Articles

Stepping Back to My Roots

By Susan Zaraysky

My family emigrated from the former Soviet Union to the United States via Austria and Italy in 1980. Our first stop was Vienna and then we traveled to Rome by a special train guarded by a military convoy. Each train car had a guard with an automatic weapon, protecting us from any terrorist attack. The train made no stops and security was tight. As Soviet refugees, we were stateless and dependent on the international humanitarian organizations coordinating our passage. We stayed in Rome for a month awaiting our US visas.

Twenty-three years later, I accompanied my parents to Italy to pay tribute to the country that hosted us when we were in transit. At the end of our trip, we went to the Roman coastal suburb of Ostia, where my parents had rented an apartment when we lived in Italy. We boarded a crowded train of beachgoers in Rome on a Sunday afternoon and were all very quiet, as we had just received news of the death of a family member in Russia. There were quite a few Russians and other non-Italians on the train and I figured that they might live in Ostia since it’s a working class suburb and probably more affordable for immigrants.

After the train ride, we had to take a bus to the part of town where we thought that we had lived in 1980. Already tired from having to stand on the subway and train, we stood outside of the train station for a half an hour in the heat awaiting the arrival of the 5B bus. On the wall of the train station, there was graffiti written in large letters, “Fuori gli immigrati B4P” (Immigrants Go Away with the acronym of a nationalist Italian party). I didn’t tell my parents until later what that graffiti meant.

For a family of four to survive in Ostia, my father had to go by train into Rome on Sundays to sell our belongings at the Sunday market at Piazzale Portiense by the Tiber riverbanks. We had little money to live on and my father sold what he could at that market to buy fruits and the cheapest meat available, turkey wings, which Soviet immigrants called “homeland wings” (Krilye rodine). After seeing that slogan on the train station wall, I thought to myself how horrid it must be for immigrants, refugees and political exiles to see those words as they go to the train station every day to work. How demeaning it must feel to see words of xenophobia and hatred while trying to earn a living to feed one’s family. It was an unwelcome reminder that those of us fleeing to safer and more stable shores are not always wanted or tolerated in other countries.

I think that those who wrote those words were extremists and not speaking for the general population. Up until the 1960s, Italy was exporting many immigrants to the US, Canada and other countries and many Italians have relatives abroad, making them more sensitive to the plight of economic and political immigrants and refugees.

When I was in Venice as a tourist, I saw many Russian tourists there and was so happy to see them there as tourists who came by their own means rather than as immigrants and refugees. I was in line to buy a ticket to Padova and the Russian man in the line next to me was buying tickets for his group and speaking to the cashier in German. I was so deeply proud that this man could go abroad and communicate in a foreign language, like all of the other non-Italian speakers and express himself. He was not an immigrant at the mercy of the local people trying to scrape by, but someone with dignity and hard currency in hand. When Russians came through Italy’s doors in the late 1970s and early 1980s, we came rejected from our own country because of rampant anti-Semitism. With very little in our pockets, we waited for a visa to start a new life in the US, Canada or Australia. How pleasant and refreshing was it for me to see these Russians as tourists with a country to which they could return, as opposed to my parents who had to renounce their Soviet citizenship and were treated as enemies of the state.

When my parents left the Soviet Union, people were allowed to leave for reasons of religious discrimination. These days, there are Russians who move to Italy for economic reasons and many times take low paying jobs.

The anti-immigrant graffiti made me realize how important my job is to me. I am working with US civic organizations to host Russian entrepreneurs to help Russians grow their own businesses and develop their local economies. This way, they can feel comfortable in their own country and not feel the need to leave and possibly feel the humiliation of seeing such racist words everyday as they go to work. I want to see more Russians with their heads held high.

The memories of those Russian tourists and those harsh words on the Central Ostia train station have ingrained in me a more profound appreciation for my work at my organization. It is through economic development programs that we as individuals can help others grow and become respected members of their local community.

What can educators do?

I was a teacher in the San Francisco School District and worked with many immigrants and refugees. As a teacher, I would bring this episode into the classroom in the context of explaining the importance of valuing others in our community and understanding why they had to leave or flee their countries of origin. If we can impart the horrors of discrimination and persecution to our youth, they will become more sensitive to the plight of those seeking refuge in other countries. Bringing in articles, photos and documentaries from the media about war, racism, dictatorships and repressive regimes for the students, would be very useful for them to learn about those situations.

After the war in Bosnia, I did humanitarian work in Sarajevo and worked with people who returned from Germany, Austria and other European countries, where they lived during the war as refugees. They complained that they had been treated poorly in their host countries and sometimes they met xenophobic individuals who did not want the Bosnians to be in their country. Perhaps it is idealistic of me to think this way, but I would hope that if educators bring in international news to the classroom, we can sensitize our new generations to welcome or at least understand their new neighbors.

Please feel free to contact me at nisamsuzi@yahoo.com