I was born in May, but every Oct. 25, I celebrate another day that, to my family, feels like a birthday, too.
Forty years ago, the four of us got up in predawn darkness, pulled on three layers of clothes, and grabbed suitcases filled with second-hand clothes, some books, a sleeping bag and a manual typewriter. Our Viennese friend, Ernst, drove us to the airport, where we boarded a plane filled with fellow Czechoslovak refugees.
Almost a day later, we caught our first sight of the Statue of Liberty under a jet’s wing dipping to make the turn to JFK airport.
Then there were interviews and photographs, and another plane ride, and finally the relatives that greeted us at the airport in Seattle-Tacoma. They were the ones who introduced us to American life that first night, with a stop for a McDonald’s hamburger that, in my memory, still tastes unaccountably good.
Two days later, I tried to figure out junior high school. In my first 10 minutes, I broke a microscope and reduced the young science teacher to red-faced embarrassment. Lockers were strange, their combinations inscrutable. I knew buses, but in my 700-year-old town in the Moravian hills, you didn’t take a school bus, you walked to school.
I was so traumatized by the strangeness of it all, I wore the same dress to school for a week.
But one facet of American life I knew all about already: 1968 was an election year. For us Czechs, for the first time in 20 years, we’d had an election, too! Even my father ran for some sort of office (the equivalent of a county commissioner). He lost, but that was a part of democracy, too.
That early summer, as the storm clouds of invasion were gathering outside our borders, we were still celebrating the freedom of the Prague Spring. One of millions, I signed the document called “2,000 Words” that declared to the Soviets and the rest of the Warsaw Pact nations our intent to remain a free, democratic nation.
And we’d followed American elections, too. Robert Kennedy captured our imaginations, and just like young people here, we cried when we heard about his death. So when my new American teacher, Mr. Graham, asked us kids in math class who we thought should win the election, I raised my hand for Richard Nixon. “Because he will end the war in Vietnam,” I stated with the perfect certainty of a 12-year-old.
Ten general elections have come and gone since the one that took place barely 10 days after my arrival in this country. Watergate changed my mind about Richard Nixon, but I’ve never changed my mind about the value of democracy. Moved to tears, I took both my babies to the voting booth with me. Though not very politic in any meaning of the word myself, I take my franchise seriously.
In the years since the Iron Curtain came down, my parents have questioned their decision to emigrate. They look at the lives of the friends who stayed behind, and envy them the comfort of never having had to live in a country with a different language, never having to drive just to go grocery shopping, never having to worry about finding money for their health care.
For me, this land will always be home, not only because I’ve lived so much more of my life here, but because philosophically I am an American. I believe not only in my right to choose who I want to lead, but in my freedom to choose how I will lead my life. I revel in a place where changing careers and lifestyles, even in midlife, reflects courage, not fecklessness.
Tonight, I talked to a friend on the phone. He works for the defense industry. Could he be sent overseas, to Afghanistan or Iraq? I wondered. Suddenly, there was a strong beeping noise, and the call was dropped. We resumed the conversation minutes later, and joked about “the guys listening.” But some part of me shuddered at the possibility that it wasn’t a joke, that there really was someone trolling through phone calls and noting when sensitive words were spoken.
A few years ago, this would have been paranoid fantasy, and frankly I hope it still is. But one never knows.
So here I am. Naturalized American citizen, with a son in the Navy and a house in middle America, and suddenly wondering: Did my parents make the right choice after all, 40 years ago?
Eva Syrovy is a teacher in Colorado Springs. EDITOR’S NOTE: This online-only guest commentary has not been edited. Guest commentary submissions of up to 650 words may be sent to openforum@denverpost.com.
