Is Regina Spektor A Refugee?
Regina Ilyinichna Spektor is a pianist, singer, and songwriter who is Russian-American. Spektor signed with Sire Records in 2004 and started gaining more widespread notoriety after she self-released her first three albums and became well-known in New York City’s indie music communities, particularly the anti-folk community focused on the city’s East Village. The two Cheap…
Regina Ilyinichna Spektor is a pianist, singer, and songwriter who is Russian-American.
Spektor signed with Sire Records in 2004 and started gaining more widespread notoriety after she self-released her first three albums and became well-known in New York City’s indie music communities, particularly the anti-folk community focused on the city’s East Village.
The two Cheap Seats albums by Spektor, “Far” and “What We Saw,” both debuted at number three on the Billboard 200.
The 11th of June has been proclaimed Regina Spektor Day in New York City by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Spektor was also given a star on the Bronx Walk of Fame on May 18, 2019, by Borough President Rubén Dáz Jr.
Is Regina Spektor A Refugee?
A musical Russian-Jewish family raised in Moscow, Soviet Union, gave birth to Regina Spektor.
Later, her family was granted refugee status in the United States.
Spektor was just nine and a half years old when the family left the Soviet Union for the Bronx in 1989, during the Perestroika era when Soviet people were allowed to immigrate.
Despite the seriousness of Spektor’s piano training, her parents ultimately opted to depart because of the prejudice that Jews encountered on account of politics, race, and ethnicity. She had to abandon her piano.
The Spektor family entered the United States as refugees with the aid of HIAS after first traveling to Austria and then Italy (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society).
They made their home in the Bronx, where Regina completed middle school at the Jewish day school SAR Academy in the Riverdale neighborhood.
