2009-10-07, 02:53 PM
In Soviet Russia manual laborers were regarded as supreme, and intellectual labor of various sorts was on a lower rung. A bus driver received more money than a doctor. My parents, despite this, became a doctor and engineer, and also after a lot of work and luck fled the Soviet Union. We were "refugees," in that we left the country to escape oppression, (Russians don't like Jews very much,) and we were stuck in limbo, first in Austria then in Italy, and we didn't know where we'd end up. In Italy, for 1.5 months out of our 6 months there, we lived in the ghetto; my mom and my brother came out of the elevator, there was a druggie that was bleeding to death. My parents have recently gone to visit Italy, the whole place we were at has since been torn down.
While in Italy, I scavenged garbage dumps to find useful stuff for my family, ripping open garbage bags, sifting through the crap, and getting out before being seen. I was 9 years old. I found a lot of useful stuff, (including even a small TV that my dad repaired and that we watched,) but I also got a very serious stomach infection, and it basically felt like my stomach was being cut up by knives. We couln't afford medical attention, but my mom being a doctor was able to help me anyway. We had almost no money, so we took what little we had and bought food smartly, looking more to sustain ourselves rather than get anything tasty. After the 6 months, we were allowed into America, my dad started working 12 hour days while my mom retook all her medical exams at the age of 40, (foreign medical diplomates are not valid in the US,) and she was one of two in her class to pass them all from the first try. She also learned to drive, at the age of 40, and within three years of coming to the US we had a mortgage and a nice house in a good suburb of Chicago. My brother got into Northwestern, then into MIT for his PhD, and is now married, wiht a kid, and works for Harvard. I went to Georgetown and am editing my first book.
Maybe not as impressive as some others, but it's a fairly typical example of what people can do if they work their asses off. Which is why I love America as I do: so much opportunities for people that actually want to do so.
While in Italy, I scavenged garbage dumps to find useful stuff for my family, ripping open garbage bags, sifting through the crap, and getting out before being seen. I was 9 years old. I found a lot of useful stuff, (including even a small TV that my dad repaired and that we watched,) but I also got a very serious stomach infection, and it basically felt like my stomach was being cut up by knives. We couln't afford medical attention, but my mom being a doctor was able to help me anyway. We had almost no money, so we took what little we had and bought food smartly, looking more to sustain ourselves rather than get anything tasty. After the 6 months, we were allowed into America, my dad started working 12 hour days while my mom retook all her medical exams at the age of 40, (foreign medical diplomates are not valid in the US,) and she was one of two in her class to pass them all from the first try. She also learned to drive, at the age of 40, and within three years of coming to the US we had a mortgage and a nice house in a good suburb of Chicago. My brother got into Northwestern, then into MIT for his PhD, and is now married, wiht a kid, and works for Harvard. I went to Georgetown and am editing my first book.
Maybe not as impressive as some others, but it's a fairly typical example of what people can do if they work their asses off. Which is why I love America as I do: so much opportunities for people that actually want to do so.