DGuller's country of origin? It's complicated

[Syt]

A Soviet born Ukrainian living in New Jersey ... 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/my-country-of-origin-its-complicated.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=fb-nytimes&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&smtyp=aut&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id

My Country of Origin? It's Complicated

April, I was stopped at a police checkpoint at 2 in the morning. Being pulled over for any other reason is a drag; being pulled over for a sobriety check when you're cold sober is exhilarating. It doesn't matter where you are in life; for those five minutes, you're an all-star. "Can you recite the alphabet starting at D and ending at W?" Can I ever! Watch me nail it. "I need you to count backward from 97 to 63." I hope you're recording this. Because you're going to be so impressed you're going to want to play it for all your friends back at the station.

But then the cop asked a question that tripped me up. "How do you pronounce your name?" she asked, handing me back my license. I froze.

"Where are you from?" Americans ask when they hear me speak, and I never know what to say. "New Jersey" never works, probably because people from New Jersey don't have Slavic accents and are not named Lev. "Russia" is good for about two seconds, until the inevitable "Which part of Russia?" follow-up. "Ukraine," I sigh. "So aren't you Ukrainian?"

Well, technically I'm from the Russian-speaking region of a Soviet Socialist republic that used to be part of a country that isn't there anymore. It was called the Soviet Union, and you can still find it on old maps. "It's complicated."

During my first week of college, a clever vendor made a killing selling world flags outside the freshman dorms. Many in my hall bought them because someone, probably the vendor, started a rumor that exotic origins were good icebreakers with girls. The flag of Ukraine, where, according to my passport, I'm from, felt wrong: I've never lived in independent Ukraine, never walked under that blue-and-yellow flag, never bought anything with a hryvnia, didn't even know what a hryvnia broke down into (hryvlets? hryvlings?). Besides, I'm from eastern Ukraine and speak Russian, not Ukrainian — how can I be from a country when I don't speak its language?

I wanted badly to buy one, maybe the New Jersey state flag? Eight years of living there had to count for something, right? But for my high-school friends, Little League and swim lessons at Seaside were memories. For me, they were just concepts. Getting a Jersey flag was cheating, like spending a week at a Cancún resort, then claiming I'd experienced Mexico. I finally bought the red Soviet flag, which I promptly shoved in a dresser drawer. "Why did you buy it if you aren't going to hang it?" asked my roommate as he pinned up Czech and Filipino flags above his bed.

"I don't know," I said. "You have to be from somewhere, I guess." The flag stayed in the dresser for the rest of the semester.

The problem, I decided later, was that I lacked any longing for roots in the first place. When an American tells me he's going to visit Ukraine, my immediate assumption is that he has lost a bad bet. When someone asks if I have been back, I say no. What I don't tell them is that the night my family jettisoned our lives, friends and possessions and crossed the Soviet border into Czechoslovakia was the happiest night of my life. It didn't matter that we had no destination, no plans and no money; the only thing I cared about was we'd be out-of-Ukraine-forever, and out-of-Ukraine-forever was good. Why go back and ruin a wonderful memory?

"Sir?" The cop was staring at me. Taking my time explaining how to pronounce my own name was quickly eroding any sobriety points I had gained with my stellar alphanumeric performance a few moments earlier.

"Lev, like it's spelled." I'm from East Windsor, half a mile away, and I just want to go home so I can do wholesome activities and pay my taxes. I have the coordination of a baboon on quaaludes. Please don't make me stand on one leg; it'll demean us both. "I'm from Ukraine, ma'am."

"East or west?" she asked, a question no American would have thought of asking six months ago, before the Ukraine crisis.

East. East all the way. Yes, I hate it, and it makes Detroit look like a posh resort, but it's mine to hate. Not Putin's, not Kiev's, not the United Nations Security Council's and certainly not the media pundits' who keep labeling my relatives back in Kharkiv terrorists and separatists. Mine.

"East, ma'am," I said, and I shuddered. I thought I heard a note of pride in my voice.

"Drive safe," she said and let me on my way.

[Scipio]

Ukrainian self-loathing. It's a special thing.

[DGuller]

I'm from Lvov. 

[Maladict]

I'm from Lvov. 

Ah, Poland.

[Syt]

I'm from Lvov Lemberg. 

Ah, Poland Austria.

FYP

[Ideologue]

Sounds like a real class traitor.

[CountDeMoney]

Not really a new development.

[Syt]

So why do Ukrainian go to New Jersey? Is it because the depressive, run down atmosphere, the pollution, and decaying towns and cities remind them of the Old Country^TM?

[DontSayBanana]

So why do Ukrainian go to New Jersey? Is it because the depressive, run down atmosphere, the pollution, and decaying towns and cities remind them of the Old Country^TM?

Between Bridgeton and Camden, we've got our own little slices of Detroit here in South Jersey.  I've also heard Newark compared to Detroit, but the last couple times I had to be up there for various reasons, it didn't seem quite as bad as the first two I named.

[DGuller]

So why do Ukrainian go to New Jersey? Is it because the depressive, run down atmosphere, the pollution, and decaying towns and cities remind them of the Old Country^TM?

New Jersey is nice, if you just stay away from big cities or northern stretches of New Jersey Turnpike.

[Malthus]

So why do Ukrainian go to New Jersey? Is it because the depressive, run down atmosphere, the pollution, and decaying towns and cities remind them of the Old Country^TM?

New Jersey is nice, if you just stay away from big cities or northern stretches of New Jersey Turnpike.

All most people know first-hand about New Jersey is what they can see on the drive or train ride from Newark Airport to New York ... 

If you guys wanted to help out the image of NJ, take a leaf from the Russian playbook and erect a "Potemkin City" along that route. 

[CountDeMoney]

So why do Ukrainian go to New Jersey? Is it because the depressive, run down atmosphere, the pollution, and decaying towns and cities remind them of the Old Country^TM?

Populations beget populations, I suppose.

Baltimore has always had a very large Jewish population;  when the Russian Jews were allowed to begin emigrating in the 1980's, a lot of them came here because of the Jewish community.  Once the Soviet Union went the way of the carrier pigeon, Russians started to move here because of the Russian Jewish population: shared language, shops and grocers, community resources.  Then the Byelorussians, etc.

Now I'm up to my ass in track suits.

[alfred russel]

So why do Ukrainian go to New Jersey? Is it because the depressive, run down atmosphere, the pollution, and decaying towns and cities remind them of the Old Country^TM?

New Jersey is nice, if you just stay away from big cities or northern stretches of New Jersey Turnpike.

Which part do you live in?

[alfred russel]

So why do Ukrainian go to New Jersey? Is it because the depressive, run down atmosphere, the pollution, and decaying towns and cities remind them of the Old Country^TM?

Despite vastly different histories and geographies, New Jersey and Eastern Europe are so much alike. Maybe you shouldn't be asking if eastern europeans move to New Jersey because it is like eastern europe, but if New Jersey like conditions are a consequence of eastern europeans. 

[DGuller]

So why do Ukrainian go to New Jersey? Is it because the depressive, run down atmosphere, the pollution, and decaying towns and cities remind them of the Old Country^TM?

New Jersey is nice, if you just stay away from big cities or northern stretches of New Jersey Turnpike.

Which part do you live in?

Well, I dream of living in a nice part of New Jersey sometime.