The Americanization of Lyuda (/)
08/13/2004 | Sztefan Zeitz
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/9859042p-10781341c.html
The Sacramento Bee
The Americanization of Lyuda
A teen from Ukraine does a balancing act as she learns the ways of her new country
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, July 4, 2004
At first glance, Lyuda Smal seems like a typical American teenager. She wears trendy jean capris. She has an eyelash curler and compact at the ready for all occasions. Her favorite book is Judy Blume's young-adult classic "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," and if you ask her to tell you about the movies she's seen recently, she'll give you a rambling explanation, littered with "likes" and "nuh-uhs."
But then she starts to give herself away. Mention "Jessica Simpson" and her probing, wide-set eyes fill with a rare blankness. Her understanding of the Democratic and Republican parties is equally sparse, and even though she's read "Go Ask Alice," she couldn't tell you how it's related to the 1960s.
Born in Ukraine and raised in the United States, Lyuda, 15, is still assimilating. Like many kids living between two worlds, she has learned to mimic the styles and trends of her new life much faster than her parents have. At the same time, she lacks knowledge of the cultural history and social cues that the American-born take for granted.
"They can come and learn the English, but they're missing a certain element," says Mike Stevens, who taught Lyuda introductory art at Encina High School and who has observed many Ukrainian students navigating their dual worlds. "They're still at home being raised as Ukrainian kids."
Lyuda's not alone
Sacramento County has a huge Ukrainian population, one of the largest in the nation, says Florin Ciuriuc, executive director of Sacramento's Slavic Community Center.
The 2000 census recorded 13,326 Sacramento County residents who claimed all or part Ukrainian ancestry. Considering that non-English-speaking populations often are undercounted, the 2000 number may have been higher.
Ciuriuc, a one-time census worker, believes that to be the case. Based on his work in the community, and comparing the census data with church registries and other community agencies, he be-lieves there may be 40,000 Ukrainians in the county now, perhaps as many as half of them teenagers.
Most immigrants came here as religious refugees starting around 1989, fleeing persecution of their Jewish and Christian faiths in the former Soviet Union, Ciuriuc says. Many come from large families with strict rules and religious traditions, so assimilation is a tricky process.
Teens adapt more quickly than do their parents, learning English first and serving as translators and representatives for the family to the outside world.
Some handle the pressures better than others.
Ukrainian teens in Sacramento seem to fall into two groups, Ciuriuc says: those who rebel against their fundamentalist backgrounds and those who plod along, working hard to balance their Ukrainian home life with American realities.
He says the first group is smaller but gets more attention.
"There is more temptation" in a free country such as the United States, he says, explaining how some kids get into trouble. "The attitude is: 'I want to have sex and I'm going to have it. I want to steal a car and I'm going to do it.'"
This mind-set has led to problems among some Ukrainian teens: drug use, violence, car theft.
The second group's members want to prove themselves as good students while trying to convince their conservative parents that it's OK to wear makeup and see an occasional R-rated movie.
'Now, it's only makeup'
And that's about where Lyuda fits in. Having lived in the country for six years, she falls at a midpoint in the community, less familiar with American culture than those who came near the beginning of the immigration wave, but more savvy than recent arrivals.
Instead of the longish skirts and dresses of her mother's generation, Lyuda wears mostly jeans, often accompanied by colorful shirts imprinted with words such as "Fabulous" in block letters.
Her American fashion sense does not go over well with the older generation.
" 'Now, it's only makeup,' " Lyuda says, mimicking her mother. " 'Next thing, your hair is dyed.' "
Though Lyuda tends to be reserved, when she finds a topic of interest, her English tumbles out in excited spurts. She often ends up translating for fellow Ukrainian students less skilled in the language.
At the same time, her life is marked by the Ukrainian culture and church. With the school year over, she spends much of her time attending services at New Generation Church, a charismatic congregation with ties to Latvia. She is routinely called on to baby-sit siblings, which is a big job when you come from a family of 11 children.
Like many religious Ukrainians, her parents "believe you need to have as many kids as God gives you," says Lyuda's brother Alex, 20. That means the family's four-bedroom rental house is alive with constant laughing, crying and bickering - in both Ukrainian and English.
Though she'd rather be seeing a movie or shopping at the mall, Lyuda spends most of her summer hours at home. She's allowed to go out only if an older sibling accompanies her. Because she falls between age groups in the family, popular-culture excursions don't happen often.
"I'm always in the middle," she complains. "If I ever wanted to be with (my older sisters), they were like, 'Get out of here.' But the other girls are way too little - I'm not going to play Barbies with them."
So, Lyuda resigns herself to a home-focused life, helping her mom wash walls and clean the garage, and reading voraciously - sometimes four books a week - because her parents consider TV sinful.
Less slack from parents
It wasn't always like this. Before they moved to the United States, Lyuda's parents were less strict.
"They're more protective here because the country's open," Alex says. "They think there's much more opportunity for us to get in trouble - more violence, more sin."
Life in Ukraine was tough, but they understood it.
Raising their family in the small industrial city of Kovel, Lyuda's parents, Vladimir and Mariya, "had to be smart, had to be able to survive," Alex says. Vladimir was trained as a carpenter. But because of religious discrimination, Alex says, Vladimir and his wife could find work only as operators in a utility building.
Because the Ukrainian standard of living was low, when the opportunity came in 1997 to join relatives in the United States as religious refugees, the Smals set out for Minnesota. Unable to find work there, they relocated to Sacramento, joining cousins.
Life is better here, but not perfect. Because of his limited English skills, Vladimir has only been able to find work packaging computers on an assembly line. Lyuda's mother stays at home caring for younger kids.
The two eldest children, Alex and Svetlana, 19, live in an apartment a few minutes away from their parents' home near Haggin Oaks Golf Course.
For the Smal kids, memories of Ukraine can be summed up in one word: poor.
"Stuff didn't look old because we got used to it," Lyuda says, lounging in her bedroom on a recent afternoon. Looking back, she says, "Man, it was old."
"Like the Ukrainian skirt," Liliya, 10, contributes. All four of the girls in the room smile knowingly. The skirt arrived as a present from a well-meaning Ukrainian aunt and has hung in Lyuda's closet ever since.
"She thinks the skirt looks like a grandma skirt," Liliya teases. "Get it, get it."
After some coaxing, Lyuda pushes open the closet door and reaches in for the infamous item. It emerges - a poufy, peach-themed floral design, not up to the girls' recently acquired fashion standards. The sisters collapse in laughter at this relic of their old lives.
A full house
Despite the girls' new material expectations, their living situation would be considered modest by most Americans.
The Smals' tidy rental unit, just off Marysville Boulevard, has two bathrooms and four simple bedrooms, which house Vladimir, Mariya and the nine youngest Smal children.
Lyuda shares a room with three of her sisters, two sleeping in each bed. Lacking any celebrity posters, candid shots of friends or haphazardly stacked CDs, the space seems sterile. The two double beds with matching floral-patterned comforters give the impression of a motel. The only personal touches are two bouquets of artificial flowers, a small framed photo of Lyuda at her 14th birthday party and a pastel dragonfly picture she drew for her Encina High art class.
It's not really her room, she explains, so she can't decorate it as she'd like.
"Maybe if I would have my own room, my mom would let me put up posters," she muses. "I would put up a desk, a bulletin board."
Immigrants from the former Soviet Union are unaccustomed to the level of personal space enjoyed by most Americans.
Stevens, Lyuda's art teacher, says he often has encountered this cultural trait in his Ukrainian students. One time, when he asked a girl why she was so tired in class, she explained she had been sharing a bed with both her sister and her sister's boyfriend, and the arrangement made it difficult for her to sleep.
"In these big families, personal space is all the space you need," Stevens says.
But a girl can dream.
Liliya and Dana, 8, already are plotting Lyuda's departure from the house someday.
"When Lyuda goes, I'll have my own bed," Liliya says, bouncing on one of the doubles.
"And we will have all those drawers," Dana adds, her eyes locked on the bureau she'll inherit.
Anxious father
These kinds of ideas worry Vladimir. Although he cherishes his American freedoms, he is concerned his children will lose their moral convictions and stop appreciating what they have.
His solution: a steady diet of church services.
Like many Ukrainian teens, Lyuda's life is profoundly influenced by her family's church. She often goes to services three times a week, and most of the nonfamily friends she has are Ukrainians she met through religious activities.
With temptations beckoning from every Kelis video and high school locker room, Ukrainian adults aren't shy about sheltering their children. In school, Ukrainian students often are excused from attending information assemblies on drugs and sex for religious reasons, Stevens says.
This strict approach to parenting has caused tension in the Smal household. Victor, 14, gets in trouble for listening to the music of Eminem and for calling himself a "pimp." Alex says he often felt stifled at home by his parents' rules, especially their approach to dating.
"They said, 'You'll see somebody in church, you like somebody, you pray about it, you get married,' " he says.
Still, the kids attend New Generation Church.
"In life, you always have choice," Lyuda says. "Because I know God, I pick the right choice."
Lyuda refuses to try drugs and listens exclusively to the music of Slavic religious groups such as JC House and Christomania.
While some teens abhor the ritual of Sunday worship, Lyuda looks forward to it.
"He comes, he comes," singers belt in Russian as worshippers filter in to New Generation on a recent Sunday. Housed in the "Russian Plaza" office complex off Fulton Avenue, the space looks more like a conference room than a church. A full Ukrainian band - drummer, guitarist, soloist and backup singers - sways on the low stage.
The Smals come from a Pentecostal background but like New Generation because it has a looser format.
"I like for church to have freedom, have life, have action," Lyuda says. "I don't like churches that are limiting."
As the preacher sermonizes, crescendoing with frenzied "glorys" and "hallelujahs," worshippers break off into their own worlds, speaking in tongues, swaying back and forth, shouting.
But even here, there is a divide.
Lyuda and her older sister, Valentina, 17, sit separately from their parents. While Vladimir becomes engrossed in the service, rocking on his heels and covering his face with his hands, Lyuda sways back and forth slightly, occasionally half-raising her arms self-consciously.
Before the service is over, she leaves to gossip in the hallway with church friends.
They plan a future meeting. Church next week? A Slavic gospel crusade later in the month? Or maybe, if they're lucky, a trip to the mall?
This cultural duality is normal. Like so many generations of immigrants before them, Ukrainians will continue to be absorbed into mainstream American life, with teenagers leading the way.
"Parents and grandparents are struggling with their children," Ciuriuc says. "They go to church, sing the Russian songs, pray in the Russian language.
"But we must realize that they will become more Americanized. It's inevitable."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the Writer
The Bee's Elena Lesley can be reached at elesley@sacbee.com.
The Sacramento Bee
The Americanization of Lyuda
A teen from Ukraine does a balancing act as she learns the ways of her new country
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, July 4, 2004
At first glance, Lyuda Smal seems like a typical American teenager. She wears trendy jean capris. She has an eyelash curler and compact at the ready for all occasions. Her favorite book is Judy Blume's young-adult classic "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," and if you ask her to tell you about the movies she's seen recently, she'll give you a rambling explanation, littered with "likes" and "nuh-uhs."
But then she starts to give herself away. Mention "Jessica Simpson" and her probing, wide-set eyes fill with a rare blankness. Her understanding of the Democratic and Republican parties is equally sparse, and even though she's read "Go Ask Alice," she couldn't tell you how it's related to the 1960s.
Born in Ukraine and raised in the United States, Lyuda, 15, is still assimilating. Like many kids living between two worlds, she has learned to mimic the styles and trends of her new life much faster than her parents have. At the same time, she lacks knowledge of the cultural history and social cues that the American-born take for granted.
"They can come and learn the English, but they're missing a certain element," says Mike Stevens, who taught Lyuda introductory art at Encina High School and who has observed many Ukrainian students navigating their dual worlds. "They're still at home being raised as Ukrainian kids."
Lyuda's not alone
Sacramento County has a huge Ukrainian population, one of the largest in the nation, says Florin Ciuriuc, executive director of Sacramento's Slavic Community Center.
The 2000 census recorded 13,326 Sacramento County residents who claimed all or part Ukrainian ancestry. Considering that non-English-speaking populations often are undercounted, the 2000 number may have been higher.
Ciuriuc, a one-time census worker, believes that to be the case. Based on his work in the community, and comparing the census data with church registries and other community agencies, he be-lieves there may be 40,000 Ukrainians in the county now, perhaps as many as half of them teenagers.
Most immigrants came here as religious refugees starting around 1989, fleeing persecution of their Jewish and Christian faiths in the former Soviet Union, Ciuriuc says. Many come from large families with strict rules and religious traditions, so assimilation is a tricky process.
Teens adapt more quickly than do their parents, learning English first and serving as translators and representatives for the family to the outside world.
Some handle the pressures better than others.
Ukrainian teens in Sacramento seem to fall into two groups, Ciuriuc says: those who rebel against their fundamentalist backgrounds and those who plod along, working hard to balance their Ukrainian home life with American realities.
He says the first group is smaller but gets more attention.
"There is more temptation" in a free country such as the United States, he says, explaining how some kids get into trouble. "The attitude is: 'I want to have sex and I'm going to have it. I want to steal a car and I'm going to do it.'"
This mind-set has led to problems among some Ukrainian teens: drug use, violence, car theft.
The second group's members want to prove themselves as good students while trying to convince their conservative parents that it's OK to wear makeup and see an occasional R-rated movie.
'Now, it's only makeup'
And that's about where Lyuda fits in. Having lived in the country for six years, she falls at a midpoint in the community, less familiar with American culture than those who came near the beginning of the immigration wave, but more savvy than recent arrivals.
Instead of the longish skirts and dresses of her mother's generation, Lyuda wears mostly jeans, often accompanied by colorful shirts imprinted with words such as "Fabulous" in block letters.
Her American fashion sense does not go over well with the older generation.
" 'Now, it's only makeup,' " Lyuda says, mimicking her mother. " 'Next thing, your hair is dyed.' "
Though Lyuda tends to be reserved, when she finds a topic of interest, her English tumbles out in excited spurts. She often ends up translating for fellow Ukrainian students less skilled in the language.
At the same time, her life is marked by the Ukrainian culture and church. With the school year over, she spends much of her time attending services at New Generation Church, a charismatic congregation with ties to Latvia. She is routinely called on to baby-sit siblings, which is a big job when you come from a family of 11 children.
Like many religious Ukrainians, her parents "believe you need to have as many kids as God gives you," says Lyuda's brother Alex, 20. That means the family's four-bedroom rental house is alive with constant laughing, crying and bickering - in both Ukrainian and English.
Though she'd rather be seeing a movie or shopping at the mall, Lyuda spends most of her summer hours at home. She's allowed to go out only if an older sibling accompanies her. Because she falls between age groups in the family, popular-culture excursions don't happen often.
"I'm always in the middle," she complains. "If I ever wanted to be with (my older sisters), they were like, 'Get out of here.' But the other girls are way too little - I'm not going to play Barbies with them."
So, Lyuda resigns herself to a home-focused life, helping her mom wash walls and clean the garage, and reading voraciously - sometimes four books a week - because her parents consider TV sinful.
Less slack from parents
It wasn't always like this. Before they moved to the United States, Lyuda's parents were less strict.
"They're more protective here because the country's open," Alex says. "They think there's much more opportunity for us to get in trouble - more violence, more sin."
Life in Ukraine was tough, but they understood it.
Raising their family in the small industrial city of Kovel, Lyuda's parents, Vladimir and Mariya, "had to be smart, had to be able to survive," Alex says. Vladimir was trained as a carpenter. But because of religious discrimination, Alex says, Vladimir and his wife could find work only as operators in a utility building.
Because the Ukrainian standard of living was low, when the opportunity came in 1997 to join relatives in the United States as religious refugees, the Smals set out for Minnesota. Unable to find work there, they relocated to Sacramento, joining cousins.
Life is better here, but not perfect. Because of his limited English skills, Vladimir has only been able to find work packaging computers on an assembly line. Lyuda's mother stays at home caring for younger kids.
The two eldest children, Alex and Svetlana, 19, live in an apartment a few minutes away from their parents' home near Haggin Oaks Golf Course.
For the Smal kids, memories of Ukraine can be summed up in one word: poor.
"Stuff didn't look old because we got used to it," Lyuda says, lounging in her bedroom on a recent afternoon. Looking back, she says, "Man, it was old."
"Like the Ukrainian skirt," Liliya, 10, contributes. All four of the girls in the room smile knowingly. The skirt arrived as a present from a well-meaning Ukrainian aunt and has hung in Lyuda's closet ever since.
"She thinks the skirt looks like a grandma skirt," Liliya teases. "Get it, get it."
After some coaxing, Lyuda pushes open the closet door and reaches in for the infamous item. It emerges - a poufy, peach-themed floral design, not up to the girls' recently acquired fashion standards. The sisters collapse in laughter at this relic of their old lives.
A full house
Despite the girls' new material expectations, their living situation would be considered modest by most Americans.
The Smals' tidy rental unit, just off Marysville Boulevard, has two bathrooms and four simple bedrooms, which house Vladimir, Mariya and the nine youngest Smal children.
Lyuda shares a room with three of her sisters, two sleeping in each bed. Lacking any celebrity posters, candid shots of friends or haphazardly stacked CDs, the space seems sterile. The two double beds with matching floral-patterned comforters give the impression of a motel. The only personal touches are two bouquets of artificial flowers, a small framed photo of Lyuda at her 14th birthday party and a pastel dragonfly picture she drew for her Encina High art class.
It's not really her room, she explains, so she can't decorate it as she'd like.
"Maybe if I would have my own room, my mom would let me put up posters," she muses. "I would put up a desk, a bulletin board."
Immigrants from the former Soviet Union are unaccustomed to the level of personal space enjoyed by most Americans.
Stevens, Lyuda's art teacher, says he often has encountered this cultural trait in his Ukrainian students. One time, when he asked a girl why she was so tired in class, she explained she had been sharing a bed with both her sister and her sister's boyfriend, and the arrangement made it difficult for her to sleep.
"In these big families, personal space is all the space you need," Stevens says.
But a girl can dream.
Liliya and Dana, 8, already are plotting Lyuda's departure from the house someday.
"When Lyuda goes, I'll have my own bed," Liliya says, bouncing on one of the doubles.
"And we will have all those drawers," Dana adds, her eyes locked on the bureau she'll inherit.
Anxious father
These kinds of ideas worry Vladimir. Although he cherishes his American freedoms, he is concerned his children will lose their moral convictions and stop appreciating what they have.
His solution: a steady diet of church services.
Like many Ukrainian teens, Lyuda's life is profoundly influenced by her family's church. She often goes to services three times a week, and most of the nonfamily friends she has are Ukrainians she met through religious activities.
With temptations beckoning from every Kelis video and high school locker room, Ukrainian adults aren't shy about sheltering their children. In school, Ukrainian students often are excused from attending information assemblies on drugs and sex for religious reasons, Stevens says.
This strict approach to parenting has caused tension in the Smal household. Victor, 14, gets in trouble for listening to the music of Eminem and for calling himself a "pimp." Alex says he often felt stifled at home by his parents' rules, especially their approach to dating.
"They said, 'You'll see somebody in church, you like somebody, you pray about it, you get married,' " he says.
Still, the kids attend New Generation Church.
"In life, you always have choice," Lyuda says. "Because I know God, I pick the right choice."
Lyuda refuses to try drugs and listens exclusively to the music of Slavic religious groups such as JC House and Christomania.
While some teens abhor the ritual of Sunday worship, Lyuda looks forward to it.
"He comes, he comes," singers belt in Russian as worshippers filter in to New Generation on a recent Sunday. Housed in the "Russian Plaza" office complex off Fulton Avenue, the space looks more like a conference room than a church. A full Ukrainian band - drummer, guitarist, soloist and backup singers - sways on the low stage.
The Smals come from a Pentecostal background but like New Generation because it has a looser format.
"I like for church to have freedom, have life, have action," Lyuda says. "I don't like churches that are limiting."
As the preacher sermonizes, crescendoing with frenzied "glorys" and "hallelujahs," worshippers break off into their own worlds, speaking in tongues, swaying back and forth, shouting.
But even here, there is a divide.
Lyuda and her older sister, Valentina, 17, sit separately from their parents. While Vladimir becomes engrossed in the service, rocking on his heels and covering his face with his hands, Lyuda sways back and forth slightly, occasionally half-raising her arms self-consciously.
Before the service is over, she leaves to gossip in the hallway with church friends.
They plan a future meeting. Church next week? A Slavic gospel crusade later in the month? Or maybe, if they're lucky, a trip to the mall?
This cultural duality is normal. Like so many generations of immigrants before them, Ukrainians will continue to be absorbed into mainstream American life, with teenagers leading the way.
"Parents and grandparents are struggling with their children," Ciuriuc says. "They go to church, sing the Russian songs, pray in the Russian language.
"But we must realize that they will become more Americanized. It's inevitable."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the Writer
The Bee's Elena Lesley can be reached at elesley@sacbee.com.