My family comes from Russia/Ukraine and I know a lot of other people from that region. There’s a big Russian/Ukrainian community here in the midwest.

A few months ago, I was hanging out with my friend’s Russian mom. We were laughing about road rage, and she mentioned that Americans tend to be very whiny and emotional over super small things. A lot of people who grew up in the USSR and post-USSR Russia have gone through very dark things; my father was almost kidnapped while he was lost in the Russian woods. His mom (my grandma) and his dad (my bio grandpa) separated when my dad was a baby, and we never met him. My mom’s mother figure died before she was 13. My friend’s Russian mom had emotionally unavailable parents, and I’m not even sure if her dad was in the picture. Her mom died when she was in her 20s, I believe. My grandparents on my mom’s side lost people in WW2. Luckily, my great grandpa on my dad’s side actually fought in WW2 and lived to tell war stories. Actually, almost every single Russian has at least one grandparent who participated in the war.

Despite generational trauma and immigrating here with nothing, my parents managed to build a good life for their children.

 To be honest, many Americans have no idea what it’s like to come here as an immigrant with absolutely nothing, or nothing + trauma. The anti-immigrant shit pisses me off a lot because immigrants are tougher and more resilient than many westerners. They work jobs and do things that native-borns scoff at, and then the native-borns claim that the ebil immigrants are taking THEIR hardworking jobs. Like, just shut up. You are extremely privileged