MY AMERICAN DREAM

Preface || 1. The Beginning || 2. I am Here! || 3. My Bus Diaries || 4. First Time in Los Angeles || 5. In a Year... || 6. The School || 7. How do People Find Employment in America? || 8. Resume - what it is all about? || 9. We are buying a Car || 10. Search for Job || 11. Continuation of Job Search || 12.Israeli Dances || 13. Agencies and Tests || 14. Can I be a Babysitter? || 15. Alla's Story || 16. Do You Know how to Pass an Inteview? || 17. Further Steps || 18. Earning a Linf for Resume || 19. The First Job || 20. Travel School || 21. Hope cannot die || 22. Soon Afterwards || 23. My Work at the Company; Earthquake || 24. Learning Fox Pro || 25. Dima's Travel to San Francisco || 26. Repetition of the Past || 27. Work at the Travel Agency || 28. Agency - cont || 29. New Ideas || 30. City Tours || 31. European Tours || 32. Software Testing and Oracle Database || Summary

Preface

My American Dream started many years ago. Whether that is a positive statement or not I might never know. Decades has passed since that very moment of excitement as i waved good bye to my helplessly watching friends at the customs of Sheremetevo International of Moscow and disappeared into the Big Unknown.

To give an answer the commonly asked question as to why we have left our country by the curious or simply polite is not that easy. I would even say it's impossible. The answers are like shapeless clouds that float in our subconscious refusing to be captured by the feeble attempts of our minds to be put in to words. As a result we mumble a pitiful version of what the answer should be or just flat out lie.

Because immigrants are the ones who dream, the ones who keep looking for what they never seem to find, the ones who are never satisfied, the ones never lose hope on the quest for an allusive Blue Bird of Happiness. You don't become an immigrant – you are born one.

They are a breed of their own, not worse or better, just different. One day science will prove that they are lacking the gene of complacency and content. Life would be a lot less exiting and interesting if we were all the same. Immigration is a destiny not a choice.

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1. The Beginning

I will venture to be as bold as to say that I am an expert of sorts on the meaning of American Dream. Although I will admit that it varies from an individual to individual and their personal experience. In all honesty I did not see it in the movies or read about it in books. American Dream or more precise translation from Russian Easy Money Making was something that a good friend of mine thoughtlessly and philosophically there out at a cozy get together we used to throw now and then at my apartment in Moscow many years ago when the idea of moving to America was still a fetus. Little did my friend Volodya Yulikov know what kind of role that prophesy will play in my life in years to come. And since I give credit where credit is due eventually I will shoot him a copy of this creation accompanied with an autograph of yours truly.

Arriving in Los Angeles in July of 1992 was far from the beginning of my road. My personal American Dream has started way prior than that. Specifically in the fall of 1990.

.....As I was standing in a long, barely moving line I was secretly hoping that this would be one of the last tortures of infamous lines in Russia I would have to endure. One can only hope... With the rate things were moving it seemed as though the planes just simply did not fly to New York. And if they did you would have to be Queen Elizabeth herself to book that flight.

Now here comes the part that needs clarification (that is unless you grew up in Soviet Union) having already received an invitation from someone in USA which is a requirement for obtaining a visa the one final hoop to jump through was to purchase a plane ticket. Easier said than done, believe me! Unfortunately I was not Queen Elizabeth or the Pope. Therefore just like any mortal being with dreams of a better life I had to keep the wheels turning by showing up religiously to Aeroflot office daily to check in and show my desire to purchase the plane ticket.

The wind of change was blowing through USSR...

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2. I am Here!

So, I was brought right to the house of my mom’s acquaintance, Emma, who has been living in New York for a few years. The guy who gave me a ride, dragged my suitcase to the fourth floor (there was no elevator in that building), to apartment D, where Emma lived with her daughter, Lena, a young woman in her early 30s. Lena had the flu at that time, and – I believe – the timing of my arrival was not perfect.

I spent the whole evening and a half of the next day there; we were not the closest of friends, not at all – my mom worked with Emma’s sister and befriended her for many years, so she knew a lot about Emma, but they hardly ever met. That’s why I didn’t feel very comfortable at their place, though they were very friendly and attentive to me.

It was October and the beginning of a cold winter in Moscow, so when I left I was dressed in a warm overcoat, but here, in New York it as the last hot days of summer. Even though the windows were wide open, it was still hot in the apartment. I couldn’t sleep because of jet leg, and spent the night reading Russian newspaper “Novoe Russkoe Slovo”. I was particularly impressed by all the obituaries with numerous photos and expressions of condolences. “This is Odessa!” – commented Lena on the next day...

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3. My Bus Diaries

October 23, 1990

Departure: 12 noon.

13:30. We are passing by Worchester – similar looking gorgeous and colorful forests around; an amazing variety from maple, birch, fir, pine trees. My understanding is that we were travelling through the 90th highway traffic jam due to road construction ahead. Little do I know that this is going to be my first traffic jam out so very many to come in the next 20 years of driving in California.

14:45.The bus is making its way through the hills covered with green yellow and dark orange forest. I see a lake to my right. It is raining pretty heavy. What a shame! There are many road exit signs, fluorescent arrows of the road construction blocks along the way. According to the sign we are 46 miles away from Albany. The sky is covered with the thick low floating clouds making the hilltops completely invisible.
Some stretches of this road are divided by a strip 20-30 yard-wide covered with lots of bushes and the rest of it is separated by about ½ of a yard high fence with the grass growing on both sides.

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4. First Time in Los Angeles

Dubinins’ whole family (Kira, Leo and kids) met me at Greyhound Station in Downtown Los Angeles. Happily, it was not very far from their home. Slightly dizzy after the trip, I looked around in amazement. Sun, and palm trees – it was October, remember! – were like a fairy tale for me. They have been living at that time on Olympic Boulevard (by the way, it was named after Los Angeles Olympic Games of 1984). Even now, passing by this place I look with tenderness at this small building where I spent my first months in Los Angeles.

The house is two-stored; their apartment was at the second floor. There was not practically air-conditioner (i.e. like always in rented apartments it hardly worked and didn’t get any cool air). It was two bedroom apartment with one bathroom. It was built long time ago, but pretty good, even now I consider it as a good place for living. Leo was working at that time as a scientist-researcher, and Kira made her first steps as an artist.

The kids were at the Catholic Good Sheppard School of Beverly Hills, and Dubinins were very happy with this. They themselves stopped at the time of their arrival at the apartment of their sponsor, in Century City, in one of the skyscrapers there. Once during their walk around they saw Good Sheppard school on Linden Drive. We had nothing of the kind in Russia at that time, so we can imagine their delight! They talked to the principal, Sr. Lionella, and the kids were taken into that school. At the beginning it was very hard for them without language, but very soon the kids were twittering English at the back seat or the car, and the parents were very happy.

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5. In a Year...

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6. The School

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7. So how do People Find Employment in America?

This was the rhetorical question that I ended my last chapter with. The purpose of it meant that I would finally shed the light on this topic and disclose some sort of secret of wisdom with you, my dear reader.

So here we go!

The fastest and easiest way to get hired requires to have a friend or a relative recommend you to the employer. Better yet bring you directly to a desired employer and introduce you as the most professional person in the world.

Just recently my friend – a bank employee and me spend the evening at my acquaintance's home. His daughter has arrived here from Russia not long ago and was seeking employment as a bank teller. He was convinced (and rightfully so) that as long as he could find an “inside person” who would get his daughter that desired bank teller position. As far as her experience, computer skills or the basic knowledge of English – the mandatory requirements for a job were never disclosed to us by either the father or his daughter in the course of that bazaar evening. My suggestion of taking a couple of classes in English, customer service and brush up on computer skills fell on deaf ears. Our host would hear nothing of what we had to offer; deeming all that information absolutely useless in a polite way. As much as we wanted to help, we were unable to deliver that special “inside person” on a silver platter. And that was that. God bless them.

The knowledge I acquired in the years since that evening changed my sarcastic view on things. After all that father was right. The skills that we suggested she needed to learn were not as vital as I thought they were at that time. Her father wanted her to get a decent job based on the knowledge that she already had.

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8. Resume - what is it all about?

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9. We are buying a car!

How hard can that be, you would ask. Well, for an average American Joe the concept of purchasing a vehicle is likely as simple of a business transaction as purchasing a roll of toilet paper in your local CVS. We, being FOB (Fresh off the Boat) figured that all we needed to do was to hand over the money and drive off to the sunset in that new ride! Easier said than done. This mission took on a life of its own. There was nothing simple about this multifaceted dilemma.

The first obstacle was receiving California Driver's License. I was the only one in my family who had one. The plan was for my sons, instead of paying for a driving school, to practice for their driving tests on the car we were looking to buy. This would save us money.

Next came a thousand and one questions we had no answers for. What kind of car – American, Japanese or European? What year? How do we avoid buying a “lemon” full of mechanical problems? Leo recommended for me to go to the library to check out the “Consumer reports” magazine. The magazine offered an article of abundance of useful information for a potential buyer: inside checklist, outside check list, under-the-hood checklist and test drive among others. The technical lingo was making my brain hurt.

Armed with all this knowledge, we started shifting through the classified ads of newspapers for vehicles for sale. Our first attempt happened to be a Plymouth, which was for sale by a lady, Robin Baltic.

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10. Job Search, sending Resumes

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11. Continuation of Job Search and my Working Notebook

To the topJob search was taking the center stage in my life at that time. I thought about applying for Welfare or General Relief but I was not sure if I would qualify. The only people in we knew at the time were Leo and Kira, plus Karen. But neither one of them knew anything about that process. As I found out later, lots and lots of immigrants from Russia applied for Welfare as soon as they got here. They also applied for Disability and were granted it, even though they were 100% healthy. They lived on that monthly check and never even tried to trudge the same road as me.
I would like to introduce you to a loyal friend of mine, the silent witness of my struggles to find employment. It is my notebook full of classified ads that I had cut out of the newspapers and then glued to the pages of my friend. I wanted to keep track of the call backs from the potential employers. This work of art belongs somewhere in a museum of immigration, in my opinion that is.

Let us open this cache of information and look through the notes. Each note represents a memory.

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