This first image features two images of my mom. The one in grey was her in 2016 and the orange image of my mom was from when she was two years old. Both are stranded in space with the title perched in the top left-hand corner, "My Mother's From Mars," in English and Russian.
Looking at these images brings me back to my college years at UC Santa Cruz. It was Winter 2018, and I was taking one of my last courses before I finished my undergrad education to get my Bachelors's in Psychology and a minor in Education. The course was focused on how we tell stories of family, culture, and immigration. These images were from my final project as I interviewed my mother about how she immigrated to the United States at age 15. It was difficult for her and her family as she grew up in the Soviet Union. When she moved to the United States, she had to learn to adapt to a new country and its customs, language, and society while battling the brainwashing from her previous home country. While she was in the USSR, everyone recited the propaganda that the United States was the enemy and no American should be trusted. However, her family was persecuted due to their Jewish background, and her family wanted to make sure she and her brother could have a better, fulfilling life. This led her to move to the United States, despite everything she learned about the USA being a terrible country. On top of that, being a Russian speaker in Texas in 1974 was hard as the teachers and education institutions struggled to meet her needs. Originally, the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 made bilingual education mandatory for all Texas elementary and secondary public schools that had 20 or more children with limited English speaking skills. However, the target children for this program were Spanish-speaking. The changes in 1974 had the goal of allowing LESA students to learn English as fast as possible. During my interview, , my mother stated how she was treated:
" When I came to the United States, it was just horrible because in Houston at that time, they did not have ELS or anything close to that. They had no idea what to do with me. There weren't that many Russian children there. And basically, I sat in class reading Russian books, and they would transfer me from grade to grade, and was the same when I came to San Francisco. So, it was pretty bad because, um, I felt like a complete outsider because, you know, telling people that are from Russia, they just couldn't understand. I think if I had said that I was from Mars, I would've been accepted easier than saying that I was from Russia." - Mom, 2018
This second image is of my mother, at eight years old, taken on International Women's Day in the Soviet Union. Behind her are the flags of where she lived while navigating the move to the United States (from lower left to lower right: United States, Italy, Austria, USSR) as her wings while navigating space.
I think if I would have said that I was from Mars, I would've been accepted easier than saying that I was from Russia.
The quote above struck me full of emotion and vulnerability that I had never heard my mother say out loud, which led to the creation of these pieces. My initial goal was to relay what my mother felt during this arduous time of silent isolation and alienation, literally and metaphorically. This led to my images being a collage of my mother's childhood pictures, photos I took from the internet, including buildings, flags, and books; images from space, including photographs of Mars; and my light painting photography. All of this meshed to tell the story of my mother and her feelings of being a child learning to assimilate to the new dominant culture.
The third picture features the books that my mother read in the back of the class, math equations (related to the story of how mathematics is the only course that can transcend language), the schools she attended in Houston as well as a picture of a synagogue in Lvov (Lviv), Ukraine.
Another reason I am creating this post is to write down my own personal relief when I was reunited with these images again. For many years, I was afraid that these images were lost forever as they were stored on a different laptop. Sadly though, I forgot the password to log onto the older machine, which made me melancholy because I thought they were gone forever. Until today, June 6, 2023, five years later, I discovered them on an old hard drive I dug out of a drawer. My plan was the clean the hard drive to be used for another photography project (this will be discussed another day). I couldn't believe it. My heart stopped as I saw the files bare and untouched since the day I turned them in for the class assignment all of those years ago. It was a dream of the heart, as I was certain they vanished. Moreover, I have the transcript of my mother's interview and all the details I did for the course. So, I am so grateful for my past self, who took the time to help my present self feel whole again.
Picture Description: Young mom (2 years old) feeding pigeons with sunflower seeds in Lviv, Ukraine, a very popular pastime with young children.
Picture Description: Young mom (8 years old) in the picture for Ukraine’s International Women’s Day. The 8 is symbolic of March 8th, the date the holiday is celebrated.
Picture Description: Young mom (3 or 4 years old) in a park in Lviv, Ukraine.
Picture Description: Mom is in a store surrounded by lamps hanging on the ceiling and paintings of Buddha behind. The picture was taken on Mother’s Day in 2016.
I am full of gratitude that these photos came back to me while reminding me of the memories of the project and giving me perspective on how much I have grown as a photographer, artist, and daughter to this amazing mama.
Thank you for reading and keeping up with my photography journey.
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