Blog #10: Personal Narrative

To Russia and Back

The wheels set down gently as the plane finished her descent. My heart was beating rapidly as I gathered my carry-on bags and followed my parents through the portal into the airport. At six years old I hardly knew what I was really about to face, but I was nervous and excited. I didn’t fully understand why we had moved. My parents had done their best to explain to me that my dad had been called as a mission president for the church, and that the Lord needed our family to spend the next three years in Russia. I knew it must have been something important, because my parents had meet with Elder Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on a few occasions, and even taken me and my siblings along once when they got set apart. Whatever that meant. While the extent of my father’s new calling escaped me, I did know what the immediate effect was for me and my family. My parents had to pack up everything they needed for themselves and their six kids for the next three years, fly all of us over the ocean to a new country, and live for three years in a foreign place. With the oldest of these kids, my sister Annelise, being nine years old, and the youngest, my little brother McKay, having hit the one year mark less than a month previously, this task was extremely difficult. However, the sacrifice became worth it for the entire family. The exposure to different peoples, cultures, races, and traditions proved to be one of the most valuable experiences of my life, something that I still remember fondly despite the general lack of diversity I have encountered since returning to Utah.

I started my elementary school experience in Russia. Day one of first grade. As if the transition to a real school wouldn’t have been hard enough, I was going in without any of my old friends and I knew that I would be alone. My school, the Anglo-American School of Moscow (AAS), was the top international school in the area. The choice school for the children of ambassadors and business men alike. What I saw was a building much bigger than any elementary school I had seen at home, and where I probably would only spend a day or two before I quit for good. It didn’t help that I had made us all late either. I came into my classroom after class had already begun, so all eyes were on me. A brilliant way to start off. I looked at all the faces, and I was shocked at what I saw; the skin tones ranged from white like me to very dark brown, with every possible tint in between. I had come from Utah, where everyone I knew was white. I didn’t even know that all these different ethnicities even existed. Russia was a much stranger place than I had imagined.

This initial shock did not last long, however. Although meeting new people of different races and cultures was new to me, it was not frightening. My curiosity was very much aroused, so I set out to make new friends in this new school. I learned that my classmates were from places such as India, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Canada, Pakistan, Korea, and many other places. In fact, throughout all of AAS there were kids from 46 different countries. To me it was a tantalizing blur of colors, cultures, and traditions. Being so young, I really had no trouble adapting to this new situation. In America, all the people I knew were white and Mormon. Here people were Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and many other religions. And that was fine with me. The idea of discrimination or intolerance never even entered my mind. Each person was a unique puzzle, and I got to learn about each piece that made them who they were.

My fourth grade year, my last year in Russia, was a time when I learned the most. I had to very good friends, but their backgrounds were quite different from mine. C.J. was a fellow American, but he came from Texas and was a Catholic. Salim was from Egypt, and he was a devout Muslim. To those looking on, this surely was an unlikely trio. Our backgrounds had very little in common. This did not matter to us in the slightest. We were three rowdy young boys who had common interests. We spent our time playing video games, going bowling, playing racquetball, getting into trouble, and doing what normal elementary school kids do. However, there were times when our differences were discussed. One particular instance, we were discussing the idea of Christ. Salim did not believe in Christ as a Savior, and did not believe that he would come again. C.J. believed that Christ would return on a specific date, one which he was looking forward to. I had no clue when Christ would come again, and I said so. We accepted that and moved on. An innocent discussion, no more, but this is how I learned about other people. This is how my exposure to other ways of thinking taught me to accept people and their cultures and religions.

When I returned to Utah, I was disappointed in the general religious and ethnic homogeneity I found. I returned to my friends who were all white and Mormon, just like me. It was so boring compared to what I just came from. Even more disappointing was the lack of integration between people who were different from each other. Walking down the halls of any public school I have attended, I would see white kids bunched together, talking and laughing. Across the hall was an almost identical picture, except all these kids were Hispanic. Further down was another cluster, this time the only members were Asian. People simply did not care to put in the time to make relations with people who were different. Unfortunately, this callous attitude is what I have seen reflected in many Americans since then.

The news flashes another story of a bombing in the Middle East, no doubt a Muslim extremist set out to kill all Americans, which is the final goal of Islam. Thank you news anchor for once again not having a clue what you are talking about. I have met Muslim people, I know what they are like, and I know enough about their religion to know that killing Americans is not part of it. And yet, what is common knowledge to me is information that some do not know or will not hear. Because sure enough, within the next week the news is playing a story of the retaliation of Americans against innocent Muslims in America. Such blind animosity and prejudice is all too common, because people simply do not know. Hate crimes, discrimination, and all racial, ethnic, or religious tensions, are brought about because people do not have exposure to what is different from them, and they do not seek it. The knowledge I gained in Russia has been extremely valuable, because it was shown to me that people everywhere are the same, just with variations. The diversity I immersed myself in has been a saving grace in a world so full of blindness and ignorance.