Welcome to the audio page for "Push and Pull: Eastern European and Russian Migration to the Cape Fear Region," an exhibit at the UNCW Public History Graduate Student Gallery in the Randall Library.
Here you can find select clips from the oral histories in the exhibit.
Roza Starodubtseva and Yuli Starodubtsev
Transcript:
Beth Bullock (interviewer): How did they [the children] adapt to life in the United States?
Roza Starodubtseva: For Anton, was very bad situation. He was depressed. He was four years old, he would lie down on the couch and was crying, ‘I want go back to Russia.’ He didn’t tell ‘I want to go back home, I want to go back to grandma.’ He said ‘I want to go back to Russia.’ And for Olga it was hard. She came to school, she already can read big books like novels and they put her in the first grade because her English.
Yuli Starodubtsev: And she was holding a Russian book [inaudible] reading during the classes. So when they caught that, I think they moved her to second grade immediately and got ESL teacher for her so… ESL program is great in New Hanover County. So she caught up pretty quick with English. And her teacher was good with good pronunciation. Our smallest guy, smallest one, he went to preschool and he got very, very thick Southern accent from preschool so all our three children have different accents depending on the school they went in first.
RS: And it was very hard for children to communicate with another children. We didn’t watch a TV at home. We brought our own TV and children’s programs and children’s books and children’s videos…
YS: We wanted to keep language and some heritage culture so we brought those materials.
Guzel Nabatova Barrett
Transcript:
Guzel Nabatova-Barrett: but there is less demand that is pushing you to do something here and more volition, more of your own, more freedom. Freedom in all senses. In Russia you are constrained by so many factors. You have to take into account this and that and, you know, this fear of regime changing. They have become, I mean the country has become more open and free and freedom of speech and all that, but their memory, almost genetic memory you can say, still whispers somewhere there in the back of your mind, what if it all changes? What if your faith will be prohibited again? What if your mother finds out and she was raised by a Muslim mother? My grandmother. She was a wonderful woman, my grandmother, but she would have never accepted me being Christian. And then, at work, people are, to say frankly, even now not very…they can say things that they couldn’t have said some years ago, but there is, there is this feeling of being cautious. You have to be cautious to say something really, really critical not only of the government but maybe of your immediate boss, too. [But here in the states,] there is freedom, there is a feeling of freedom…
Evgenia White
Transcript:
Evgenia White: Emotionally of course it was difficult because when you’re in the early 20s it’s much easier. You’re much more flexible. When you live most part of your life in a place where you were born and which you love dearly -- because I do love St. Petersburg. I miss it-- it’s very difficult to make a move. You are leaving not only something material behind, like an apartment. You are leaving a lot of memories and you are leaving the graves of your parents and grandparents who are still there. So it was difficult, it was not an easy decision, but sometimes you have to make some decisions especially when you love somebody. Legally, it was a lot of paperwork. I can’t say that we had any obstacles, nothing like this. People tried to be helpful. But the paperwork itself, it’s a lot. You have to fill a lot of forms, you have to wait a lot of times. And in order to get a fiancée visa I had to go to Moscow even though we have consulate of the US in St. Petersburg. It’s really funny how they try to make it. I was coming here before and had a multiple entry visa, but during the last times I was coming here immigration asked the question why I am coming here and that I am coming here way too often. So in a way they are pushing you to make a decision. You either have to get married or maybe the visa will be denied next time because you never know. David had to fill in a lot of paperwork from his side. I had to fill in a lot of paperwork, but eventually it all went together. Because when we got engaged and we were coming back to the US we were stopped at the airport at Stockholm when we had our connection flight to the US and we were asked again the same question. Why I am coming here and they were checking the documents and when the plane landed in New York I was asked the same questions again and I spent about an hour and David didn’t know where I am and what is happening, if I would be let in or not cause they ask questions, how long I know him, if we are planning to get married right now or not. Sometimes when they are not sure of the outcome of the interview and when you’ve had a long intercontinental flight and you are deadly tired and there’s eight-hour time difference and you were traveling for nearly 20 hours it’s a little bit too much of an effort. So I would say that in order to fill in this paperwork you really have to be determined that this is exactly what you want.