Editor’s Note: Maya Sobchuk is a Ukrainian-American student at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, working as an intern remotely for the Kyiv Post in the summer of 2020.
I came to the U.S. as a 6-month-old infant. At first glance, I am as American as they come. Yet somehow, even at just 19, I’ve devoted most of my mental energy and career ambitions trying to connect back to Ukraine.
Here’s why.
I was born in the Nyvky neighborhood of Kyiv to a long lineage of Ukrainians. My father was (very randomly) recruited for a software engineering position in Los Angeles while my mom was pregnant, and decided to move suddenly. Their original plan was to stay for a few years, make some money, then go back. I was supposed to be raised in Ukraine. That did not happen.
My father says that if his Ukrainian salary at the time was only $100 more monthly when he received the invitation to go to America, he would have declined.
California may have just been the best place to move in the entire United States. There’s a culture of diversity that allowed my parents to assimilate despite barely any knowledge of English or understanding of American culture. That ease of assimilation, however, also came with many difficulties when I was growing up and trying to become my own person. Being white and without an accent, few people assumed I was an immigrant. While that came with a lot of privileges, it also forced me to be a chameleon, expected to fit in with my wealthy Angelino friends without question. Only in college, a more level playing field, did I realize how well I hid the imbalances between my peers and myself.
After third grade, after being disappointed with the lack of focus on math and the “slowness” of the learning in general, my mother took me out of school. I was homeschooled until 8th grade. That’s when I learned to read and write in Russian and got ahead in many subjects. It’s also the explanation for why I wasn’t socialized to be American. While it was painful growing up — seeing my friends have a ridiculous amount of freedom and bringing pizza to school instead of a “gross” beet soup — as soon as I moved out I became instantly grateful for the intensity of my childhood.
I often wonder who I would be if I grew up in the place and the way my parents first intended.
Everyone I’m related to, besides my parents, of course, are still in Ukraine. When 2014 hit and the situation destabilized, going home wasn’t really an option. When I was able to go again in 2019, I was six years older than the last time I visited, and no longer a child. I felt like I had completely missed my chance to understand Ukraine from the point of view of someone my age, that grew up and was socialized in the culture.
When I was finally able to visit, I walked past my grandparents at the airport. They didn’t recognize me.
The first thing I noticed was how old my family had gotten. The potholes hadn’t changed.
I remember driving back from a small town where one of my grandmothers lives back to Kyiv and seeing at least a dozen military tanks speed past us toward the east. That was one of several moments that the comfort that came with living in the U.S was strikingly apparent to me. Being in Kyiv, you sometimes forget that the country is actively at war.
The EuroMaidan Revolution changed my life. I was 14 when it happened. I remember seeing it on TV and reading about it and some engine of anger just revved up in me. I don’t even think I fully knew what it was about, but seeing all those people in the streets fighting for independence made me want to do so too.
Maybe without it I would be an engineer or a doctor or an artist, with nothing but DNA and the language tying me back to Ukraine. Instead, I study international relations and law, the only disciplines I’ve had my eye on since I was 14. And, honestly, my life would probably be a heck of a lot more enjoyable.
Somehow, my parents are still surprised by my intense interest in Ukraine and her politics. I think they expected me to be fully American, whatever that means. I don’t know if they’re disappointed that I didn’t turn out that way.
Even though it’s easy to detach from collective trauma and enjoy the more cosmopolitan side of Ukraine, symbols of the past are everywhere.
My 96-year-old great-grandmother, who still lives on her own in rural Ukraine, witnessed her entire family killed during Holodomor, Josef Stalin’s genocide that starved to death at least 4 million Ukrainians. She speaks a version of Ukrainian I have a hard time understanding, but her stories are something that would deeply disturb anyone. My mother says she cannot bear to listen to them.
In my paternal grandmother’s house in Kyiv, there are two deadbolt doors and cages on the windows. When I asked why this was so, she said that during the genocide of 1932-33, people would try to get in to (literally) eat her and her family.
Many people ask me if I see myself as Ukrainian or American. I say both and neither. While I have now mastered the art of fitting in to American society and standards, that doesn’t take away from the strictly Ukrainian household that I spent most of my life in, worlds different from my friends’ upbringing.
Many people, especially the Americans on my college campus, think that my attention and activism toward Ukraine is an act. After all, being “international” and “different” is (for some reason) a trend in my generation.
This is especially exacerbated by the fact that few Westerners know about the current situation in Ukraine, and even fewer know of the centuries of oppression faced by the Ukrainian people. Most Americans still think it’s part of Russia.
The social justice culture of my college and my generation, in general, revolves around the people that the American system has oppressed, as it should. But this also means that few to none will care to listen to the fight my people are facing, especially since it’s an ocean away and has zero impact on them. It’s frustrating because if people were to listen and understand the Ukrainian fight for freedom, they’d see that we have far more in common than not. Imperialism and generational trauma affect me in many of the same ways it affects those in the United States. Perhaps together, we would make more of an impact than separately. This is particularly exhausting because I have put so much effort into appearing as well off and put together and American as my peers, and, somehow, that has cost me any credibility.
Because of this, I have learned to do my work quietly, no matter how loud I want to be.
I don’t see my future in Ukraine, or, quite frankly, in the U.S.
The past couple of years, and particularly the past couple of months, have shown me both how grateful I am that I was able to grow up in America but also that many of the ideals my parents came here for are lies.
The more I learn and educate myself, the more I understand that America was built on the backs of people who to this day do not benefit from this system, and continues to take advantage of them, including my parents.
I live in a country where if today, I was hospitalized for COVID-19 or cancer or any other deadly condition, I would either be turned away at the door or in debt for the rest of my life (and probably my children’s lives) because I don’t have health insurance.
After 20 years of my father working full-time at what is a difficult and supposedly prestigious occupation, my parents still live in a tiny apartment unit among teenage college kids like myself. I fear– no, I know– that if I stay, no matter how many hours I work, I will never be able to afford to buy them a house in this country. While I will forever be grateful to America– for a safe childhood, an education– I will never again trick myself into not believing that the biggest thing that makes America great is its own perception of itself.
My parents grew up in Soviet Ukraine. They are content with 2020 America. I do not blame them. But for me, not having my family killed in a genocide or sent to Siberian labor camps for knowing how to read is no longer the standard.
I have built my whole life around educating myself to halt corruption and “fix” Ukraine. That is no longer the case. It’s not that I see my country as a lost cause or beyond repair, but I no longer want to devote my life to fight for a country that at every new opportunity chooses to not care for its people.
My biggest hope for Ukraine and Ukrainians is for everyone to finally take a good, hard look at history, and understand the effects that imperialism and colonialism have had on the current standard of living.
For any chance for Ukraine to move toward and be accepted by the West, Ukrainians must first move away from the historical and cultural link to Russia and find pride simply in being Ukrainian. However, this plea calls for clarification.
I urge Ukraine to push for democracy, human rights, and independence in collaboration with the West, not to shift from being under one imperial power just to fall into the hands of another.
There is so much potential and power in Ukrainian people. Yet a strange nostalgia for the past and an unhealthy attachment to undemocratic ideals (corruption, the oligarchy) will forever hold us back.
