Which country are you from or which coutry do you live?

[cubanref]

Born in Cuba, but lived in a lot of places growing up currently living in north dakota

 

[TheGodFresco]

NY or Cali

 

[leannsupreme]

Born in Hong Kong and moved to Vancouver, Canada when I was 3.

 

[king au]

Born and raised in Winnipeg, MB Canada

 

[halftime]

Born and raised in Queens NY, parents from Egypt.

 

[weekz]

Born and raised in NYC. Mother form Jamaica, Father from Guyana.
Avi check.

 

[SplinterMatic319]

Born in the Philippines
Moved to the USA when i was 11
currently living in South Korea
Moving to England at the end of this month

 

[wawawowee]

Please share, if you don't mind.

It starts in the late 80's. My family's Jewish and the USSR and the US/Israel struck a deal to let Jews immigrate en masse starting in '89 (there was an earlier mass immigration in the early 70's).

However, the deal was, you couldn't go straight to the US embassy in Moscow and obtain your visa into the US/Israel. The procedure was to go to the Dutch embassy in Moscow and obtain  a visa to the Netherlands in order to legally leave the borders of the USSR. From there the procedure was to board a train to Poland and make your way to Italy via the route of Poland ---> Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) ---> Austria ---> Italy. In Italy, you could visit the US embassy and obtain either a visa to the US or to Israel (those who were rejected entry into the US could automatically go to Israel under the laws of return there).

That's the gist of the story but the real fun stuff is in the details.

My father obtains the paperwork from the Dutch embassy in Moscow and gets a date to leave the USSR via the train to Poland. It's My father, my mother, my younger brother (1 yr old) and myself (2 years old). \

Apparently the standard procedure for those leaving vis-a-vis their job was as follows:  You got called out in front of all the other employees and called a "traitor" and all sorts of other things. This was like a 30 min long session. My mother got this treatment where she worked but my father didn't as his father  (my grandfather) was on good terms with management and pleaded with them not to do this. 

So we get to the train station and there the Soviet authorities ask for all of our passports. They take them and from there we're officially stateless/refugees. Once we get on the train we can't return for any reason. It's as if we never existed in the USSR.

This is interesting considering that only 40 years before my great grandfathers fought and died in WW2 (Belarus was the first area in the USSR to get invaded by the Nazis and took a major beating; I have stories for days just from this from my grandparents and great grandparents) and my father fought for 2 years as a combat helo pilot (this comes into play later in a funny way) in the Soviet -Afghan war only 10 years before. Which was a dirty and brutal war in and of itself.

So we get on the train headed to Poland (with a bunch of others taking the same journey). To put it lightly Poland wasn't very friendly to Jews. lol You can imagine not speaking the language and entering an unfriendly country with 2 small kids is nuts on its own. So all throughout the journey, no one wants to help you and all you hear is **** this and **** that (the Polish equivalent). During this phase most of our luggage was also stolen. Per my parents, we didn't have much but 3/4 of it was taken. We were lucky that we had a sack full of canned goods that wasn't taken. My parents only had about $400 with them and it was unclear how long the Journey would be or when the US embassy would issue a visa while in Italy.

So we make it through Poland and then through Czechoslovakia and stop in Austria. We had to stay over about 36 hours in Austria to board the train to Italy. The irony is that we were treated extremely well in Austria. Once people realized that we were Jews from the USSR, they went above and beyond to help us with directions, food, etc.  It's pretty ironic considering that only 50 years before Hitler emerged from Austria. My father also remembered Austria to be unusually clean. Almost spotless. If they'd allowed us to stay there as residents my father said he would've taken the offer.

We finally board the train to Italy and we're basically out of money (most of it was spent bribing people in Poland just so that wouldn't give us a hard time).

Once you arrive in Italy it's unclear how long you'll stay. Some people stayed a few days while others had to wait months. We were put up in a 1 bedroom apartment with 3 other families. It turned out that these 3 families all knew each other and while they were Jews too, they were central Asian Jews. While all of us were Jews, Central Asian and Eastern Europeans have completely different cultures. The major difference that played a role here was how they treated their women. By the second day they started to treat my mother like they treated their women and my father was having none of it so he got into a fight with them and one of the dudes pulled a knife on him. The way my father recounts it these dudes basically treated their women as servants and they though they could get my mother in on the act as well.

So we get lucky and 4 days into Italy, we're called in for an interview at the US embassy. AT first the consul is asking the usual questions but then things turn weird once the heard my father was a combat helo pilot in the USSR. As things stood, it was rare for Jews top be accepted into the Soviet Air Force and being a pilot in the Soviet Air Force was considered one of the best gigs in the country. So the consul started to get suspicious. If my father was a Jew, how did he get aceepted and if he did, why did he leave such an upscale position.

 He starts asking my father all sorts of military intelligence questions (these interviews were used as intel debriefs in their own right, but this went beyond that) and questions about my fathers whereabouts in the years preceding this visa application. After a while the consul relaxes and basically says that he had a suspicion that my father was a KGB agent who was looking to infiltrate into the US. So that was the reason for all of the probing questions and the long interview.

After that he approved the visa on the spot and the next day we were on a flight into JFK.

The first time I hears all of this I was like

As it turns out I was a G and when we had to go anywhere in those countries I accompanied my dad (my mother and 1 yr old brother stayed behind) and didn't ***** one bit throughout the Journey.I've always had no problem walking long distances (in fact I like it) and it turns out this may have been where it came from. 

 

[Thierry Henry]

^ bro what a story

born in miami , raised in miami (HIALEAH) , ive never left florida tho ....my step dad used to do dealer trade tows for bmw so ive been to every single bmw dealer in florida when i was a kid lol but ive never left this state. feelsbatman

lol @ you thinking that hialeah is miami. hialeah is a city on it's own

 

[currensy]

Born in Norfolk, Va
Stay in Norfolk, Va

 

[illicit305]

^ bro what a story
lol @ you thinking that hialeah is miami. hialeah is a city on it's own

lol? i obviously know its a city ive never lived anywhere else , i know half of NT doesnt know where hialeah is so i put the city in miami dade county that i live in , you must be one of those special bus kids huh?

 

[tooeasy891]

Norway, Norway

 

[mitchellicious]

I'm from Adelaide, Australia mate

 

[wayniac211]

Born in the bay area (nor cal), raised in NE Portland from 7-16 then parents deported me to the roots (Kingdom of Tonga). Retouched American soil in Hawaii international after 3 yrs, kissed the ground, went straight to mickey d's for a big Mac meal and bought a pack of newports. God bless America !!!

 

[kynithpugh]

from cali but live in atlanta
 

 

[Deleted member 38182]

Canadian born, Started my American life in the Midwest (Indiana and Texas with a few other briefs stints in between), before settling and being raised in Sacramento

 

[useref15]

Born and raised in NJ.

 

[nocomment6]

Born and raised in Canada. Currently I reside in Hungary.

 

[Thierry Henry]

^ bro what a story
lol @ you thinking that hialeah is miami. hialeah is a city on it's own

lol? i obviously know its a city ive never lived anywhere else , i know half of NT doesnt know where hialeah is so i put the city in miami dade county that i live in , you must be one of those special bus kids huh?

swing and a miss

try again kid, your insult doesn't affect me

 

[antidope]

Born in Jamaica, spent most of my life in New Jersey
 

 

[hawkflight6]

Born and raised in Canada

 

[dipsetgeneral]

Born in the US, but I am 100% Ghanian.

 

[DeadsetAce]

born and raised in MA...both parents from India

 

[$plash]

Parents from Panama
Born in Spain
Came to America when I was 6

 

[ballahb]

Liberian...born in DC, raised in Maryland