White Russian
My Russian American dichotomy
I was a Russian girl and an American teenager. I had no alternative to the first, but I tried very hard to be the second. Now as an adult, most of which I consider a New Yorker. Although I never really considered myself an American, a New Yorker who covers more. New York has a special tolerance for Russians.
My immigrant story begins when I was five years old. I do not remember a feeling of escape from our country of origin or the idea that our life was difficult. As a child growing up in Kiev, I remember very little. I remember snapshots here and there, mostly narrated stories that have been tattooed on the record of history of childhood.
I remember getting my ears pierced when I was three years old. With gold studs in my ears, I went to the sub floor for an ice cream shop excellence. I remember the dark wood paneling and the taste of vanilla. The memory of that vanilla has established itself as the definition of vanilla perfection to me.
My grandmother, who came to America three years before us, send me clothes. Then my mother would dress me with the American fashion attire and pose me in front of the plaid wool blanket on our couch navy. Today I have a portfolio of me as a mini fashionista Russian bell jeans, short skirts and sweaters of the itchiest caliber.
However, sometimes there were faults of style. A roll of film is as proof of our afternoon walking around a city park in Russia. I, a three-year-old with long hair at the playground, used as a full team, American Underoos Popeye. My father spent all my childhood in our pictures bathtub and my mother sent my grandmother as evidence of wear.
My grandmother arranged the visa that is our family outside of Russia. I remember very little of the immigration process. My mother packed the only life he had known in a couple of suitcases and moved to a country alien made no promises beyond hope. She was 25. Now I'm 34 with my own 6 years old and I can not imagine facing half very difficult task.
We came to America through Vienna and later in Rome. We were thrust together with other immigrants in a holding pattern proportions unglamorous. I can not remember none of our full-time in Europe. The family stories circulating about purgatory are Europeans and some at random. I motion sick usual so that my mother had a plastic bag with her wherever she went. My mother was surprised that so many Italian men knew his name, did not realize that your name, Bella, was synonymous with beautiful in Italian.
I remember my grandmother came to visit us in Italy, could not wait two months for us to reach United States. When picked up at the airport, I remember seeing a strange woman who knew she had to be someone important to push a doll against the wall glass. I did not understand if it was supposed to be more satisfied with the doll or the woman. I do not remember being a fan of anyone.
Early life U.S. seems distant, a shadow of a childhood where they do not really fit into that was not completely ostracized. We lived in a two bedroom apartment on the street identical apartments of my grandmother in Queens. I would look out the window on the first floor to the window of my grandmother's eighth floor, with the binoculars I could see her waving.
The neighborhood has a few memorable moments for me. I remember learning to ride a Huffy bicycle coffee there. I remember playing on the monkey bars and a grown man came to hang upside down. He wore loose shorts and no underwear.
Elementary school in retrospect seems useless. My parents were always disappointed with American education. In Russia said they were learning my sixth-grade math in second grade. My parents quiz on multiplication tables me, insisting that I know them so well he could recite them if I woke in the middle of the night.
I remember the first day of kindergarten. My grandmother took me and was my translator for the first and only time in my life. The class sat in a circle and I must have done something that caused the guy beside me made a hand motion that I read how to peel a carrot. Later I learned that it was "shame, shame." Still do not remember what I did, but I remember the shame shame.
That was the first of many Latin and colloquial expressions that I never knew childish pranks. Do not eat macaroni and cheese or Chef Boyardee. For breakfast I used to tea and toast and cream cheese. When I was small I sipped tea from a saucer so not too hot. Instead of six packs in the refrigerator my family had vodka in the freezer.
Do not even have a real birth certificate. In the authentication of my birth, I am the proud owner of a coin bronze of Lenin on it. My official Russian name and date of birth Calligraphie in it with what looks like white gel pen.
After five years in the United States we have our citizenship. I remember thinking that there would be some proof, but I have to take one even though I was in fifth grade.
Sixth grade was the year of the Challenger accident. Back in the days when public schools allow you to go home for lunch, I went to my grandmother's house and watched the report television special. A few months later, just below my graduation from elementary school, my parents moved us to Staten Island. I went from Russia to America overnight.
Sixth grade was in high school, not elementary school in Staten Island. I had to learn to red lipstick and black eyeliner in the cafeteria. The girls had boyfriends, children smoking in the schoolyard and the mall was the center of everything. Children classify one another as Guido, very good taste, or Jappy, I did not fit into any of them.
It was also at this point that I really hated being in Russia. Russia was the anti-cool. 80 Cold War had faced Russia as the supreme enemy. In all James Bond movies, all books by Tom Clancy, who were the enemies. My name brands with me my nationality so it was difficult to hide. When I hung out on the block, the child bother calling me a communist.
I live in Staten Island safe from the Russians. Most settled in Brooklyn, including Brighton Beach. I had no friends in Russia and do not want. I did not want to associate with anyone or anything Russian because the Russians gave others a bad Russians name.
Russians came to this country expecting freedom and brought with them a sense of entitlement. They knew how to milk the system like the pros. Collected welfare, SSI, unemployment, Medicaid, food stamps. They learned to get fake divorces to collect two checks. The old signed up for jobs as assistants health at home and then "take care" to their friends who are not sick, the division of paychecks. Nobody pays taxes, but the government had a lot payments. The women of Brighton Beach would use their Cartier watches and Gucci handbags in leather coats. They bought the gourmet food luxury stores and Russia used vouchers food to buy caviar. There were plans to cheat the system prepared for them before they even got here.
Why does this country owe these immigrants anything?
My family, however, worked diligently from the time he arrived in America. My parents worked two jobs and took ESL classes. We never received a penny of public assistance. We had the pride and work ethic. It bothered me to these criminals that gave me a bad name – the road tarmac I was fighting very hard to prepare. Do not make this right.
Life is easier after Perestroika. Suddenly, Russia got cool. Gorbachev was a hero, Russian letters were in vogue. We went from enemies to friends.
In college I embraced my inner Russian. While originally taught me Russian alphabet Russian newspaper on the table in my grandmother's room, I thought it was time for college, "learn to write legibly. So I set Russian and May and sailed through because he knew the answers based on what sounded good.
I do not remember what the point gained the appreciation and gratitude to my parents bringing me to this country. I do not remember a moment when it sank in that he did everything for me, everything that I can have a better life. A life of freedom and opportunity.
It's a constant internal conflict, as a child of divorced parents, not sure which country to pledge allegiance. Watching the Olympics, always rooted both Americans and Russians. Why are we still encouraging to a country they fled? Whenever anything tragic or abominable way, it was "Americans!" or "Only in America!" I do not understand. I thought they were Americans.
America promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. America celebrates birth with a paper certificate instead of a dictator's bronze coin brand. So I am grateful.
When immigrating as a child, not in question. What happens is you and you go along with it. But somehow plucking a leaf from a tree and replanting in a new country is not without consequences.
I feel I have a perpetual wanderlust, nothing holding me anywhere. New York is as good as it gets, a multicultural mecca without trial. But New York has no roots, no collective history, not graveyards with tombstones bearing names of the generations of my family.
I have not returned to Kiev, but I would love go. I hope to walk the streets, smelling the trees, hearing the language around me somehow gives me that inner resolve – a kind of conflict resolution the next meeting of the past.
I speak Russian – fluent and on rare occasions. It was my first language, but always remain my second. But I still hear Russia pop icon Alla Pugacheva, caviar love and bring bread and salt in all new apartments I occupy.
But in English I read, write, sleep.
About the Author
www.heartseverywhere.com
How To Make a White Russian