"Throughout my young adulthood, I never fully appreciated the Polish traditions that I felt were being forced upon me. I couldn’t reconcile my parents’ newly earned American citizenship with the fact that I couldn’t eat ham on Christmas Eve."
The BiCultural Anti-Mom Reconsideration ~
By Maja Zmyslowski
T
he day I stopped “hating” my mother was the day I started loving myself. The road to this enlightenment was not only an up-hill-both-ways arduous process, it involved a healthy amount of painful introspection, acceptance, and humor. Growing up bilingual and bicultural was initially a source of embarrassment that led to a feeling of alienation, instead of the pride and gratitude I feel today.
My father had fled Communist Poland in the early 80’s as a political refugee and escaped to Germany, where he sought to make enough money to smuggle my mother and I over. At the time, there were broad restrictions on mail, so much of the communication between my parents was lost. My father had left Poland when I was a baby; the next time he saw me, I was a bubbly, vocal toddler. Our family reunited and planted roots in West Berlin, and my parents continued to work toward a better life. Due to a mild language barrier, citizenship restrictions, and an underlying prejudice against foreigners, my folks were unable to progress as much as they’d hoped. Though they spoke German fluently, their speech rolled with a heavy Eastern European accent, as it does now when they speak English.
Though my mother held a Master’s degree in Industrial Economics and my father a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, they worked menial jobs in Berlin, whether in construction or cleaning houses. My parents never encountered any immediate, obvious prejudice because we are racially white, but once they began to speak, the smiles would fade and the scowls set in. The Turkish family we shared an apartment with for a time encountered much greater, immediate discrimination. I never dwelled on this struggle; all I felt at the boisterous age of four was that I was ashamed to hear my parents speak German, because I was fluent, too, and had no accent. I would “shoosh” them in elevators, to circumvent any disapproving stares. I would order meat at the deli for my mother, the butcher smiling at her, undoubtedly thinking how cute it was to fill an order of sausages for a squeaky, determined little girl. It strikes me now, how self-conscious and aware I was even at such a young age of our difference.
Two vivid memories from the three years spent in Germany flutter in my mind. One is the image of New Year’s fireworks on the West Berlin side (where we lived) contrasting with the silent, deathly grey of East Berlin on the other side of the Wall. I wondered if there were children on the Communist East side watching the fireworks over the western wall, feeling as lonely as I did, sitting on the outskirts of a celebration they had no right or opportunity to be a part of. The other memory is of one of my mother’s most blatant struggles with prejudice. She had been running errands with me in tow, and I had to use the restroom. Every establishment she entered, be it a restaurant or shop, refused to let her take me to the bathroom. She finally gave up and led me to a nearby park where she guided me to an obscured patch of bushes. As I relieved myself, a woman walking her dog happened upon us, hissing “Filthy foreigners!” My mother stood, stunned, reddening, and retorted “You shameful people! You will let your dogs piss all over the city and not let my child use a proper restroom?! Shame on you!” The woman hurried off with a brief sidelong glance, and my mother was quiet for the rest of the day. A few months later, we were on a plane to California.
After obtaining their Visas and with the support of a sponsoring church group, my parents said goodbye to their family and friends and made the lonely and hopeful journey to America. My mother had wanted more for me and for our family, for the opportunity to live without political persecution, and for the chance to live a dream. Upon arrival in California, my parents enrolled in school and were tutored in English by one of the church’s 2nd grade teachers, who later became Godmother to my brother (born a year after our arrival). As a 1st grader, I learned to speak English on the playground as well as through formal instruction using flashcards. I remember mixing up the “Boy” and “Girl” flashcards to the amusement of my teacher. In retrospect, I understand the shunning treatment I earned when I’d call to the boys on the playground, “Hey, funny girl!” Many children couldn’t say my name, so I was teased, but I was used to it.
My friends were always the ones who had an “outsider” story or feel to them, like myself, and my best friend ended up being a girl named Lupe, whose parents had immigrated from Mexico. Neither of us spoke English well, but between my Polish and her Spanish, we found one passionate thought in common: Blonde Barbies need Mohawks. Being neighbors, Lupe & I would spend many hours taking our foreign aggression out on our Barbies, forcing assimilation on them with tamale & kielbasa parties, imagining that they wouldn’t cringe but, instead, happily embrace our respective spicy culinary cultures and us as well. If not, then out came the scissors. I guess this was our way of coping with the isolation we did not yet have the mental capability to identify. I became distrustful of white American children and latched on to foreigners like myself or non-white children who I knew shared a cloak of other during playground storms.
Throughout my young adulthood, I never fully appreciated the Polish traditions that I felt were being forced upon me. I couldn’t reconcile my parents’ newly earned American citizenship with the fact that I couldn’t eat ham on Christmas Eve. Or that we would have to take a basket of eggs to church on Easter to have a priest bless them before we cooked and ate them with our festive borscht soup. I was mortified the first time I had to walk up to Father O’Riley with this lovely colorful basket and mutter a request for his blessing in front of everyone. I was sure that all eyes were on me, and not in a benevolent way. My parents never compromised themselves and always acted proud and joyful, and I think that is what drew joyful, curious, and supportive people to them. Granted, they endured their share of social or employment-related discrimination, but it was never to the same degree as in the past.
My mother went from cleaning bathrooms (at nine months pregnant) to holding a job worthy of her degree as a Senior Accountant Auditor (not that people are that fond of auditors, either). My father rose from a menial construction job, to foreman, and now works as a civil engineer. And the day I realized that my mother knew more about adversity than any angst-ridden teenager, was the day I started liking her, if only just a little. During my early teenage years, I longed for a normal name and changed the spelling of mine to reflect a visually softer “Maya.” The “j” letter in my name is pronounced like a soft “y,” but most people like to drag it into an “h” or “zzzh” sound, making it sound more exotic than it really is. The letters of my last name read like an ophthalmologist’s eye chart: “Z…m…y…s….” One of the nicknames teachers gave me in school was “Smith,” for its simplicity and obvious irony. I found that rather hysterical, and often fantasized about meeting and marrying a Mr. Smith.
I struggled against jealousy of my brother, who I thought was truly an alien American with no sense of his roots (playing video games, eating Twinkies for breakfast, teasing me that only he out of our family will ever have the chance of becoming the American President). Though he was brought up to be fluent in Polish as well, for the longest time he would answer only in English when spoken to in Polish. Now, as a college sophomore, he has embraced his heritage much like I have. The more we struggled against it, the more we realized how ingrained and influential it was. As the saying goes, we are “Polish like Pierogi!” (Incidentally, I was not allowed to leave the house to go to college at age 18 until I knew how to properly make pierogi. Picture clouds of flour and a flailing rolling pin).
Subsequently, the more I struggle against becoming my mother, the more I see the same quirks, sayings, facial expressions, annoying habits, and strength. My mother’s rebel yell was never a raging river, but a natural, steady current of resolve and respect. My favorite saying of hers is, “Da werst troof eez beterr dan da best lay,” (translated: “The worst truth is better than the best lie”), and I see the example of her life lived as one full of honor, hope, and patriotism for both our home country and our adopted one. Now, as a single woman with no kids approaching the age of 30, I am in awe when I compare myself to her at the same age, when she was packing up her little family and sacrificing her world just so that she could show me a better one. Her history is my legacy, her truths are my future, and I intend to make her proud, despite every previous rebellion against pickled cabbage and other such Polishness.
About The Author:
Maja Zmyslowski works, writes, and plays on the California coast of the Monterey Peninsula. She has recently acquired an interest in Moroccan cuisine and has discovered the benefits of and many uses for pantyhose. Her poetry has earned her the 2004 Circo Award and has placed in the Top 100 Poems of Writer’s Digest 74th Annual Writing Competition. She is currently juggling the poor-starving-artist scenario versus corporate lackey existence and finds solace by listening to Hawaiian island ukulele music (while sipping a froofy umbrella drink, of course).
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