By Mark Shrayber
My family immigrated to San Francisco in the early ’90s, leaving dreary Moldova behind for a land of gold-lined streets and rainbow flags. My parents found out too late that the flags stood for a different type of happiness than they were expecting, and the gold-lined streets were a myth. After being accosted by a homeless man who wasn’t supposed to exist in our new land of opportunity, my mother held my hand tightly, even though we lived in the safest part of the Outer Sunset.
In a fit of anxiety, my mother would often visit my brother and me at school during lunch. “Doesn’t your mother have anything to do at home?” asked my third-grade teacher after one such visit. When I could find no way to describe why my mother wouldn’t stop embarrassing me during breaks, my teacher began making suggestions. “She could consider ironing or watching television. We have very good programs in the daytime.”
My teacher had no idea that my parents couldn’t watch daytime television because they didn’t understand the language. In fact, the only television my parents watched was a Russian program called Russart that aired on Mondays at 9 p.m. on channel 27. Because the show was on the SF public access channel, my parents had to immediately turn the TV off after the credits rolled, lest my brother and I be assaulted by the naked bodies or swearing that would inevitably be on the air after 11 p.m.
My parents found out too late that the flags stood for a different type of happiness than they were expecting, and the gold-lined streets were a myth.
On Saturdays, my parents would take us to the Russian video store, a tiny nameless room on Balboa Street, where we’d pick bootleg videos out of catalogs, and my parents would spend what seemed like hours discussing their new American life with Tatiana, the store manager. Tatiana had been in America three years longer than we had and knew the places to go to, the doctors to avoid, and the funeral homes that would try to upsell you because they knew you had just immigrated. When my parents got tired of Tatiana’s chatter, they started renting their videos from the Russian supermarkets on Geary in the Outer Richmond. At the markets you could rent the newest releases and buy dried meats.
My parents refused to go to the Russian market closest to our house in the Sunset. The market had once sold my mother a stale cake and refused her a refund. She threw the cake on the ground and wrenched my brother and me out of the store, promising never again to darken its doors, yelling that she hoped the store would go out of business and wishing she had the gumption to throw it not just on the ground but in the owner’s face. Several years later, when the store closed, my mother was vindicated. “I told them to treat customers better,” she told a friend on the phone in Russian. “This is what happens when you don’t put any effort into customer service!”
We had options, however. The Sunset and Richmond are home to many Russians, so if one purveyor of piroshki did you wrong, there was always another to take its place. Quality Market, Europa Express (now both closed), and New World Market were all viable alternatives where my family could comfortably shop without fear of stale or moldy pastries. And if the products were unsatisfactory, my mother would have no problem raising a fuss over 50 cents worth of blini.
Tatiana had been in America three years longer than we had and knew the places to go to, the doctors to avoid, and the funeral homes that would try to upsell you because they knew you had just immigrated.
My childhood was filled with such petty arguments, some that my mother won and many that she lost. Her quick temper and my father’s tendency to make offensive jokes made it difficult for our family to keep friends, but there was a never-ending supply of Russian families in San Francisco, with children I was allowed to play with (none of whom I keep in touch with now because our parents’ friendship was our only connector). My parents refused to let me have American friends because the thought of being judged by these children (and their parents) scared them. But one day my mother actually let me invite friends from school to my birthday party. I spent hours making the invitations, which like the Valentine’s cards I also made (we didn’t know you could buy them in a store!), were hideous. They were folded over scraps of lined paper that read “YOUR INVAITED” on the front and “MARK IS HAVING PARTY” on the inside. For some inexplicable reason, I had also drawn either a tree or a sunflower baring fangs on each card.
On the day I was to pass the invitations out at school, my mother unceremoniously canceled my party.
“No party next week!” my mother yelled at me in her heavily accented English as I was preparing for school. “You bad and don’t deserve party. No birthday!” The reason wasn’t clear; it could have been any number of things. A week before I told her the F on my progress report stood for Friday (“My teacher just wanted to remind you,” I had said). And a few days before that I’d tried to make a cake by microwaving Fruit Loops, setting off every smoke alarm in the building.
My parents refused to let me have American friends because the thought of being judged by these children (and their parents) scared them.
It was only years later that I learned my mother had changed her mind about the party because she was worried about Americans in her house. We had been in the country only three years then and my mother wasn’t yet the sophisticated woman who shops only at the best outlet stores. In 1993 she wore leopard-print dresses, dyed her hair a platinum blonde, and was terrified of being judged. Our furniture was used, we couldn’t afford a bounce house, and she had no idea what to serve the American children or how to make small talk with their parents. The parents, she had told me when I broached the subject of the party, would have to pick up their children outside. “This,” she said, “is rule.” And now the rule was a moot point, because there was to be no party. The Saturday of my birthday would be like any other.
The day before my cancelled party, my mother told me that we could still celebrate. She would buy salads, piroshki, and cake from a Russian store that just opened on Clement. “You can’t invite people the day before,” I muttered. “And I don’t know anyone’s phone numbers.”
Our furniture was used, we couldn’t afford a bounce house, and she had no idea what to serve the American children or how to make small talk with their parents.
“A day before is perfect time to invite,” my mother said. “All your real friends will come.” And with that she sat down and called all of her friends, inviting them and their children for a party that began at 3 p.m. and ended — unlike American parties — whenever we wanted it to. “Who tells you when to leave?” My mother scoffed at the idea of an end time. “Never do that. Is impolite and everyone talk about bad party and never visit again.”
The next day I blew out my candles to a heavily accented chorus of “Happy Birthday,” resigned to the fact that for at least another year I would be the odd kid in class with the heavy accent and the smelly lunches. On Monday, no one would talk about my bounce house or ask me to come over to play Nintendo. But to my parents, this party was perfect. We had enjoyed pizza and Russian cake, keeping the balance between our old and new lives intact.
