Topic: The Passport Application Album

[Jack Johnson]

Or, Siberians in Hawaii:

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-01-28/group-siberians-hawaii-was-far-being-tropical-paradise

[Bryan]

That's an interesting story Jack, it happened about the same time my grandfather immigrated from Ukraine (then part of Russia) to New York City.  The Russians are finding their way back to the Pacific islands now, I see a lot of them in Saipan and Guam.   By the way, Sushi made from spam is not a good thing, I don't know why that crap is so popular in Hawaii.

[Indofunk]

Hey! My friend/bandleader/collaborator wrote that! She's actually quite a great singer/songwriter, but at about the time that article came out she decided to quit music and write full time. She's also a great writer, but it's much harder for me to play music with her when she's writing as opposed to when she is playing music, so I miss that

[Indofunk]

Here's one of her albums that I'm on. It's all sung in Russian and actually became quite popular for a while, but she hated being known as "that girl who sings in Russian" which is unfortunately part of the reason she stopped singing ... http://www.alinasimone.com/music/?a=everyone

[Jack Johnson]

Hey! My friend/bandleader/collaborator wrote that!

Wild!

I was fascinated by what looks like a variety of photographic techniques in the images. Which, you know, 1916-ish, that would make sense. I *think* I spotted both wet and dry plate as well as sheet film.

It's hard enough getting chemistry in Alaska in the present. I can't imagine in Hawaii a hundred years ago.

I'm a sucker for historical images, though. Looks like there's a Flickr feed here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/russian_passport_album/

[Indofunk]

Thanks to people like you sharing that story all over the internet, someone saw their great-great grandmother and here's the follow-up story!

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-05/story-russian-immigrants-hawaii-prompts-listeners-tale