U.S.A. I Am Writing This

¶ … U.S.A. I am writing this on Election Day in the United States, and thinking about how great it will be when I can cast a vote of my own. I have always felt that coming to the United States was something I wanted -- even when I was in 3rd grade I knew it was the right thing for me. When it came time for me to enter high school, my dreams came closer to reality, but the experience proved to be incredibly challenging.

Getting the paperwork was difficult, but when all the details were sorted out, I finally was able to come. I arrived in my sophomore year of high school. I was excited, and my senses were on overdrive as I tried to take it all in. Excitement quickly gave way to the realities of my situation. I was in the United States and my family was still back home in Russia. I knew nobody and my English skills were, to put it mildly, not good enough.

I could say basic things like "Hello, how are you?" And things like that. The experience was frustrating, bewildering, I had so much trouble communicating. Complicating matters, I was not only a sophomore in the U.S. But I was still a senior in Russia. During this time period, in 2010-11, I was attending two schools in two countries. I was going to school here and in the evenings I would do work for Russia and email it back there.

I had to do all of my Russian studies on my own, and that made them harder than they would otherwise have been. When school was on break in the U.S., I would fly back to Russia to work on my studies over there. Thankfully, I was able to manage these challenges. At the end of the Russian school year, I was able to take the exam and I passed it.

In a way, it was better than I was doing both of these courses of study because social life was non-existent anyway. I had no family, so the studying provided me with a little bit of structure, and a link back to Russia. I think communicating was so hard for me in that first year. My English kept getting better as the year went by, but it started so poorly that I was really unable to express myself in any complex way.

As a result, it was hard to make friends as well. That part of my immigrant experience was terrible. I really was on my own, since making friends was so hard. My family and friends in Russia were supportive, but there is only so much they can do from so far away. Also, they were not experiencing the things that I was experiencing. Even little everyday things were sometimes.