How did you come here? Did you always want to come to America?
Rhonda
No. It’s a long story.
When I was seven, my father managed to get me into School #5, although technically I was supposed to go to School #2. But School #5 was much better, with a focus on math, and my father wanted me to be a mathematician. By the time I hit high school, it was clear that mathematical specialization wasn’t for me.
Student academic competitions are very big in Russia, as big as the high school football is in Texas. The school had a high profile and I consistently placed in top three in municipal student Olympiads in biology, chemistry, geography, history, etc. Curiously, I was disqualified from a literature Olympiad, because they were sure I plagiarized my short story. They didn’t know where from and they couldn’t prove it, but they were sure that a 14 year old couldn’t have written it. I thought my poor teacher would have an aneurysm on the spot. She had watched me write it. I kind of didn’t care about it, because as my father frequently explained to me, “Писанина никогда тебя не покормит,” which translates to “Scribbling will never feed you.” He claims to not remember this.
It got so bad that when a competition was coming, they would just stick me in there without even asking. But when I went to a math Olympiad, I drew a blank. There were about 7 or 8 problems and I solved none. Zero. When the teacher in charge of it was discussing results, he said, “Some of your solved everything and some of you solved none.” And then he looked at me. I was so scarred by the experience, I still remember his face as he said it. 🙂
My mother quickly realized that I was hitting diminishing returns. She would watch me study and study and study, and the best I could manage in math was a B. The school had just implemented a new class specialization with a focus in Biology and I said I wanted to transfer. My mom was all for it. My father pitched a huge fit. Words like “Over my dead body” were said. Curiously, he doesn’t remember this either. Mom eventually wore him down and I transferred. It was so easy, I can’t even explain it. I breezed through my classes.
At that point, somehow the teacher in charge of biology program became connected with Western Carolina University Chemistry department. She was tall, statuesque, long hair, attractive, spoke English well, and so WCU decided to sponsor a group of five students and five teachers to come to US and visit them during their special summer camp for young scientists, or something like that. Sorry, it was long ago, and my English wasn’t good back then. Basically, they marched high school kids into the mountains, showed them dried up pine trees, and talked about acid rain and effects of pollution.
So there came a time to select the students for the trip. The first student was the son of the biology teacher’s friend. He spoke English well and was a spoiled kid. The second, and his name was Herman, and I don’t know why I remember that, was the son of the warehouse supervisor who sponsored the trip. The third was a good looking blond kid who was good at sports. I don’t even remember the fourth one. But basically when they got down to the final spot, they realized that they needed a girl and someone who would actually answer if a scientific question was asked. I fit the bill.
They asked me if I would go. I said yes. I came home and told my mom about it, and she laughed for like 5 minutes. When she was finally able to talk, she said, “Honey, people like us don’t go abroad.”
In two weeks I brought home the visa application and a packet of forms. My parents finally realized it was for real and promptly panicked. My dad ran all over town and flew to Moscow to get me a passport and a visa. Mom frantically tried to scrape together some money to buy валюта, foreign currency because they couldn’t send me there with nothing. Things were sold. Decent clothes that wouldn’t embarrass the family were purchased. I had never had so much attention lavished on me by my parents in my entire life.
Finally I joined the student group and we flew to US. We went to Washington, walked around, almost saw President Bush Senior, who at the last moment decided he was too busy and informed our teachers that he had to spend his time serving Americans rather than meeting Russians. That was a quote. 🙂 Finally we flew to NC. As we were driving around in a van, we ended up stopping at a private school in Georgia, Rabun Gap Nacoochee, where a former student of the WCU’s Chemistry Department head worked as a chemistry teacher.
We toured the lab building and I got really sad. It was so depressing. They had tables. They had Bunsen burners, and sinks, and real laboratory equipment, and chemicals. The only reaction we have done in Russian school was mixing CuSO4 + BaCl2 → BaSO4 + CuCl2
It forms a white precipitate. ::waves a little flag:: Wooo. So Mr. Mallot, who was the chemistry teacher, came up and asked me why I was sad. I tried to explain it to him in my broken English and then I pulled out a notebook I took with me, because I had expected chemical questions, and showed him all the theoretical equations for the reactions and told him I had no idea what any of those compounds looked like.
We left the school, and then a few days later, they sent over a full scholarship packet with my name on it. I won’t bore you with the description of the freak out that followed with my family. I only had a year to go in Russian high school. What if I went to US for a year and then had to come back and I would have to redo a year? What if I got pregnant? What if I got shot, because people randomly shoot each other in America? What if, what if?
Long story short, I ended up coming for a year, then the school gave me another scholarship fro the next year, but by that point they ran out of classes to give me. Through a complicated series of events Duke offered me a very good scholarship, not quite a full ride, but close. But WCU offered me a full ride and adults in my life talked me into going to WCU instead, because it was a smaller school and I wouldn’t fall through the cracks. I started in January of my senior year and met Gordon in the English class. Things took a sharp turn at the end of that semester, but that’s a story for another time.
And that’s how I came to America.
Thank you so much for sharing your story! I was wondering too. I’m REALLY glad that you came to America and met Gordon because I can’t speak or read Russian, so I’d be missing out on your books. ????????
What a lovely story. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.
Oh wow! Now I understand…amazing life stories lead to amazing fiction. Any plans for an autobiography?!?….
I loved that story. Thank you for sharing!
This made me tear up a little. What a gift we got in you.
I’ve always wondered but didnt want to bother with that question. That’s amazing. Thank you for sharing with us.
same!
I thoroughly enjoyed that. I love listening/reading about people’s histories. I used to love my grandmother’s stories of her childhood. It’s just so fascinating how people become who they are.
I’m so glad you moved here. Thanks for the story, looking forward to Part 2: Beating Gordon’s Grades in English!
Beating Americans in English class is easy.
Losing your accent (even after living here for 40 years) – impossible.
Very cool story.
Why lose the accent? It is Sooo cool.
That is an amazing story. So glad you came! I love your books. ❤️
Thank you for sharing.
Wow, thank you for sharing.
It was fated that you both met xx
So glad you did!
Oh wow…what a journey…maybe someday a book? Hint hint….
Well done for being so brave…when I was a teenager I never would’ve gone abroad on my own. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing such a great story. I’m so glad your journey brought you here.
Very glad you took the chance and came!
What a wonderful series of events. Thank you for sharing your story. Literally you could write a list and I would love it ???? sapphire flames ending broke my heart literally. Yours and Gordon’s writing is so powerful. Love and light and tea ????
I am so glad you did! Hope you are happy here, too.
That is so cool. I’m very glad you were able to come here. Not just because of y’all’s writing, but because you were able to come here and do something it sounds like you enjoyed and something else you’re enjoying.
O_O
Wow. I feel humbled. And thankful that things happened this way, because I could not read your books if they were written in Russian. (I am however sure you would have become a writer in any case.)
THAT was a very interesting story. I love it. It’s exciting to hear about someone who came here and how it happened. The background of what it was like before you did. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Thank you for sharing. You have made the world a better place with your stories.
This was so amazing to read. Omg. You are so inspiring!! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing. That was lovely and reminded me of my own parent’s story.
You are amazing! Thank you for that story! I am from Bulgaria, a small East European country, but by a not so interesting story I studied in a Russian school and have a high school Russian Аттестат. And probably can
farely imagine what it was – the story about how thay chouse the students ahaha, and for your parents to send you to the States, the horror and the worry and all. But you are amazing as I said, and very very smart. Science has lost a great mind, but we have ganed a load of good stories. Great picture. Happy writing.
My daughter was once accused of plagiarizing a paper. She worked at the town library and worked there and at home ( pre google days ) and she worked hard. Her teacher accused her of copying but .. had no idea of where she supposedly got it. It infuriated me.
ALL of my kids were good students and worked hard to do well.. even thinking about that…teacher.. today makes me angry.,
I’m glad things worked out as it did… and that you are here and writing with Gordon. Thank you for your books, I love them 🙂
Wow! That is a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing!
Synchronicity is everything. Paths dividing in the wood and all that. So glad you took so many chances????????and landed where you’re meant to be. Computers vs Bunsen burners?? No contest.
Wow! That is the most amazing story. God must have really wanted you here. And though I would like to think that it was all for my literary benefit, I suspect there is a lot more to it than that. So, I’m grateful for that underlying purpose that had the side effect of my meeting Kate Daniels, Dina DeMille, and the Baylor family, et. al.
Nice story, and we are so glad you came and met Gordon ????
And to think, if anything in that story hadn’t happened, if you’d gone to Duke instead, or never come here for classes, or not been chosen to go on the initial trip, you would never have met Gordon and we wouldn’t have any of the wonderful stories you’ve created together. So happy it all turned out the way it has. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your story. Encouraging to learn that people recognized your talent and capability and became engaged on your behalf. Not confident that it would happen the same way these days. There’s a lesson in how biology and chemistry could embrace you while mathematics left you cold. Certainly the discipline and clarity that science requires contribute to the excellence of your story telling. One might hope in the grand scheme of thing those teachers who challenged your writing prowess as a 14 year old have been made aware of their ignorance. And that your Dad has eaten a little crow despite his conveniently imperfect memory. It’s an inspiring journey.
Wow, that’s worth a movie script! The BDH owes WCU and your mom and dad an enormous thank you cause we’re sooooo glad your here..
Thanks so much! More stories please!
Oh wow! It’s always interesting to read or hear about how someone came to America. Living history.
My paternal grandfather came to America from southern Germany right before WWII. He became a naturalized citizen. However, my paternal grandmother did not become a U.S. citizen. After she had my dad, she took my dad to Germany to live with her family. Her family forced her to go back to Chicago with my dad since war was about to start. The U.S. government grandfathered all the non U.S. citizen women who were married to naturalized citizens or natural born citizens to become a citizen. Found that out when my dad put his mom into a nursing home.
However, my mom’s family was more interesting, to me, to learn about. My maternal grandparents basically caused a scandal. My maternal grandmother was Protestant, but my maternal grandfather was Irish Catholic. My maternal grandfather was the only son (he had two sisters). Back in the early 1900s that was a huge taboo. What I also found out about my maternal grandfather was he liked to ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. He had two of them. The first one he traded in for the second one. The second one got trashed in an accident while a friend was driving it.
wonderful. You were so brave to take the plunge and come to another country, and your parents, trusted you.
In a person’s life you have choices . You take a leap of faith.
You used your brain, you were a girl, and fate gave you a choice.
Thank you for coming to America.
And thank you to the Americans who helped you stay.
And thank you to your parents for raising such a remarkable woman. Bless your mom.
Thank you for sharing.
Double thank you for taking that writing class and meeting Gordon.
Thank you for sharing. So grateful you came to the US and write amazing stories in English!
Life is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. We are glad to have you, and grateful for your ‘scribblings’.
This is amazing! Thank you for sharing!
Спасибо Ilona Alexandrovna for sharing this story with us. Coming from Eastern Europe and having lived behind the Iron Curtain and the time right after it, I understand a bit what that must have felt like for both your family (your poor mother!) and yourself. A very serendipitous mix of events- and they deserved to lose you for kicking you out of the Literature Olympics ????. We’re fortunate you started “scribbling” again!
Thank you for sharing your story. I’d never read it before (I’d gleaned “Grew up in Russia, college in US, met Gordon there” and that was it).
Thank you for sharing your story. America is a better place with you in it.
That is what I like about immigration. We get know people and points of view from perspectives we cannot have while sitting in one place all the time.
When I think about Russian people, I think about you, your books, and your father who likes to fix things when he comes to visit you. Good people. Real people. Human.
OUTSTANDING!! Many many loud cheers!! I. Frequently work with students and intl adults. Everywhere from EVERY WHERE in Latin America and EVERYWHERE in So Asia. In our deep RED community we are all both physically emotionally beat up all the time. Once TRYING to carefully explain to angry group of 25 how we are more similar than different I took 3 last names McCarthy Morgan and Boyd. I mentioned only 120 years or so ago most likely YOUR PEOPLE grabbed a dream in one hand their shoes in the other jumped on a broke down sailing vessel guaranteed to sail off the edge of our flat world into sea serpents jaws made it here. Our world is not pie. One more slice shared does not make less for you. We are simply candles. Light one more candle from your flame and the room gets warmer brighter. They hated it. Sigh.
And we are so glad you did❣️
Isn’t life funny the way things work out. I am very glad you two met, I enjoy y’alls books. Thank you Ilona and Gordon for all you do.
I love this story. Thank you for sharing! You never know where life will take you, and who you might meet along the way.
Wow! So great, thank you so much for sharing!!!
Education is a powerful tool and an extreme economic divide. In my state primary school that was not long after closed completely, I was considered 2smart” and thus able to teach myself – there were kids who needed far more attention than me and otherswith whom I could even help the teachers. I was moved up years, moved sideways, and all over. There was discussion when I was eight if I could be sent to secondary school early. No. Eventually I got to be 11 and was able to move on, my family had me do the tests for private schools and scholarships and I won several. The culture shock was insane. They had all been learning a second language and an instrument for years, doing numerous extracurricular sports and hobbies, all the things which enabled them to be unthinkingly more educated than me without even trying. My family were just as shocked by the things they had to attend. The first year I was in a play version of Our Mutual Friend. The next it was an opera – The Barber of Seville (I was a townsperson and instructed not to sing just mime – French and Music I barely passed throughout school, my accent being atrocious apparently and only my written music carrying me through). There were swimming regattas, tennis tournaments and so many trips. It’s not just the different countries educational systems that separate people, it’s the quality and funding. My friends family is from former Yugoslavia and ironically the thing his dad laments is the communist education system (and of course pelinkovac!)
Yikes! I can only imagine what you must have went through with your peers. Lots of kudos for sticking with it. You have a lot of courage.
Thank you, but, well, I have Aspergers, so in some ways much of the peer problems that you would expect to bother someone passed over me or simply didn’t matter to me. In other ways not so much as the socialising was way worse and an all girls school. . . Girls are very confusing and I am one. Also the worse responses were actually from the people I lived around and had gone to primary school with and knew their families growing up. Humans are a strangely illogical and reactive species. (My fall back saying when things get weird!)
Such an awesome story. Thank you for sharing it. I have to admit, I started bawling when I read what your parents did to help you get ready for the exchange program. Your parents LOVED you. Mine did, too, so I can understand the hoops parents would go through for the children. Amazing.
Wow! Sounds like your story would make a great after school special for STEM students. March is Women in Science month!
Is it another time yet? ???? No just kidding…. awesome tale of life working in mysterious ways, thank you!