Episode #10: Boris – From the Soviet Union to New York City as a Ukrainian Jewish Refugee

In this episode of Not an Alien, Boris shares the story of his immigration journey, as a teenager, from the former Soviet Union to the United States. Taking advantage of the short-lived detente in the 1970s which opened the door for many Jewish families to escape the Eastern Bloc, Boris and his mother left their home in Odessa bound, ostensibly, for Israel, and having left nearly all of their worldly possessions behind, transited through Italy – where Boris found himself feeling very much at home for three months! – before landing in New York City. Emphasizing the opportunities and the pleasures more than the hardships, Boris’s is another of the many uniquely American success stories. Following high school and college in New York, he went on to a job on Wall Street, and as an American citizen, has built a rich life for himself in Manhattan, where his two daughters are now stand out students who maintain a deep sense of the formative struggles that brought their family to the U.S.