adaptation

It’s hard to believe we are wrapping up this year. I haven’t written since May, for a variety of reasons, most of which I’m sure you can guess. But 2020 is closing. This feels like the right time to write out and weave together all the threads I’ve been spinning for months. As fun as it is to experiment and share simple recipes, I haven’t been in the mood for much of that. It has been a long and introspective year for all of us. For me, it would feel disingenuous to not address and then come back a few months later with a recipe for roasted squash or something.

Emotionally and in many ways physically this year has been a complete upheaval. Even those of us blessed to have work and some semblance of normalcy - you would have to be super insulated to not feel something different in this environment. To not pause and take stock. I don’t often write about my thoughts on politics or culture in this space or social media, nor do I intend to start. I prefer to keep these conversations personal where dialogue and eye contact play more of a role than “commenting”. But, I would be lying to not admit that the last few months haven’t been full of reflection and asking many questions. Both of those around me and even more so, of myself.

Specifically, in light of the political climate, I ask: What does it mean for me to be an American? To feel “American”.

There are days when I look in the mirror and feel what is probably best described as a physical cognitive dissonance. On the outside, I see the epitome of an American middle class suburban mom. One who has gone through many iterations over the last few years but nevertheless, I fit the mold now. Athleisure, top knot, organic milk in the fridge, fixed 30 year mortgage… I check all the boxes. If you run into me on the street you would never think twice that I fit into a very specific demographic. A lifestyle.

On the inside, there’s a disconnect. A huge one. I always smile when people learn that I am a first-generation, political refugee to this country. I don’t fit that image, my face is not what’s reflected when the words “refugee” or “political asylum” flash across the screen on CNN. In fact, the color of my skin, my parents' education, a myriad of factors contributed to my adapting into the American fold so seamlessly that sometimes if I really work at it, I can forget. There is nothing about me on the outside that would give away my background, my culture, the years of persecution, the oppression, the genocide my family faced for generations so that I can be the first to feel safe walking into a Target.

I imagine that many first-generation children in this country have this feeling. Even though on paper we are American, in our mind and soul it feels like standing between two worlds. In my case, one foot in one world which is long gone (on paper and otherwise) and another which is continuously shifting and asking me to rapidly adapt with it under the other.

This December marks 30 years since my family immigrated to the United States. Every immigrant child tries to adapt quickly to their situation, fit into the mold. What I've realized is: I never stopped. The programming to “fit in” doesn’t just leave you as an adult. I can push away the voice in the back of my head that tells me “Don’t stand out. Don’t eat food they don’t know. Don’t look different. Don’t speak Russian too loudly, they’ll notice.” The internal monologue goes on and on and on. At 35 years old, with my American husband and American home and American grocery list, I can sometimes shut that voice up.

But what’s come up for me over the course of this year is the question: Do I still want to?

To be frank, I'm not sure if I will ever have the answer. Moving to this country as a child, no one holds your hand through the process of being thrown head first into a different culture. Being a child with parents from the former Soviet Union, it’s not just a different culture, it’s a different planet. Freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom of feeling yourself an individual are not concepts anyone in my family before me had ever been allowed to experience. Add on top of that generations of Jews systematically, culturally being kept out of society and forced to erase their heritage - you can guess the impact. A people in diaspora forever in flight to the next temporarily safe plot of land.

Until now? Until me? I will never forget a conversation I had with my grandfather when I was seven-years-old, just a few years after moving to the United States. I was recently gifted a Star of David and proudly wore it every day.

Deda looked at me and said, "Don't let that fall on top of your clothes. Don't wear it outside of the home. Don't let people see."

"Deda, you don't have to be afraid here."

He smiled, "We have to be afraid everywhere. Especially when we feel that we are safe."

At the time I couldn't process the level of trauma and fear behind his words. Today, there is not a single day that I do not think about them. How lucky, how blessed I am that my ethnic background for the first time in any generation of my family or any Soviet Jewish family we know, does not factor into my everyday life. Reading the news lately, I realize how right he was and how quickly that can change.

Do I still want to fit in? I'm not certain it's completely up to me. Due to many factors, whether I want to or not - I already do. What I do know is that I've put away the childhood part that pushed me to stand back, be quiet, not be too seen. I stand between two histories, on the shoulders of people who were silenced. 30 years in the United States and I realize that blending in is no longer a choice, it is an impossibility. I may look and sound like a demographic but underneath I am an anomaly. The first of many. There is no hiding that.