“Great America is a big mess”: a Ukrainian woman shares her experience of surviving in the USA (interview)

Each of us who dares to move to another country must be ready to break stereotypes – idealized “pictures in the head” about Western life, which often do not correspond to reality at all. And America is no exception. The country that we “know” from Hollywood films, the cult of the “American dream”, the lifestyle of American stars and celebrities, appears to Ukrainian migrants as completely different, without shine and grandeur. Each new encounter with American everyday life, each new step through a foreign continent forces one to abandon the ideal and readjust to harsh reality.

In the USA, she is called Claudia, that is what we will call our heroine, who told us about her experience of settling in America. The teacher of one of the Ukrainian universities, fleeing the war with three small children and an old mother, ended up overseas due to a coincidence of circumstances. “Big America is a big dick”, – these were Claudia’s first words when I asked her to tell her American story.

Coincidence of circumstances

Claudia, why America?

I did not choose America. There was a language that I somehow understand, and there were relatives ready to help us. I was not ready to go randomly with three small children and an old mother to any other country.

At first, we left for Poland, purely on emotions. Now I’m scrolling through the day of departure in my head and I remember how my husband said: “You’re leaving.” He threw us into the evacuation train and we left.

From Zaporozhye?

Yes. Imagine the situation. Morning, there is no bread. And I bake pancakes, because the day before they once again bought a bag of flour and a bag of sugar, because I like to cook. There is anxiety here. I shout to the children: “Run to the bathroom!”, because there is nowhere else to run. And then something powerful explodes. Then it turned out that an enemy helicopter had been shot down. Near our district. I’m sick, but I continue to fry pancakes, because I have to feed my family. And then a man comes in and says: they called from the Military Commissariat, they are calling me. You have an hour to gather yourself. Get me a “soap and shaving kit”, take the essentials for yourself so that I can take you out on the train. They said he would be there today. Get out of here while we deal with these idiots. Come back in a few weeks, that was the conversation.

Those “several weeks” had an effect on me, and we left with two light suitcases. The children had school backpacks. When I saw that the children were hurriedly thrown there, I was shocked. Someone took with them small things for their beloved Winnie the Pooh, another – piano notes, the youngest collected soft toys. I also did not even grab all the documents, half of which were my dad’s, who died a long time ago, panic and despair are not the best helpers.

And here we go to Zaporizhzhia. There is no one on the streets. They are carrying rockets, I have seen this for the first time. They started putting “hedgehogs” on the dam. “The tanks are 50 kilometers from us,” the man commented. – And if they destroy the Dnipro HPP, we will generally be cut off from everything. We won’t even get to the station.” I was driving like in a terrible dream. We arrived at the station. The promised train was cancelled. Then the train from Dnipro came, and we went to Lviv. For two days, we were turned around several times. I didn’t understand where we were going. Everything flashed before her eyes, she asked the guides. They: “We can’t talk.”

There are five or seven people on each shelf. All with children. Babies cry, squeal. In Lviv, we were finally unloaded. I did not understand what to do at all. And then a post of my former student pops up on Facebook. He writes: I am in Lviv, volunteering. I’m dialing her via messenger. Sirens start to wail, it’s raining. She says: “Go to Poland. In Lviv, the influx of people is such that we are at a loss. Now I will give the phone number of the guy who can help take you to the border.” We went to the station. There are a lot of foreign students. I turn around, look out the door – in about half an hour, the rain has turned into sleet.

Fortunately, that guy was found, although we waited a long time, he was helping others at that time, there were sirens, traffic jams everywhere, but in the end he took us to the border and put us on the bus. The old blind mother started having panic attacks, I thought we would be thrown from the bus into the snow… But God had mercy. We stood at the border for two days. Finally, they arrived in Lublin. After some time, my sister and her husband flew there from America and offered to go to them, stayed with us for a while, took all the documents for registration and flew back.

Not everything was so simple with the documents. We were submitted to the Biden program. We waited a long time for confirmation. Twice we were turned away from the airport due to the incompetence of the lawyer who helped us, but in fact we got the impression that he only hindered us. Lawyers in America make a lot of money, but they are very unqualified. It was possible to fly for the third time only two months later.

Now I remember all this – it’s scary. I look back. It seems that there were so many signs that it was necessary to return. And by the way, and later. And when they promised a counteroffensive, and we believed that everything would be over, and we would go to work on the first of September. But then questions about the nuclear plant began. All this talk about what’s about to explode. It didn’t explode. Brain exploded.

Relatives insisted: “We have been inviting you for almost twenty years. Finally, you have an official opportunity to come. You will be visiting. Then decide what to do.” America was not the target. It was an ordinary coincidence.

the american dream

At one time, I dreamed of getting to America. The last failed attempt was before the pandemic. When everything was ready, the trip was interrupted by a lockdown.

Then I thought that America was completely different…

When we flew there with our children in 2022, I was sure that it would not be for long.

And here you are across the ocean. Are there any of our Ukrainians nearby?

The problem is that America is a very big country. Ukrainians are scattered. There are certain centers – Chicago, Alabama, Minnesota… We are in Virginia. It is a state directly adjacent to Washington. There are no Ukrainians in my circle.

Regarding assistance, payments… America is not a social country at all. It does not accept the elderly, children, or other vulnerable categories.

I do not understand their policy, because children are the future.

School is free, but beyond that, you need a lot to survive.

Is this general US policy?

The USA has a very strong policy of decentralization, which reaches the point of absurdity. Each state has its own legislation, even each county is an administrative unit in the state itself, as we have districts in big cities. And in general, they are very different. Can you imagine, for example, that the Sviatoshyn district of Kyiv has the same laws, but Darnytsia has completely different laws? And here it is exactly like that.

At first we lived in Statford. There was not a single Ukrainian in the school where the girls studied. The Americans received us very kindly. The girls were assigned a teacher who helped them learn a foreign language. This approach applies not only to Ukrainians, but also to any foreigners. Over the course of a year, the girls were very well trained and had a normal pronunciation. But this is done in a specific state, and not throughout the country.

My children are very lucky. They study at a normal level, and have a tolerant attitude of teachers and classmates. But in other states, the realities are completely different. An acquaintance’s daughter could not stand studying at a school attended mainly by people from Latin America. They spoke to each other in Spanish. She was made an exile. It’s not that they were, they just didn’t want to communicate, because they themselves don’t know English. The teachers also communicated mainly in Spanish, which is the second most common language of state communication there. By the way, when I receive some documents, they are presented in two languages. English on one side, Spanish on the other. This is a wonder for me.

And in general, there is a lot of contradictory information about the life of Ukrainians in the USA. Of course, social networks cannot be considered a reliable source of information, but there Ukrainians communicate a lot with each other. And, unfortunately, there is a lot of hatred. So much hate flies if a person did not express himself or asked in Russian. She wanted advice, but instead she was smeared. After all, the people are different, the regions of residence and the language were different before the war, instead of help – “go to the rashka, do you have a place in the rashka, you are rashists…” These are groups for migrants. I am connected to some, but there is zero benefit from this.

I hear a lot of Russian when I go to Washington. These are definitely not Ukrainians who speak Russian. This is a distinct Moscow accent. Once I couldn’t hold back. We were with the children in the Cosmonautics Museum and approached the stand called “Soviet Union”. Americans can’t help but remember Gagarin, that’s history… And then behind me I hear: “And this is our Russian Gagarin…” I turn around, see a woman in her thirties, with her a 7-8-year-old boy, and abruptly cut them off: “Not Russian, but Soviet”. They couldn’t find anything to answer and literally ran away from us. Probably, they were afraid of the Ukrainian language.

We were on Independence Day near the embassy, ​​near the White House. A local translator invited us to the holiday. Then there was a procession from the White House to the monument to Taras Shevchenko. It was nice to see a beautiful monument to our Kobzar in the center of Washington. About 500 Ukrainians gathered. Our messenger Oksana Markarova spoke. Girls in crowns sang songs… We were in embroidered dresses that I took from home when we were driving, this is important to me, so I did it on a machine. But I wanted more…

Read the continuation of the interview in our next article.