American dreams

I settled into my seat, ready for the long plane ride. Excited chatter from passengers around me swept through the aisles. We were all on our way to Israel for the winter holiday season. Discarding the thin airline blanket, I instead warmed myself with memories of the mild Mediterranean weather that awaited us.

"Um, hello. This is seat 32-B?"

I looked up into the unsure face of a woman whose accented voice seemed more concerned with having the correct words than the correct seat. I silently gambled that her accent was Eastern European.

"Yes," I answered. "This is your seat." We exchanged smiles as the woman sat down next to me.

"My name is Elizabeth," she said.

"Hi, I'm Rachel," I said, wondering the best way to inquire about her origins without sounding nosy. As our plane took off, I quickly calculated that we had about 10 hours left for small talk. Certainly her life history would come up at some point?

"I moved to New York three years ago from the city of Samarkand," Elizabeth generously offered.

"Uzbekistan, really?" I marveled. Having studied Middle East history for a semester at college, I was intrigued by my seatmate's origins. Elizabeth affirmed the existence of Samarkand's wondrous architecture and ethnic artistry that my textbooks had highlighted as remnants from the 14th century.

I couldn't wait to tell my professor that—without an assignment—I had studied a historical primary source, one with memories as footnotes and smiles for pictures.

"Is this your first trip to Israel?" I asked Elizabeth.

She nodded. "When the Soviet Union collapsed, my brother and his family chose to move to Israel instead of to America," Elizabeth answered. "This will be the first time I've seen my brother since we left Central Asia." Softly she added, "I haven't hugged my brother in three years."

I tried to remember if I had even said goodbye to mine. Elizabeth asked if I had visited Israel before. Upon nodding my head yes, she asked if I thought it was harder to live in Israel or in America.

I didn't answer immediately. Who was I to know about hard living? As an American, I was protected from the land disputes and religious clashes in Israel. So what did I know about the terrorism, religious and ethnic tensions that were common there? Even back home in America, I was very fortunate that such impediments didn't affect me.

"There are tradeoffs," I finally concluded, after verbally weighing the religious identity of Israel and the political stability of the States.

"When Uzbekistan was under Soviet control," Elizabeth explained, "the economy was good. But it was very hard to be Jewish. Now that my country is independent, the economy is struggling."

"And religion?" I asked.

"It's hard to be a minority anywhere," Elizabeth said. Knowing that it was an unfair question, I asked Elizabeth if she regretted choosing the Land of Opportunity instead of the Land of Milk and Honey.

"What I regret is thinking that opportunity meant success," my immigrant seatmate answered carefully. Elizabeth had been a nurse back in Uzbekistan. In New York, though, she was a housecleaner.

"My husband is a very talented, unemployed photographer," she said sadly. Her three children were enrolled in public school and struggling to fit into American culture. Elizabeth had mentioned earlier that her 17-year-old daughter wanted to go to college. "That's why we moved to America in the first place, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "But how can I give my children a future when I can't even afford to buy them Nike shoes?"

"At least my grandchildren will be American," Elizabeth said wistfully. "I already envy them."

To lighten the mood, I told her that I thought she was courageous. She told me I was lucky. "You will have a good life and a good job," Elizabeth said. "They will come easy to you." After all, I was an American; my parents and grandparents were all American.

Elizabeth looked at me for a while and then closed her eyes. Her silence communicated quite loudly that she wanted privacy. Granting her some, I turned my head and reached for the headphones. Music soon accompanied my thoughts.

I had never before considered that my American lineage could be as coveted at home as my American passport was overseas. How could I have flippantly told Elizabeth that I didn't take my nationality for granted? If only she was still awake to see me blush.

Some hours later, Elizabeth's sleeping head found its way onto my shoulder. This gesture of vulnerability humbled me further. Gently, I placed a pillow between her resting head and my shoulder, careful not to wake her. She didn't stir. I smiled, knowing Elizabeth would sleep soundly, comforted by her American dream.