In a year like no other, immigrant women of all walks of life reflect on the ever-changing meaning of home and belonging.
Introducing Real People. Real Lives and Nataliya (00:00-02:03)
Hello! Welcome to the podcast Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York, a storytelling project from New Women New Yorkers.
Real People. Real Lives highlights a diverse picture of immigrant women living in the city. It elevates these narratives, moving beyond statistics and political rhetoric.
In the Summer and Fall of 2020, we interviewed immigrant women from all walks of life. They were selected through an open call or reached out directly, to ensure the participation of women from different backgrounds, and affected by the pandemic in various ways.
The participants talked about their immigrant experience within the backdrop of a year like no other – marked by the pandemic, Black Lives Matter and the presidential election. Each story you will hear is a unique mix of determination, hope, challenges, and victories – small and big.
Today, meet Nataliya, a nurse from Ukraine. A former journalist, she was satisfied with her career in Kiev, the Ukrainan capital. Then, the Orange Revolution hit, leading the country to the brink of civil war. Nataliya applied for political asylum in the US hoping to practice her craft in a free country. Journalism was not steady though. She needed a stable job, one immune to crises. Nursing was her choice, a profession that allowed Nataliiya to support her family in difficult times and to give back to the city during the darkest days of the pandemic.
Coming to the US (02:04-04:18)
I got my bachelors and master’s degree in Ukraine and my dream, my passion, was to become a TV journalist for an Ukrainian TV. I had no idea I would ever, ever leave Ukraine because Ukrainian language was my first language, I would never be able to achieve my dream living abroad. I didn’t feel the need to look for something else in another country, I wanted to contribute to my own country. But things got to the point when was almost impossible to work as a journalist, to work as a woman in Ukraine.
In 2005, we had the Orange Revolution, and, in 2009, we had a new presidential election. By that time I worked with the press media department for the mayor of Kiev then I became to work for a TV channel in Ukraine. I was writing a lot of articles as well, I was working as an editor and script writer for Ukrainian programs but my passion was to create my own documentary projects. When I came to New York to finish my documentary, I learned about the presidential election in Ukraine. I realized that would be dangerous for me to go back and I realized that my family had no future. Back then it felt almost a drill that’s real. In 2020, we had seen and witnessed the war with Russia and all the events after that presidential election. I never, ever in my lifetime I would think that it could happen in Ukraine. I asked for political asylum in America as an Ukrainian journalist. I had to prove that I was a real journalist, all my credentials, my ID, my articles, I received pretty fast and had my interview. I got it within a year
Moving forward (04:22-09:56)
I was tired of looking for bad stories, so I decided to go to nursing school. I wanted to be surrounded by positive people and I wanted to contribute to society in a different way. Yes, journalism and nursing sounds different, but there’s one idea: you help people. So I remember when I got my insurance I went to the hospital in New York and I was just watching nurses at all those nurses and doctors and thought: “Oh that’s a respectful professional”. I didn’t know anything about nursing [laughs]. You don’t need to fight in the streets, you don’t need to carry a heavy camera, you don’t need to be involved to all this drama, you can just help somebody today, at this moment, and change his life. I felt maybe I should become a nurse [laughs]. At that point I was also tired to be journalist cause is very unstable, very unpredictable.
It was so hard… I didn’t even know what ER meant, that was how basic my medical terminology was [laughs]. It was a lot of work, but I knew that, if the third world war happens, I would always have a job, and I would always be able to take care of my family. What helped me to survive in this country, in America, it’s just love for my parents, for my future imaginary children. I knew that, as a woman and an immigrant, I had to sacrifice a lot. Basically from working on one of the most prestigious TV channels in Ukraine I had to go all the way down and map the floor, wash dishes, become a server, become a nanny. I changed so many different professions. Emotionally it was hard but I knew that if I be persistent and stubborn and believe that one day would pay off, my children would have a better life, easier life, Because what’s going on in Europe, it’s like, it’s just been like that historically. Every 20 years something happens, one, second world war, then another war, another conflict…Even if you work hard there’s no security that your children will have a stable, safe life. I made this decision for children, to go to nursing school, to be strong and stay in America. And I had to accept that nothing would come easy for me here.
My parents never wanted to leave Ukraine because they didn’t speak any English, they had two houses, I have grandparents. Yes, they had a very humble life, but they didn’t have to worry much about paying mortgage, paying credit card, worrying about jobs or anything. But when things came to the fact that Russia might drop bombs in Eastern Europe, they started to think: What if it really happens? When it really happened, they became scared and concerned. I told them that I invested so much time to build my life in America, I wouldn’t be able to visit them, and if they wanted to see their grandchildren one day they should make a decision. So what I did was I became an American citizen, I sponsored them to come to New York. Luckily, for me, I was already a nurse, I had some income and I was able to do that. We lived in one bedroom-apartment, I lived with my parents in one room and I got a roommate just to save on rent [laughs]. My mom, she is a piano teacher and my dad is a pianist as well and he also repairs pianos. My mom, being a woman, she never complained a day [laughs]. She went to Brooklyn, bought a newspaper and got a babysitting job right away. My father, he started to look for random jobs like construction, housekeeping. Of course, it was hard on him, because having a master’s degree, being a professional musician, it was very hard for him to feel like….to clean the floor and start from nothing. Now they feel so much better. The way they worked even for those pennies, they saw that families or children loved them, respected them, that people recognized their higher education as well. People could trust them, rely on them, trust them with their children, so that kind of built confidence in them as well. My mom is not a babysitter anymore, she’s a piano teacher, and my father got a job at a music conservatory.
Life in the pandemic (09:57-16:08)
For the first two weeks it was a lot of chaos because we didn’t have any instructions. Nobody knew anything to begin with, so I feel that’s so unfair to blame any doctors, any nurses or hospital at this point because nobody knew what to do. Management kept changing the rules and protocols basically every single day. In the very beginning it was scary. After two, three weeks everybody got used to that. Nobody complained it and it became a new norm.
A lot of people have been through a lot this year, I feel so sorry for them and I feel so sorry for those families who lost their loved ones. But, for me, it has been one of the best years of my life. And the reason is I’ve been working so hard to get my nursing degree and I’ve been working so hard as a nurse. As a nurse you don’t do just like injection and giving the pills, you also do a very dirty job as well. Sometimes you have to clean the floor and you always feel exhausted. This year, I felt like, finally, our profession was validated and recognized. It made me feel good, it made people around me feel good, feel proud of me. All those decisions and choices I’ve been making for the last years, they finally paid off.
I have been trying to get pregnant for a long time as well and it was a magic that happened because I basically got pregnant during Covind time [laughs]. Yes, a lot of newspapers and the TV were saying how stressful this year was, how stressful a nurse is, but actually, in reality, yes, it was stressful but at the same it was a good feeling. I would never, ever quit my job during that time, I felt that I could contribute to the community, I could contribute to the city. I felt very safe in the hospital as well, it was amazing team work and maybe all those positive emotions help me to be like: this is my time, help me to get pregnant [laughs]. No matter what happens in the world, no matter what happens in America in terms of economic, politics…Even one of my family members lost their job, I could support them, we could survive, it made me feel good
I had Covid as well and my husband got Covid in the same time. We actually don’t know who got sick first, because we both were in critical fields, he was working, I was working, we don’t know who got it first. I was not scared at all. I did my best best to take care of him. Of course we isolated ourselves to make sure I wouldn’t transmit any infection. My husband was sick for two weeks and had very high fever. He was very, very weak. When he finally started to feel better, he became very anxious, he felt he couldn’t breathe, he needed a ventilator, oxygen: “take me to the hospital”, he couldn’t sleep for days. It was just, like, overwhelming. As for me, I did have symptoms but they were mild. I had a cough, I had a very strong headache, but I never had a fever. That happened first week of April and I got pregnant in May.
I don’t know why, but I just felt very calm. I cannot explain it, I think it’s because I’m an immigrant. That’s the only explanation I can find. Cause, when you come to this country, with 200 dollars in your pocket, and you don’t know anybody, you don’t know anything, you don’t even have a work authorization, you have to be strong, you have to believe in your values, you have to be honest with yourself, and you can’t afford to complain, you cannot afford to blame somebody. Also because, in the end of the day, I came from Ukraine, I still remember how my family was going through Chernobyl times. Covid is terrible, and a lot of people suffered, but at least we have some tools to protect ourselves and our families. Worst case scenario you just stay home and lock yourself in. But when we had Chernobyl back in Ukraine, first of all the government lied and nobody knew that it actually happened for days. You can’t wear masks or gloves, whatever you wear doesn’t help because of radiation. If you eat an apple it might have some radiation. I remember my grandparents used to test every vegetable or fruit for radiation levels. After that experience, Covid was not scary for me. Also, after having experienced when my family lost all their savings in 1991 when Soviet Union collapsed.. you understand that you cannot blame anybody. Everybody is in the same boat…It’s unfair. Of course, having that experience helped me to be stronger and made me look at things differently, and of course being a nurse as well.
Fighting against stereotypes (16:09-19:18)
In Ukraine, you tell people: “oh I went to this school”, “my parents worked there”, you have that history behind you. When you come here you are nobody, and the worst is that you have a bad stereotype, that stigma, you are this young Eastern European woman…
I don’t usually talk about it… When I came to New York, it was New Jersey Newark airport, and I gave my passport, I had my five-years business visa. I felt kind of relaxed as well, it was not my first trip to America and I knew a girl who I was about to stay on her couch to finish my documentary. The officer in the airport said:
– “where are you staying?”
– I’m staying with this girl”
– What does this girl do?
I said she’s a professional dancer from Broadway, and gave him the name, New York City Broadway. He got very suspicious and I was kept in a special room for five hours, they checked all my luggage. In the beginning it was just funny: “what are they looking for?”. As a journalist, you’re always looking for interesting stories, I was like: oh I’m going to write a story about my personal experience….But then they started to ask very inappropriate questions. As a woman, I felt not even upset, I felt like my world just collapsed. Just because I’m a woman, just because I’m from Eastern Europe, I have to go through this? It was very hard on me in the very end. I felt like, yes, I have to sacrifice a lot, to prove a lot, but I’ll make sure my children will never go through this. Their questions weren’t not in a nice way, with an attitude to make me feel bad. It was hard but in the same time it made me stronger, I was like: I’ll do everything possible to prove the opposite.
That never happened again with officials. That never happened in my nursing career, at school, any place I worked, that never happened…In personal life it happened a lot, I happened every time, all the time, everywhere. It was hard, hum, how can I say…I think I have good coping skills because otherwise I would probably have lose my mind because of all those stories that happened to me in a personal way. To be a woman, it’s hard, and I know, everybody, specially immigrant, goes through that. We just have to stay strong.
Finally, home (19:19-20:32)
In Ukraine I never felt I had at home, being honest with you, because my parents always had to move, because of Chernobyl, because of politics. My home is not a place, is not a building, an apartment or a house. Now I’m married and my husband is my home. Whenever he is, it will be my home, whenever my parents are it will be my home [sic]. Home is like the way you feel inside you and what people surround you.
Time and information, you can not buy it, but it can make your life so much easier and move you toward your goals. You have to stay focused as a woman. There are many temptations.. New York is an amazing city, even now it’s an amazing city. You have to have a plan, you have to be focused, what your final goal is. No matter what other people promise, you have to be focused on your goals, follow your values and what your parents taught you.
Closing/Credits (20:33-21:37)
Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast today. This week’s episode was produced and scripted by me, Bruna Shapira, and Arielle Kandel. Editing is by Anna Zemskova.
For more information about Real People. Real Lives. and the transcript of this episode, head to nywomenimmigrants.org. Next week, you’ll meet Zoraya, an advocate for domestic violence survivors from Ecuador.
. See you next week!