $540 billion tourism industry.
As a result, for many of the 63,000 visitors working here on temporary visas, their first and only glimpse of America has been through the surreal lens of the great American theme parks, the endlessly rattling casino floors of Las Vegas, and the sprawling miniature golf complexes and water parks of the Wisconsin Dells.
They’ve come for four months, both to improve their English and earn hefty paychecks they could never dream of in their homelands. But they are also here to discover what it is like to be an American, to live in the land mythologized in their eyes by Hollywood. So far, that land has consisted entirely of cotton candy makers, novelty T-shirts, wandering sword jugglers and hordes of fanny-packed vacationers.
Great America alone is employing almost 500 foreign college students from 26 countries during the summer months to work the rides, restaurants and game booths. The amusement park’s international program began in 1988 with the hiring of 12 Irish students. But this year’s batch is by far the largest due to the park’s relentless need for workers, especially in the fall when American teenagers head back to school, said Matt Kuhnau, human resources director at Great America.
Eliana Garzon, 21, treasured the chance to leave her small town near Bogota, Colombia, to visit Chicago’s skyscrapers. But two months after arriving, she has been downtown only once. She and her friends could venture to the outside world on the weekends, but they are simply too tired.
Every morning at 10 a.m., the group is bused in from their Carthage College dorm rooms across the Wisconsin border, and they often do not get back from the theme park until midnight.
For the long hours in between, Garzon operates the Spacely Sprocket roller coaster and the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine ride, contending daily with fussy children and parents furious that their kids aren’t tall enough to get on.
“We knew coming here that it would be hard work, and we’re all incredibly grateful we’re here to do it,” said Garzon as she eased the Mystery Machine to a halt and began to let out the riders.
“But this is definitely not what most people expected,” she said. “What keeps us going is the thought that after the four months are up, we’ll have one month for ourselves. Then we will see the real America. But for now, we only get small tastes of it from the people we meet here.”
As the foreign students settle into their new surroundings, they plan to make more trips to the Windy City and immerse themselves in the local culture. But that goal is a bit more difficult for the thousands of foreign workers who have descended this year on the Wisconsin Dells, the Midwest’s capital of tacky tourism.
The Dells are far away from any major city and lack the public transportation essential to the car-less newcomer. Hence, workers assigned there will have to let the Dells suffice as the quintessential example of American life.
Needless to say, many of the foreign students are a bit confounded by it all.
Sylwester Jacubowicz, 22, said the United States is far different from his home town of Biala Podlaska, a small city nestled in the lush Bug River valley of eastern Poland.
“Where I come from it’s easy to get some food or a carton of milk. It’s just a short walk away,” said Jacubowicz, who works as a lifeguard at Noah’s Ark, “America’s largest waterpark.” He stays in a nearby motel with the park’s 180 other foreign employees.
“But here you have to walk forever. All you have here are photo shops, fudge shops and funny T-shirt shops. Nobody seems to buy groceries in this country.”
Jacubowicz admittedhe “hasn’t a clue” about the America beyond the busy strip of the Dells. He came here this time solely to make money, not to explore. That comes next year when he plans to arrive again with his girlfriend, buy a car and drive cross-country to California.
Work, not sightseeing, remains the primary objective for most of the students from the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe, who have come to make up the majority of foreign workers in the Dells in recent years. Because they don’t have to pay any taxes on their income while here, the students can make a great deal of money in a short time.
Shelly Rucinski, Noah’s Ark’s personnel director, recalled a Russian student who worked at the water park the previous two summers and brought about $2,000 in cash back home with her each fall. The girl told Rucinski that was more money than her family could make in a year.
“They’re incredibly hard workers, but many go straight back to their countries without getting to see anything,” Rucinski said. “We try hard to take them places in their free time so they can get a feel of the country. But you have to understand, that type of thing is very hard in the Dells.”
Charlotta Stenmark, a 21-year-old marketing student from Finland, learned her preconceptions of the United States mostly from American magazines and television shows and from the U.S. tourists traveling through Finland. Ironically, now that she is here, she is again experiencing America through its tourists.
“I would like to see American people as they really live and where they work. I’d especially like to see how they really dress, their clothes,” said Stenmark, a gift shop attendant inside Noah’s Ark. “All we have here are people in swim trunks and aqua socks. I don’t think that’s an accurate representation.”
Sinead Cunningham, a 23-year-old from Ireland who is majoring in art history, has taken in the United States from a different but no less distorted venue. For the past two months, she has been working as a waitress inside Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Hotel and Casino.
She wants desperately to see New York, but so far the closest she has come to the Big Apple has been the towering scale model of it across the street — the New York-New York Hotel complex complete with fake Empire State building and Statue of Liberty.
Her ears ring at the end of each day from the constant clanging of dollar casino tokens rumbling out of slot machines.
“Las Vegas is absolutely insane. I don’t know how people can live here permanently,” Cunningham said. “The lights, the noise, the constant gambling, the nudie pictures that are everywhere. I’ll be happy to get back home.”
Thousands more foreign students have experienced the same cultural warp while working in the resort towns that line the New Jersey shore and the hotels and theme parks in Ocean City, Md. Even though the summer visa program has impressive economic benefits, Andrew Schoenholtz, a professor of international migration studies at Georgetown University, insisted that it remains too work-focused and should incorporate more cultural education.
“This is a government program run by the State Department, and I think the government should be active in fostering a cultural interchange for these students,” Schoenholtz said. “It is certainly great for them to make money here, but their vision of America really should be broadened as well.”
But that is not to say the students have learned nothing from their experiences. Many have analyzed the differences between Americans and the inhabitants of their own countries during their time here.
Some of the more widespread observations are that Americans are extremely obese compared to the folks back home, and their lives revolve far too much around their jobs. They also rely on manufactured thrills instead of social interaction to have a good time.
“You can learn a lot, I think, about people by the way they spend their free time, and Americans love things big and tacky,” said Yoon Tae Park, a 24-year-old South Korean who works the concession stands on Dells boat tours. He was spending his day off at Big Chief Karts and Coasters, a sprawling park that bears a Native American name yet oddly uses an ancient Greek theme inside its grounds. The park’s centerpiece is a roller coaster that runs through the belly of an eight-story Trojan horse.
“People here also love themes so much,” he said. “Themed restaurants, themed mini-golf, themed everything. It’s a strange obsession.”
But many also noted more positively, for instance, that Americans smile much more than those in their homelands. They are friendlier, more open-minded and talkative. And they exude a sense of confidence and optimism that is sorely lacking in some of the populations the workers come from. The little they have seen of the U.S. still proves alluring enough to tempt many to come back.
“I’m loving my time here. I haven’t gotten to see much, but everything is so big and exciting,” Stenmark said. “I wouldn’t live here permanently because I’d miss my family. But for a couple years, sure. I have to come back and see more. “
