For Aron Tsygan, a 68-year-old refugee from the former Soviet Union, the consequences of failing to become an American citizen can be summed up in a single word: "Die."

Better to die, he says through a translator, than to be old and a burden to his daughter and her children. It's a sentiment that the other Russian immigrants in Tsygan's English As A Second Language class understand.

"I have to poison myself," 72-year-old Vira Azerkevich says in Russian, describing what she would do under the circumstances.

Caught in the political clash surrounding federal welfare reform, refugees such as Tsygan feel a desperate need to learn English and American civics and to otherwise prepare themselves for a citizenship test. At stake is their eligibility for Supplemental Security Income, medical assistance and other federal benefits that can be crucial to their well-being.

Tsygan left behind meager retirement benefits when he gathered four generations of his family and fled anti-Semitism in his Siberian homeland for a new home in Baltimore County. As a refugee, he almost immediately became eligible for federal benefits, but he could lose them if he does not become a citizen.

He worries that medical bills for him and his wife will someday deprive them of food.

"This is awful," he says, with his English teacher, herself an immigrant, translating his Russian. "Maybe they have to have hungry life."

Critics say welfare reform passed in 1996 went too far in denying federal benefits to legal immigrants. These critics were especially outraged that the law denied benefits to legal immigrants who had worked for years and paid taxes but had, for whatever reason, failed to become U.S. citizens.

Immigrant advocates said the law was also unfair to immigrants like Tsygan, who are legally deemed "refugees" from oppression.

"These are senior citizens who had come to the country at our invitation, had come from oppressive regimes in the Soviet Union and now were told, 'You have basically no way to live,' " says Matthew Freedman, assistant director for community planning and budgeting for The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore.

The Associated is an umbrella or- ganization for numerous Jewish programs, many of which provide services to the 8,000 people who left the former Soviet Union and settled in Baltimore since 1991.

"People became seriously depressed after learning they might lose their benefits," says Sherry Wohlberg, director of immigrant services for Jewish Family Services of Baltimore.

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros was so angry about what he called the "mean-spirited" law that he pledged $50 million toward services that help newcomers qualify for naturalization. About $55,000 of that money is being managed by The Associated.

Although he signed the welfare reform bill into law, President Clinton has said that denying benefits to immigrants was "unduly harsh," and he has successfully pushed for some restrictions to be eased. For instance, food stamps have become more readily available to immigrants. And those who entered the country before welfare reform was passed in August 1996 are now eligible for benefits.

That doesn't help Tsygan and his family. They came to America in 1997.

The Clinton administration is proposing that the citizenship requirement for many benefits be dropped altogether. Passage of that measure is not assured, and immigrant advocates worry about shifting political winds.

Even Tsygan knows that much about American civics. His English teacher, Anna Shraga, translates his concerns: "He understands that it's only proposed, and if today we have Clinton, three years later we may have someone else, and it may change."

Tsygan was born in Kiev, and spent much of his early life there. From the time he was sent to a technical school rather than a university -- and denied a chance to work in the Baltics -- Tsygan felt persecuted for being a Jew.

He spent much of his life working as a construction engineer in Karpinsk, a mountain town of 60,000 on the western edge of Siberia. The Stalin regime had exiled his wife's family there when she was a young girl.

"People who surrounded him never let him forget he was Jewish, not even for one hour," says Galina Boroodkina, another translator, paraphrasing Tsygan's Russian.

As the family prepared to leave their homeland in the spring of 1997, the slurs continued. Tsygan remembers a woman who said, "You are leaving? I wish you were dead under the train."

In America, the family was reunited with Tsygan's brother, who had come to the Baltimore area five years earlier. Tsygan and his 69-year-old wife Railia live with his 90-year-old father just outside the city line in the Millbrook Park apartments, home to many immigrants.

From the time Aron Tsygan and his family arrived in America, the citizenship exam loomed. But learning a new tongue is especially difficult for older people. Tsygan and his wife have found English challenging.

Meanwhile, they see their daughter, 42-year-old Irina Lipina, and her three children, including 9-year-old Elizabeth Lipina, pick up the language with relative ease.

"His granddaughter is a translator already," says Boroodkina, the translator.

Of his daughter, who works as a dental assistant and lives in the same apartment complex, Tsygan says: "She is young, able to learn enough English."

Tsygan, his wife and his father live on disability, or SSI, payments that total about $1,200 a month. If they do not obtain their citizenship within five years of their arrival, they could lose those benefits.

They hope Tsygan's father, who neither hears nor sees well, will be granted a medical waiver from the citizenship test. They work on their English to prepare themselves for the test.

At home, Tsygan studies from a first-grader's textbook, "English for Little Ones." He struggles to read a story about a red-haired boy who broke a window. He uses a pencil to point to the words. He copies sentences, hoping to master the vocabulary and the syntax.

On a recent Tuesday, he starts his day by riding the subway from the Reisterstown Road Plaza to downtown Baltimore, where he attends a class for the Refugee Assistance Program at Baltimore City Community College. The program is designed to help students learn English for day-to-day life.

The lesson this day is about health and diet. Tsygan, with gray beard and thick glasses that give him a scholarly look, shields his eyes and squints, trying to absorb the instructor's writing on the chalkboard.

Instructor Gerard Weber asks Tsygan to tell the class what he had for breakfast.

"I have a cup of coffee with bread and cheese," Tsygan replies in his heavy accent. Then he asks, "It is right?"

Later that afternoon, he attends his second English lesson of the day. This time, Railia joins him for a beginner's adult education class at Millbrook Elementary School. Tsygan tries to help his wife, who struggles with the dialogues in her workbook.

Railia, a cheerful woman, worked as a cook for many years. She is comfortable serving Russian pancakes and sausage and cheese to a visitor. She is not so comfortable with English.

"Excuse me," she says, demonstrating one of the few phrases she's picked up. A translator adds, "It took her a year to remember this expression."

Railia wonders why the citizenship requirement is being placed upon her and her husband. After all, she says through the translator, their children and grandchildren will learn English and "make their mark" in America.

Their daughter, Irina, says of her parents: "They are not to blame. They left that country they had to leave."

She says it would be difficult for her to support her parents and her children on her $8.50-an-hour job.

"I don't know how they could live without any benefits if they cannot pass this exam," Irina says. "I cannot figure that out."

Pub Date: 3/17/99