I apologize for not writing a unique blog entry this week. My father has been in the hospital and my mind has been elsewhere. I just finished writing my speech that I will deliver today at 10am at the New Immigrant ceremony at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service in Campbell. It’s about how my parents felt when they became US citizens in 1986 and the vital role I see for new US citizens in being global citizens and peacemakers.

As it’s 2am, my grammar may not be stellar. Sorry. ———-
Good morning!

My name in Susanna Zaraysky.

Before I start to tell you about myself, I have some questions for you.

How many of you are nervous or scared right now? You can be honest. My mom was nervous and anxious when she and my father became citizens.

How many of you are excited?

Who has been waiting for this day for many years?

Yesterday, your master of ceremonies called me and asked me if I was ready for today’s ceremony. I told him that I was. That was not true. When he called me at 4pm, I hadn’t written a word yet. My father is in the hospital this week because of an infection. I came to his bedside last night around 10pm and told him I needed his help to write my speech. My dad can barely get out of the hospital bed, so I think he was surprised that I came to him for help. I asked him how he felt when he and my mother went through this ceremony in 1986. He said he was happy to become a citizen of a country where everyone was equal. Later on, I asked my mom the same question.

I was surprised to find out that she was nervous and anxious when she was sitting in your seat.

“Mom, why were you nervous?”

“Because I had been waiting for that day for so many years and I couldn’t believe it had finally come,” she said.

When we left the Soviet Union in 1980, the Soviet government told my parents that they had to give up their Soviet citizenship and that we could never come back to visit our family. We were traitors. Until we received our US citizenship, we lived in the US as stateless people. We had no country. Our family in Russia was punished for our emigration. My father’s sister lost her job, her husband was put on probation at work. The post office opened the mail of many of my family members and the KGB, the internal spying agency of the Communist government, listened to my family’s telephone conversations to see if they were talking to us and learning about our lives in the capitalist US.

Our family in Russia was suffering because we lived in the United States. Meanwhile, the CIA offered to protect our family in case the KGB threatened our safety in the United States. Luckily, we never needed their help.

My parents lived in fear. They were scared not just for our safety in the US, and their relatives in Russia, but they were worried about finding jobs and health care. I am sure most of you can understand this. For them, receiving US citizenship was a way to relax and not worry about not having any country to call their own. After they left this ceremony, they finally felt like they had a home. (My sister and I did not become citizens the same day our parents were naturalized and we did not attend a ceremony.)

Now, I would like to tell you about me and how my immigration has played a role in my life and how I think my story may relate to you.

How many people here speak another language?

Don’t worry, I won’t ask how many people here don’t speak English. My Dad only speaks basic English after 28 years in the US.

Looking at me, you may wonder what you and I may have in common. I am white and I don’t speak with an accent in English. I can pass as a native born US citizen. Nobody knows that I am an immigrant until I tell them. To be honest, I never felt “white”. Even though I came to the US when I was three years old, I never felt like a native born American citizen. I spoke in Russian at home and ate strange foods that my American friends never ate. My parents took me to the opera and symphony, while my American friends went to baseball games. Being Russian during the Cold War in the US was hard. Kids made jokes about me in school, calling me a “dirty Communist” and other stupid names. I always felt different when I was around my native born friends. I liked being around other immigrants or people who had lived in another country.

Even though I hated to speak in Russian as a child because children laughed at me, the fact that my parents taught me Russian has been a gift. I want you to remember this so that you will not only teach your children English, but you will teach them your languages.

I say this from my personal experience. I have worked in the US Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, have designed economic development projects in post-war Bosnia, and have observed elections for the US government in the former Soviet Union. I have traveled in 47 countries and have lived in nine countries. I speak seven languages (English, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Serbo Croatian) and am publishing three books about being a global citizen. One book is on how to learn foreign languages easily, another on budget travel and my memoir about how my identity formed from living in various countries and speaking different languages.

I got my first job out of college because I spoke Russian. I have never had trouble finding work because I could always use my languages. When I travel and live in other countries, it’s easier for me to get used to local customs than for native born Americans because I grew up here in Silicon Valley and was used to being around people from other countries. As a kid, we were one of the few white families shopping at the San Jose Flea Market. I heard Spanish and Vietnamese all the time. It was easy for me to learn to speak Spanish with a good accent because I was used to the sound of the language since I had heard it all my life. When I traveled to Vietnam last year, I was already quite familiar with the foods and I felt that being an immigrant from Communism, I shared a common history with the Vietnamese.

Charlemagne said that when you learn a second language, you have a second soul. I would like to think that my soul has been expanded because I can talk to and understand people from many different countries. Imagine what this world would be like if most people could communicate with each other. We would probably have fewer conflicts. We would have more friends.

The world needs people like us who can speak different languages.

Our world is burning.

One war ends and another starts. I saw the destruction war can bring while working in Bosnia after the war where neighbors killed each other because of ethnicity and religion. The Bosnian war is over, but we have wars and genocide in other countries. Some of you are refugees from wars and you know what I am talking about when your home is bombed, your streets destroyed and your friends and family killed. The rest of us have seen it on TV and can only imagine.

What’s missing in this world is communication. Some world leaders can’t speak to each other without a translator. Some don’t want to speak. But we can.

We can be our own peacemakers. We are the ones who are able to speak to people in different countries and translate and explain what is going on.

Please, teach your children world history, make sure they learn English and at least one other language. Vote.

Unfortunately, many Americans don’t see how important it is to vote. Like my parents, some of you are from countries, were there is or was no democracy. Participate in our democracy. You can get ballots in several languages including Spanish, Tagolog, Vietnamese and Chinese.

You are not only becoming US citizens today, but you have the choice to be global citizens and participate in making this world a more peaceful place.

After leaving this room, my parents could breathe easily because they finally had a home.

Remember, not only in the US your new home. The world is your home and it needs you.