Julia Nema is an English 
Teaching Assistant at Gymnázium Ladislava Jaroše in Holešov, a town of 12,000 people located in the Zlín Region. This year, she teaches English to students aged 12 to 19, and in the afternoons, she hosts four English conversation clubs (three for students and one for interested teachers), and an English writing club. Julia’s parents come from Ukraine. She visited her parents’ homeland once, in 2015, and it was the time when she finally met the “family [she] only ever heard about but had never seen.” Julia further notes that, “For the first time in [her] life, [she] felt whole [and] felt Ukrainian; the culture [she] once thought was so removed from [her] took [her] in its arms and never let go.” After that summer, Julia and her parents returned back to the U.S. However, the unstable political situation, financial constraints and, most recently, the war in Ukraine, prevented Julia from visiting her family again. In 2022, Julia graduated from Villanova University with a BA in Political Science, and she won a Fulbright grant to teach English in the Czech Republic. Quite soon after, she found out that two of her Ukrainian cousins not only found work but also live in a town located very close to her Fulbright placement. As her time in the Czech Republic comes to an end, Julia expressed that: "Never in my life would I have imagined these experiences. Never in my life would I think that I would be writing about my Fulbright journey with one week left from the comfort of my flat in a small Moravian town only 20 minutes away from my cousins."
Have you ever wondered what it may be like to see your family in real life? That’s a peculiar question to ask, isn’t it? For those lucky enough to see their relatives on a regular or annual basis, that’s probably not a question that is ever asked or even considered. Instead, individuals, maybe just like you, might be thinking about a time when you will finally be farther than a twenty-mile radius from your supposedly ‘crazy’ uncle. Or, better yet, you annually ponder about the day when you will no longer be forced to eat with your dad’s side of the family on Christmas. Though for those of us who have never experienced a weekend trip to grandma’s house, been invited to a cousin’s wedding, or celebrated an aunt’s birthday, these inquiries define the reality of our lives for they highlight the presence of an absence. An absence, that, in my case, was the result of a sacrifice that no one had foreseen. A sacrifice so profound and inevitably intrusive that, like the inheritance of a biological trait from parent to offspring, I assumed normalcy of familial detachment.
Due to the ignorant acceptance of what I considered to be ‘normal,’ I never once questioned the absence of my family. I never thought about the fact that I celebrated every holiday and birthday only ever at home with my parents. Sunday morning phone calls to my paternal grandfather were routine. Sending medium-sized Home Depot boxes full of my old clothes, nonperishable goods, and school supplies bi-annually to my cousins took place like clockwork. So, yes, I was more than aware of the distanced relationship. I wasn’t exactly blind to the blatant absence of my extended family, but more so, I never questioned it. I was ignorant of the absence’s infallible existence in my life. An indescribable absence that only those who have grown up in first-generation immigrant households may truly understand. Only those children whose parents, like wildflowers, were ripped out of the ground and not only forced but expected to thrive in a new environment, may know the unspoken, ignored 21st-century immigrant reality. The fact of being a child of immigrant parents also never registered in my mind as anything but ordinary: that is simply how things are and are meant to be.
When I was younger, my parents resided in the US as immigrants without proper documentation (in part due to faulty lawyers), so we could not fly or travel far for fear of deportation. An absence of a family car until the third grade forced our daily activities to revolve around bus and train schedules. My father as the breadwinner of the family meant that I would not see him for months at a time as he took on any and every construction job he could find. To add to the latter point, this also meant that three people had to rely on a singular paycheck that, in hindsight, was not adequate for the survival of even one person. The lack of financial stability immobilized me and my parents for years, metaphorically and literally.
Though, our lives gradually changed for the better after my parents successfully received their green cards during the winter of 2014. After nearly twenty years of living under clouds of uncertainty, my parents finally received small pieces of paper, no larger than the size of index cards, that stated their lawful residence within the United States. Overjoyed and filled with pure happiness, we then immediately purchased three tickets to Ukraine for the following summer.
Due to the ignorant acceptance of what I considered to be ‘normal,’ I never once questioned the absence of my family. I never thought about the fact that I celebrated every holiday and birthday only ever at home with my parents. Sunday morning phone calls to my paternal grandfather were routine. Sending medium-sized Home Depot boxes full of my old clothes, nonperishable goods, and school supplies bi-annually to my cousins took place like clockwork. So, yes, I was more than aware of the distanced relationship. I wasn’t exactly blind to the blatant absence of my extended family, but more so, I never questioned it. I was ignorant of the absence’s infallible existence in my life. An indescribable absence that only those who have grown up in first-generation immigrant households may truly understand. Only those children whose parents, like wildflowers, were ripped out of the ground and not only forced but expected to thrive in a new environment, may know the unspoken, ignored 21st-century immigrant reality. The fact of being a child of immigrant parents also never registered in my mind as anything but ordinary: that is simply how things are and are meant to be.
When I was younger, my parents resided in the US as immigrants without proper documentation (in part due to faulty lawyers), so we could not fly or travel far for fear of deportation. An absence of a family car until the third grade forced our daily activities to revolve around bus and train schedules. My father as the breadwinner of the family meant that I would not see him for months at a time as he took on any and every construction job he could find. To add to the latter point, this also meant that three people had to rely on a singular paycheck that, in hindsight, was not adequate for the survival of even one person. The lack of financial stability immobilized me and my parents for years, metaphorically and literally.
Though, our lives gradually changed for the better after my parents successfully received their green cards during the winter of 2014. After nearly twenty years of living under clouds of uncertainty, my parents finally received small pieces of paper, no larger than the size of index cards, that stated their lawful residence within the United States. Overjoyed and filled with pure happiness, we then immediately purchased three tickets to Ukraine for the following summer.
These plane tickets were not just tickets in their literal sense, but keys that would open the doors to a family I only ever heard about but had never seen. To a passionate and rich heritage that I ignorantly attempted to suppress at the hands of juvenile conformity all because I wanted to ‘fit in.’ To a life, I almost experienced if it were not for the events that took place one December day in 1989. While the dissolution of the Soviet Union was so profound on the grounds of politics, economics, and societal relations, like an earthquake-caused rift, individual families like my own were forced to break apart. Not only did the unforeseen impacts of the Union’s end separate my parents and I from the rest of the family, but it forced me to learn about my relatives as though they were merely textbook figures–people I knew the names of, their dates of birth, and maybe a fun fact, but never actually met in person. Though thankfully, and finally, the textbook came to life in the summer of 2015.
That July, I watched as my parents touched the soil of their motherland for the first time since the early 1990s. Though this time, not as naive twenty-year-olds who thought that they would never leave their villages. Not as the shameless lover of Modern Talking and ABBA from Kolomyya (my mother) or the farm-raised pierogi connoisseur from the small village of Bohorodchin (my father). Not as the young couple whose impromptu meeting at a bus stop would direct them down the aisle only a few months later. Not as the dreamers who once viewed the United States as the mecca of opportunity and the solution to all of their problems. Rather, they returned to Ukraine as outsiders, as visitors to a country they once only ever knew about. They returned not as Ukrainians but as Americans-to-be with American visas stamped inside their passports. Not only did they come back with altered citizenship statuses, but they arrived at my paternal grandmother’s home with an American in hand: me.
That summer, my life changed in many ways and for the better. I not only saw my entire extended family, but I conversed and shared laughs with everyone in person rather than over the phone or from behind a glowing computer screen. I heard my mother tongue spoken unabashedly in the land from where it originates. I ate traditional meals from the kitchens where they were first created. I walked along the fields that gave life to so many of the delicious ingredients carefully prepared by seasoned home cooks. I patiently listened to my grandparents as they retold stories and folktales about Ukrainian heroes from long ago. I relished in the moments when my aunts gossiped about their former high school classmates or when my cousins would bring up stories about our family that I’d already heard hundreds of times before from my mother. Maybe mundane to some, but I wanted to stay in these moments for as long as possible. I did not mind another retelling of the same stories as long as it meant that I could stay in my family’s presence for a little longer. For the first time in my life, I felt whole, I felt Ukrainian; the culture I once thought was so removed from me took me in its arms and never let go.
Though, like all good things, our trip soon came to an end and my parents and I had to travel back to the US. After we left later that August, my parents and I thought we would never see our loved ones again. It was only 2015, but even then, worries about prolonged Russian aggression loomed all over Ukraine like a dense fog. Regardless of war-related matters, I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back more than anything. The two weeks that I spent with my family were lovely and truly unforgettable, but they did not satiate my hunger for belonging. I yearned to breathe the fresh mountain air, sit under the summer sun and talk to my cousins without end and roam the small village streets just like my parents did so many years ago. Though, due to airplane ticket costs and the unfortunate political climate within Ukraine, my parents were hesitant to let me fly back. So, I never did. My parents and I always talked about visiting our family for at least a week in the summer, but our ideas never took root. Then, once the war in Ukraine began in 2022, my chances of seeing at least one family member seemed unrealistic.
When I applied for a Fulbright scholarship to the Czech Republic, I applied with the intention to teach students English as a second language. As someone who also learned English as her second language, I wanted to share a glimpse of my personal experience with others. I wanted to connect with my students and share valuable resources to make learning English enjoyable. Additionally, I wanted to immerse myself in a culture I was not too familiar with, learn about the country’s history, and gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of pedagogy. I wanted to help improve the English proficiency levels of my students and learn at least a little bit of Czech along the way. I did not think, however, that if I might have the chance to fulfill a Fulbright scholarship as an ETA, I would also live 20 minutes from two of my cousins who fled from the war in Ukraine. To my surprise, and that of everyone who I relay this story to, that is exactly what happened.
At the onslaught of the war in Ukraine, four of my cousins and their individual families fled to surrounding countries for refuge. Two of my cousins with their spouses and small children, not much older than the age of three, hurriedly moved to neighborhoods in western Germany. My other two cousins, Vita and Natalia, sisters on my father’s side of the family, fled to the Czech Republic together. The latter two had already experienced life in Czechia as temporary migrant workers, taking on any and all factory jobs that they could find to send remittances back home. Though, once Russia initiated its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, my cousins no longer had a home to go back to and were forced to stay in the Czech Republic. Worried about the safety and well-being of each family member abroad, my parents and I called everyone we knew on a daily basis. So, we knew that Vita and Natalia were safely working somewhere in the Czech Republic called Kroměříž, though that was the extent of information that we had.
In late May, I was sent a detailed email from the Fulbright Commission informing me about my school and town placement. As I read through the email, I found out that I had been placed at a gymnazium in Holešov. Curious to know more about the town, I researched it on Google and then phoned my cousins to ask if they had even heard of this place. I had low expectations for their answer, but I asked anyway. Once I asked, I could not believe my ears: not only did they both know about Holešov but the town itself was only a twenty-minute bus ride from Kroměříž. As one can imagine, I was in disbelief for the duration of our conversation.
There are absolutely no words that can best describe the raw emotions that I felt at that very moment; any attempt to detail those few minutes would simply not do it justice. As I had mentioned before, for over twenty years, my extended family and I were geographically separated due to political and social issues beyond our control. I grew up learning about my family as though they were textbook figures. While I did have the chance to finally see my loved ones during the summer of 2015, I knew it was merely a visit for living with and visiting people are two different things. Though now, after having received Fulbright, was my chance to change all of that. Since moving to the Czech Republic in August, I have spent more time with my cousins than I ever imagined. Even more, with the allotted country days, I even had the time to visit my cousins in Germany and my mother’s friend in Hungary whom she had not seen since the 1990s. I rekindled the connections between my extended family and myself that I once thought would remain dormant forever. For these reasons and more, I am beyond thankful for Fulbright.
With the help of Fulbright, I was able to experience life beyond the limits of my Philadelphian zip code. I had the opportunity to immerse myself into Czech culture by actively trying to learn the language via regular exposure, tasting traditional meals, attending cultural events, traveling to towns big and small, and most of all, teaching. Fulbright enabled me to gain classroom experience alongside motivated colleagues and teach English as a second language to over 400 students. Though I served as a teaching assistant, I did not just teach, I learned with and from students and colleagues as they asked me questions and gave me their constructive feedback. It is with such educational reciprocity that my understanding and appreciation of the coursework and pedagogy deepened. Moreover, while I noticed in myself, my students, and my colleagues the frustration that comes with not knowing a language well, I have also come to realize that our believed ‘setback’ is not a barrier but a passageway to enriching experiences.
And an enriching experience it has been over the last ten months in the Czech Republic. Never in my life would I have imagined these experiences. Never in my life would I think that I would be writing about my Fulbright journey with one month left from the comfort of my flat in a small Moravian town only 20 minutes away from my cousins. As I reflect on all that I was able to do during my grant period, I am grateful for it all. Though, I am most especially grateful for the connections, both new and old, that I was able to start and strengthen, respectively. It meant a lot to me to have befriended my colleagues at school, fellow ETAs within Fulbright, and my next-door neighbors who always greet me with a gleeful ‘ahoj.’ It meant even more that I had the opportunity to spend time with my cousins despite the turmoil currently taking place in our Ukrainia. I did not think that our paths would ever cross again, but they did almost every single weekend in a cafe over cups of green tea and Czech pastries as though we have done so for years. If it is one thing that I’ll miss, it will be the shared moments of simple splendor with new friends and loved ones that Fulbright has allowed me to experience for the first time in my life.
Thank you, Fulbright!
Photo: With friends, Fulbright English Teaching Assistants Catherine, Urvi and Elinor in Prague, fall 2022.