A long time ago I was a guest at a marketing party of some magazine to which I wrote. I approached assistant editor and asked him if he had read my text, because I hadn’t got any confirmation from him.
– I’m not going to read it and you shouldn’t write to us. All Ukrainian women are prostitutes and cleaners. It’s their role in Poland, not writing…
That was one of the events, so sudden and so abstract, in which neither I couldn’t defend myself nor defend all Ukrainians about whom this respected journalist talked about. When the next day the chef editor asked me why I had left so early, I told him this story. He apologized and told me that I wouldn’t have to work with that editor anymore and that he would deal with my texts on his own, but…There were no more texts. I couldn’t, I didn’t want to, I was disillusioned with it…
I didn’t want to write anywhere for a year. Finally I met Karolina L., who MADE ME to write my first text and then she cared about my motivation by sending me statistics and opinions. Karolina has never asked me where I was from or why do I write with errors. She learnt about my origins by the way of one of my interviews and just commented: ‘Oh, that’s interesting. I have never been there.’
It was a long, long time ago, but I still can’t forget that evening and the thing that I couldn’t respond accurately. This event grew into me and have lived with me like an invisible burden – I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone, I was afraid of their reaction. ‘What if they also think that all Ukrainian women are prostitutes and cleaners…’
Many years later in Venezuela I dropped my burden, because I met someone who experienced a very similar conversation – Javier, who once has been living in Holland for 7 years. As every Latino, he absolutely loved Venezuela and… never let anyone to make him bend his head because of it. Because of his origin.
– Where are you from?
– Venezuela.
– You only have beautiful women, gas and crisis there.
– Yeah, we do. And in Holland you have only prostitutes, pot and cheese!
Well – these are actually the things Holland is famous for…
I envied him that he had found himself in this dialogue so fast, not after a few years, like me.
“That’s why, my dear Julia, I left Holland. Dutchmen think that they are one of the world’s wonders, because they are rich. From the very beginning I decided that I won’t give a shit about money. And it really pissed me off when someone suggested that I was there for cash. I was there, because I had fallen in love – I dropped everything for a woman and they suggested me that I had done it for money. Do you know how I felt back then?’
Well, I just know how he felt.
“Once I was in a club and I went to bathroom. You know, guys piss and can also talk with each other. (I don’t know, but I’ve seen it in movies) So, a guy asks me where I am from. I tell him that from Venezuela.
– Ah, so you had to come here to finally start earning more and living normally, like a white man.
I looked at him. He was in his skinny jeans, with smooth fringe. I answered him, really calmly:
– No, I didn’t have to come here because of that. I needed to come here, because my woman couldn’t find a real MAN for fucking, so she had to drag me, the real one, all the way from Venezuela.
You know, I don’t have anything against gays, but a man in skinny jeans won’t tell me that I am inferior, because I am from Venezuela… The basic is to feel good and proud – then no fag with a dick will tell you who you are and why you are in this world!’
Very manly and direct way to answer to ‘taunts’, but I think that it’s better than my strategy of debating a 5-minute conversation for many years…
It always hurts me when somebody looks down on people, because he has got more money. This conversation with Javier made me realize that the only way to react properly is NOT TO FEEL INFERIOR. It doesn’t matter which country you’re from, in which company you work, how old you are, how much money or cars you have – if you don’t bend your head yourself, noone will make you do it. I don’t know how I would react now, but I want to believe that I wouldn’t leave the party crying and withdraw for a few years.
I couldn’t have the attitude of Javier. I used to think that it’s because I am a girl. Now I know that it has nothing to do with gender.
My first two years in Poland weren’t pleasant for me. At school I was hearing ‘Do you have toothbrushes there?’ ‘How do you like Fiat 126P?’ ‘I bet you have never seen a car in your life!’
Of course, this situation has some good sides: I was a very good learner (being average in Kiev, I became top pupil in Poland), because nobody wanted to make friends with an Ukrainian. And if you don’t have any friends, you become friends with your books. It all changed at extra lessons from Botany (yeah, I once thought that it was an interesting subject). I met Iwona there, a witness of my ‘friendly’ relations at school. She told me: ‘If I’ll see once again that you bend your head when they beat you (verbally) that bad – our friendship is over! I don’t want to be friends with someone who isn’t proud of who he is! I like you, so you also have to like you!”
She was rather harsh, but… it helped. I answered once, then twice… After this I became ‘Julia’, not ‘that Ukrainian’.
I’m an immigrant. I have never defined myself like this, until I felt how much it matters in my life. When I read an interview with Zimbardo, about that he was from a poor family of Italian immigrants and that it influenced his choice of studies and work – I accepted it as a fact that things are the way they are and how we come from, which Sarajevo do we have to come through, determines where we are going. The fact that I am an immigrant and I had to prove – not be, fight – not get, caused that I am where I am. And who I am.
Thanks to those who think that all women from Ukraine, Romania, Russia and Columbia are prostitutes and cleaners, I have become neither of them.
The text above is a description of extreme and extraordinary situation. Every day I am meeting with loads of love and sympathy. The fact is that NONE of my friends have ever asked me about my origins – it just popped out by the way. Thanks to this I felt secure and confident with them from the very beginning. This might have been more or less conscious test for if they see me through my background.
Moving to another country is not only about your location, you suddenly cut your roots, your context of existence disappears. And you are all in labels. When you change your place where you grew up, you also change everything you were, built, and loved. When this disappears, and before something else appears, it is hard to understand why from a person who had lots of friends, you became a person who has nobody… From being liked to being avoided…
Zimbardo – my idol. I specially turned back from my USA journey to meet him in Stanford. I was waiting for two weeks in San Francisco for him to return from his holidays and the chance to visit him. He had a big influence on my choice of major at the university and my attitude towards otherness.
I started to meditate at a university. I discovered that meditation is the moment when you see things the way they really are. And when you meet people who perceive the world the same as you do, it’s easier to live. That’s why I consider my meditation trips as the supreme form of holidays, charging my batteries and reward.
Being an immigrant has a lot of advantages. It teaches you to adapt quickly. Liking places or people, is not a reason good enough to feel like at home. On Rapa Nui, where I have been living for almost three years, I felt like at home from the very first day. I didn’t feel like a stranger when I was rooting during such competitions as running with bananas or swimming on a bamboo board. It seemed natural for me, as I loved the Rapa Nui people very much. Maybe because they also are somewhere in between – they feel to be Polynesians, but belong to Chile.
Despite the fact that I loved Rapa Nui inhabitants, the dearest people to me were also immigrants. Moa – Australian, who married a Rapa Nui man. Kia – half-Australian, half-Rapa Nui, who discovered this island in her adulthood.
My experience caused me to have a high sensitivity to otherness. When everybody asked me whether I’d felt save travelling through Muslim country (including its most orthodox part – Sumatra and Sulawesi) I was always surprised. I made friends quickly and felt safe.
When everyone ask me, why so many stories with people happen to me, my only hypothesis is that the others feel that I like them. Race or religion doesn’t matter to me.
Greatness is above boundaries. I was travelling in Indonesia when the war in the Ukraine started. Indonesians willingly took pictures with me and the flag, asking to give their support to the Ukrainians.
