"I know how hard it is to seek refuge in the USA": personal experience of a Jewish woman who fled from the USSR

I remember that clearly: we had a 22 suitcase for five. It was a time when the bags with wheels just appeared on the territory of the former Soviet Union, so the bags of some of us, fortunately, were equipped with wheels. But only a few. Mainly, the responsibility to transport all the property of our family fell on my parents, who loaded and unloaded suitcases from various planes and trains, wrote in her blog for Kveller Russian-speaking Jewish woman who immigrated to the United States, Alla Umanskaya.

Фото: Depositphotos

I was only 10 years old, and during our six-month immigration trip, my younger sister and I mostly just stood next to our grandmother, firmly holding her hands. These gray suitcases were our only constant when we passed through the terrifying process of being refugees, strangers in a strange land.

1989 was the year when my parents decided that the Jews could no longer live in the former USSR, and that the unknown lands were better than the country we knew. During the 1970s, in connection with the international condemnation of human rights violations in the USSR, the Soviet authorities decided to increase emigration quotas. At the same time, the United States was developing a policy that made it easier for refugees to obtain asylum in the United States. Finally, at the end of the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev completely lifted restrictions on emigration from the Soviet Union. All this created the perfect storm that caused huge waves of Soviet Jewish immigration at the time.

Armed with proper documents, Soviet Jews fled their homeland by the thousands in the 1980s. My family was among this sea of ​​fugitives—Jews seeking religious freedom as well as security and economic opportunity for themselves and their children. But isn't this what all refugees are usually looking for? Our experience, so unique to our family, was—in many ways—very universal.

Our immigration process was difficult, but thanks to HIAS—a Jewish-American nonprofit that provides humanitarian aid to refugees—we had shelter and food at every stop we made. We spent three weeks in Vienna, a transit point that I remember was a wonderful place. I had never been outside my country, and everything in Western Europe seemed incredible to me. I remember walking up to a grocery store and its sparkling glass doors quietly opening, inviting me inside, where I was greeted by shelves overflowing with items I had never seen before: 24 flavors of coffee, 15 types of cheese, chocolate of all shapes and sizes.

After Vienna we spent five months in a small Italian town, another transit point. It was here that my parents had an interview with a US immigration officer. They had to prove to this woman in uniform that we were truly worthy of entering the country, that we absolutely could not stay in our homeland any longer, that this was our only way. Our entire future depended on this interview; half an hour that could change the next 50 years - a game for your children's lives.

When I recall this now, my heart is broken into a million pieces due to what my parents experienced, and all other parents who tolerate such travels and risk everything for the sake of obscurity. While I was admiring Italian pastries, which we could not afford, in a local bakery, my parents were preparing for an interview, taking care of every little thing: what to wear? Bring with you the English-Russian dictionary to “prove” that they are learning English, or not? Put their pillars with the Star of David on top of their clothes or keep them under clothes so that it does not look too intrusive.

With the Stars of David or not, the facts were simple enough: we were Jews, born in a place where Jews did not want to see. And we sought refuge in a country that for hundreds of years offered refuge to those who needed it most, regardless of religious beliefs, economic or social status.

It was 28 years ago when we immigrated to the USA. The Pan American flight took us to Atlanta, where we all live today. As I watch the refugee crisis unfold along our country's border with Mexico—detention centers, separating children from their parents, calls to build a wall—I feel my heart rip out of my chest.

Now a mother of two daughters myself, I feel for these parents who risk everything to offer their children a chance at a safer, more stable future. Whether these parents come from Ukraine, Moldova, Honduras or Nicaragua, it does not matter - our country, which I still consider the greatest in the world, only becomes stronger through the fusion of cultures, languages ​​and nationalities.

Sometimes someone asks my opinion about the immigration situation in the US, since I am an immigrant myself. The first thing I say is that my parents did all the hard work—they took all the risk; they bore the burden of responsibility for their lives and ours; they fought, toiled and suffered. I owe everything I have in this country and everything I have achieved to them.

As a parent, I am in awe of their courage. I also know that when people come to seek refuge in a foreign country - when they have walked hundreds or thousands of miles and left everything they know and love behind - it is for one reason only: they simply had no choice.

Such decisions are not made due to whim. They are dictated by the need, so terrible that it destroys everything you were, and forces you to reinvent and rebuild yourself, your life, your character. This means that escape is the only option, even when you know that the road is long, the end is unclear, and the life of a refugee is exhausting and reproachful.

It is under such circumstances that people move to the US border. The only thing they want is a chance, an opportunity, hope for a future that is not as bleak as their past. What our country does with these vulnerable souls will demonstrate the true character of the American people—now and for centuries to come.

Read also on ForumDaily:

7 tips on how to apply for asylum in the US

Interview in a political asylum in the USA through the eyes of a translator

How to prove that you need political asylum in the US

Nine ways to go to the USA

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