March 14, 1992.
My family arrived in the US as refugees with 2 suitcases each.
I was 17.
What I think about most today is not the arrival.
It’s my parents.
They were in their early 40s. They had built a life in the USSR. Careers. Friends. Familiar streets.
But they were also Jewish.
And in the Soviet system that mattered.
Being Jewish was not a religion you practiced. Religion itself was suppressed. But Jewish identity was written into official documents as your nationality. If that line said “Jew,” everyone understood what it meant. Certain universities were harder to enter. Certain careers quietly closed. Advancement often stopped at invisible ceilings.
My parents had built lives despite that.
But they also knew what the future could hold.
In Aug 1991 they made the decision to leave and apply for political asylum in the US.
I often ask them how they found the courage. How they managed the fear.
Because leaving meant walking away from everything familiar and stepping into the unknown with two children and no guarantees.
And then we arrived in the US.
I remember the taste of Coca Cola and the drive to Stamford. Clean highways. Quiet neighborhoods. Everything working.
To a teenager arriving from the USSR, it felt like another world.
I walked into Stamford High very much a FOB. My English was limited and every conversation felt like a puzzle I was solving in real time.
So I worked. Two jobs while learning English. One at a Hilton hotel where I learned what an English muffin was and how to load a commercial dishwasher.
With my first paycheck I bought a jean jacket and a pair of rollerblades.
I still have them.
They remind me what the American dream actually looked like in the beginning.
When we arrived it was also Purim. The first Jewish holiday I truly learned about.
In the USSR being Jewish was something written in a document. In America I began to understand something different.
Being Jewish was a story.
Purim tells the story of Queen Esther, who hid her identity and then revealed it at the moment it mattered most to save her people.
Years later, when my daughter was born, we named her Esther Aviva. Esther for the courage of the Purim heroine and for my grandmother who defied the odds. Aviva means spring in Hebrew, a reminder that renewal follows even the hardest winters.
Today, as antisemitism rises again, I often think back to that journey.
America opened its doors to my family. And I remain deeply grateful.
Grateful to my parents who chose courage over fear. Grateful to everyone who helped us find our footing.
Here people argue. They debate. They criticize their leaders openly. Your future is not determined by a line in a document.
My parents are still here. Still grateful. Still amazed that the decision they made, with 2 children and 2 suitcases, turned into this.
We arrived with 2 suitcases and hope.
I still believe this country remains one of the best places in the world to turn that hope into a life.