Two Patterns of Lithuanian-American behavior: the political refugee and the economic immigrant

ENThis paper analyzes and compares the behaviors of the Lithuanian political refugees who came to the United States after World War II with the economic immigrants who arrived after 1990. The comparison suggests that the agents, even when they experience negative influences from their environment, retain their original state of political refugee or economic immigrant. The paper discusses the immigrants' relationship to the U.S. government, to American society and their work environment, to their relatives in Lithuania, to their immigrant cohorts, and to the previous generation of Lithuanian immigrants.