Stella Rukhman Research Paper

Stella Raukhman, currently 66 years old, immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union on February 11, 1981. Hers was one of the last families to leave during the immigration wave at that time. It was a difficult decision, leaving the home she had grown up in, but she didn’t want her children to grow up experiencing antisemitism. Latvians were proud, and judgemental of those who differed from them, as were Russians. Both disliked Jews. She also wanted her children to have better opportunities in life. Even so, it was still scary considering leaving her friends and many relatives behind and become dependant on others in a different country.
She used to live in Ogre, a small town near Riga, Latvia, with her husband, son, and daughter. There were woods next to their house in
which her daughter, Julianna, would explore. Her son, Gary, was often sick and allergic to multiple foods, and so food like oatmeal/porridge had to be carefully prepared for him.
When they finally began immigrating, Stella was 32, her husband was 36, her daughter was 10.5, and her son was 3. Her parents, who came with them, were in their late 50s. Many relatives and in-laws stayed behind, believing that one shouldn’t leave their motherland. Many later joined them in America, though some still live in Russia or Israel. The immigration process took 5 months, which was quicker than many others. Her father had a high position in Latvian economics and was the CEO of a big company, so the connections he had aided them greatly in finding people to sponsor them and get them out of the country, since once they had declared that they wanted to leave they had to leave or else they would be branded traitors and find it very hard to find jobs afterwards.
They received help from an American organization, HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), in being able to take a plane to Vienna, Austria and later a train to Italy. When they came to Austria, Vienna, they were in a closed place that was under guard. There they were under the care of the Israeli organization Sochnut (Jewish Agency for Israel). They wanted immigrants to go to Israel, but she and her family had already made up their mind about going to America, and so tried to leave there quickly. They were put in a hotel next to the station, where it was shabby and many shady people liked to be, though they didn’t know that until they dressed up nicely, went strolling, and realized it wasn’t very safe. They headed very quickly back to the hotel. The entire family stayed in one room, and while they weren’t allowed to cook, they still had to make Gary (her son) food in a pot under the bed and hope that no one saw the steam exiting their windows. Later, when they left the hotel, they had to stay somewhere else by themselves. They were considered stateless, nobody caring what happened to them, and so people banged on the doors, trying to break in and take their already meager belongings. She remembers the experience as being very scary as they hid in the room and waited for them to stop.
When Stella came to San Francisco, she was pleasantly surprised that it was a beautiful and nice city with people who were polite, unlike the “speak your mind even if it’s rude” culture back in Latvia.
Having been an English teacher back in Latvia, she was not entirely lost with the language, but she had only learned British English, so she still had a lot of difficulty in pronunciation and unfamiliar words. She joined her sister here in their house, then owned by the brother of her father’s friend. (It has since been bought by her sister, Eleanora, who still lives there with her husband.) She considers herself a lucky immigrant for having such connections, which made their journey easier. While housing wasn’t an issue, Stella was concerned about raising her children in this new culture that she didn’t know. She considered her children a priority and worried about the amount of individuality here, unlike the expected norm that people were expected to follow in Latvia. She didn’t like what was shown on TV and worried that the extremes in the culture may hurt them. She tried to find her own way of parenting, find a place in this new country where there were more choices than she had
before.
However, finding a job proved to be tricky. Foreign language wasn’t a department here back then, and she didn’t think her English was good enough to start teaching again. She also had a lot of social anxiety, which made her nervous about applying to new jobs. However, her interview at a hospital was accepted, and she became a medical translator for Russian people. She later moved to a job in a senior center to become a social worker, then became the director of the senior center, though she later moved jobs to become a professional therapist. She currently works at the Jewish Family and Children’s Services with seniors who come for help. Quoting Erikson, she said that “immigration is a catastrophe for one’s life,” since the whole foundation of one’s life is shattered and they have to recreate themselves again. It was a long and difficult journey of immigration for her, but she made it through and settled in her new country.