“Immigrant Punk”: Gogol Bordello, Oksana Marafioti, and the Post-Soviet Romani Experience

Abstract This essay discusses work by two post-Soviet Romani artists: Oksana Marafioti's memoir American Gypsy: A Road from Siberia to Hollywood (2012) and lyrics that Eugene Hütz wrote for his band Gogol Bordello, known for its ‘gypsy punk’ style. Both Marafioti and Hütz spent their childhoods in the Soviet Union before migrating to the United States as teenagers. Marafioti's memoir traces her early life touring with her parents’ musical ensemble, her adolescence in California, and her emergence as a performer. Read alongside Hütz's lyrics, her memoir reveals how both artists use music and performance to explore the complexities of post-Soviet migration, and to articulate hybrid Roma identities. Music for them functions as a symbol, practice, and vehicle of defiance—challenging racialization, marginalization, and other forms of exclusion in both Soviet and US contexts.