Bearshorty's musings

Today I read a fascinating LJ entry by pax_athena about her experience as a Jewish refugee in Germany . I made a long comment talking about my experience as a Russian Jewish refugee to the United States (in 1993). I thought it merited its own post. I did edit that comment to add more information and for clarity but here it is:

I came to America (New York) from Minsk, Belarus two months before my 13th birthday in 7th grade on refuge status, but my experience was a lot more smooth [than pax_athena's). It could be because I'm an optimist by nature and turned it into a positive story in my head or it could be USA vs Germany. But it does seem much easier.

We were part of the large wave of Russian Jewish immigrants.

There were six of us, my parents (who were 36 at the time), me, my mother's mother and my father's parents. We just took a plane in one day on April 23, 1993. Well, two planes: 4 hours to Ireland, 4 hour airport wait, then 6 hours to New York. So we immigrated in the same long day. I woke up at 2am that day and with extra 7 hours time difference didn't get to sleep until late evening. It was my first plane ride too. Descent to Ireland was fine but we circled above JFK a bit, so I got nauseous. We had to wait in the airport a bit to deal with immigration officials. I never seen a non-white person up close before.

My uncle (father's younger brother) was already here with his family (he left in 1989) so it made things a lot easier for us. He rented two apartments. One for his parents and another, two bedroom one, for my parents, myself and my grandma Tanya. And stocked the fridge a little - seeing butter wrapped in paper was weird and other containers were strange. Discovering that salted butter existed was really weird too. The apartment was in Brooklyn, in a private two story house on the second floor. It's not too far from where I live now.

There was a kitchen table but not too much else with furniture. I slept on the camp bed until a Jewish organization donated simple metal framed beds. I shared a room with my grandmother. Most of the other furniture we found on the street when it was discarded by others. I found my desk that way. I really didn't mind at the time. I thought it was a good find. I did my homework on the bed most of the time anyway. Our neighbors also collected some clothes for us from their used clothing. We were allowed to bring only two suitcases each and a lot of that was pots and pans, bedding and other practical things. And my mother's accordion. Not a lot of clothes.

For first 4 months we had monetary support from a Jewish organization and then we were on welfare and food stamps for almost the next two years. My grandmother made magic in the kitchen on $10 a day for four of us. She was amazing.

I went to middle school for the next year and few months. The school was just half a block away. It was strange, since in Russia all grades shared the same building and there wasn't a division of kids just entering puberty in one giant building. I was in ESL class. I tested out at the end of 8th grade but when I got to high school they put me in ESL homeroom. It took me a month to sort things out but meanwhile I met my two best friends in that homeroom.

Middle school was a hard adjustment. I didn't have many clothes nor did I wear make up and girls seemed more advanced. I was never a popular girl - I was a nerd. Not that I cared about popularity at all. I didn't really click with other russian girls in middle school; I made friends with a girl from Mexico and a girl from Hong Kong. That forced me to speak English more. I learned English from reading and watching TV and making up stories too. (I did click with Russian girls in high school - but there were two cliques - one of us and one of more sophisticated girls.)

My ESL class was fine, even friendly, but my homeroom had two girls who were bullies. I never looked forward to that. Middle school was also one time in my life where I got into a physical fight. It was in a cafeteria and I kind of lost and was lucky not to get suspended but bullies left me alone after that. When a cousin of the girl I fought told my high school English teacher that I got into a fight in middle school, the English teacher did not believe him. Hee.

We were pretty poor until my Dad found a job when I was in the middle of 9th grade. He was retraining as computer programmer. I didn't even ask my parents for $50 that I needed for middle school yearbook and graduation fees for cap and gown. My English teacher pulled me aside one day to ask why I didn't pay yet since she was in charge of graduation and I, with shyness and embarrassment, told her that we didn't have any extra money. She took me to vice principal who told me that my parents just had to write a note to that effect and the school would subsidize it. Which is what happened. She also ordered me some books from the book catalogue the school got from her own pocket. I think because there were so many immigrants, our transition was a bit normalized for the teachers.

I took me a year to get fluent in English. I never regretted coming to the States. I wasn't really sad to leave - I looked forward to the adventure. I do miss the family and friends who are still in Belarus but with the Internet, it is much easier to communicate. It did take a while to adjust but being bilingual and being influenced by American ideas and liberalism made my life richer. Having my father's extended family here was helpful but only in early logistics. My parents worked really hard and achieved much. I'm almost their age and I don't know if I could have done what they did in leaving everything behind to start over in a country where they didn't know the language.