My roots in the long-time-enduring Ukraine have always been the source of great resilience for me. I knew the taste of success even before coming as a Fulbright Scholar to the US. In America though, I reinvented myself more than once – and could be given an Oscar for that!
My before-America life of a professional educator includes a career in academia, two doctorate degrees, visiting professorships in major European Universities and full professor and a chair position of the English Department at Uzhgorod National University, Ukraine. Those have been my busy-happy-younger years, my beautiful memories. But then, I also remember feeling more and more like a stranger in my own country—and being increasingly at home during my travels abroad. It’s complicated, but let me try and answer this inevitable question of, “why?” Why emigrate?
In the early 90s, just when I came into my own as an academic and Chair, Ukrainian and Russian professionals faced a painful choice between emigrating or being stuck in a society steep in corruption and endemic collaborationism with those in power, i.e., the KGB and government bureaucracy. I was well aware of what life was like in established democracies: I have been staying with an English family during my teacher-study semester at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland; a research fellow at the University of Vienna and the International Information Centre for Terminology in Austria, as well as a frequent conference participant or plenary speaker all over Europe – especially after my book “Terminology and Translation” came out to critical and professional acclaim (pictured). So, it was a poignant awareness of the quality of life in the West vs. bad-to-worse prospects of life in Ukraine that was wearing me down. Certainly, it was not a material need that made me emigrate. Simply put, it was a desire to have my free-spirited daughter Helen grow in a country where she could earn everything she deserved through her own efforts, not because of conformism, bribes, or her parents’ connections. I jumped the emigration gun with but a vague idea of what we’d have to go through. Honestly, I would do it again, for my family and myself—and hang the hardships!
Anyhow, to America we went. Conducting my Fulbright research at Kent State University, OH, among the colleagues who knew me through the European conferences, I started establishing myself in the US academic circles. Soon, however, my husband got a job offer he could not refuse, and my academic career became history: we moved from Midwest to New York, where academic positions were harder to get. At the beginning, living there looked like finding a way in pitch dark, and my survival spirit kicked in.
Fearless – and eager – to try something new in a new country, I was changing jobs like shoes, and became in turn a PR manager at a global corporation, director at Berlitz, and regional director of FGI. The temptation to jump at the better opportunities was overwhelming, as the family needed money. After I learned enough about American business to start my own intercultural consulting company, Expert MS Inc., I got what I always wanted: something really meaningful to do and something that let me pay my bills and travel. What helped? My multicultural background certainly enhanced my consulting work.
My mom, natural to long-term thinking, never approved me switching from academia to “God knows what,” as she referred to my corporate positions and later, consultancy. However, as time went by, she appreciated the outcomes of our not-so-orderly immigration strategies: intelligent consultant friends visiting our home; traveling the U.S. and the world for business and pleasure; our daughter completing her Ph.D. at Cornell, an Ivy League University; my new book (that made her really proud); my husband Alex becoming a chief information officer of a telecom company; and, of course, our beautiful home in NJ. Without ever praising me for anything, mom, my toughest critic of all, silently acknowledged that I might have done something right when replanting my family in America. As for me, out of all my fulfilled needs, I value self-actualization – finding out what I am – the most, topping survival, belonging, and esteem. I made it all.
Today I feel fairly well-established in America – but not so much as to forget where I came from. It was extremely hard to restart life from scratch—and my compassion to all those vulnerable and virtually voiceless translated into an ability to coach and consult others and put thoughts to paper in many articles and two books.
In the new book, I share what my life – and my book subjects’ lives – taught me: if you want to succeed, you need to:
- Have a high tolerance for ambiguity.
- Have a well-ordered sense of priorities.
- Remain resilient. Resilience is your secret strategic weapon!
Originally from Ukraine
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Family
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Professional matters
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Remembering Ukrainian roots
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Traveling: dreams come true!
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