“Immigration”

Getting out of a Communist country was not easy, but, by the late 1980’s, it was doable.  At the time, western European countries were accepting refugees from the Eastern Bloc on a temporary basis while they applied to immigrate to countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States.

My biological father managed to leave without tipping anyone off and announced he was in Italy by sending a letter and a toy for me from a Nesquik cacao container without the actual chocolate – typical!

My stepfather’s brother was there too and sending word it was safe to go.

My stepfather then ventured off also but before my mother and I could go, my biological father had to be stripped of his rights so that I could leave the country without his permission.

My mother never bothered to file for sole custody at the time of their divorce because she basically had it given the marriage ended due to his lack of maturity. Afterward, he never bothered to pay child support, despite having the means, allowing instead his mother to do it for him, as if he was a child himself.

The legal custody problem was solved by selling our  blue Fiat (cars, in communist Poland, were considered luxury items worth a small fortune) and using the money as a bribe to pay off a family court judge to grant sole custody. Once this was accomplished my mother applied for and was granted a Christmas holiday visa for us to go to Rome. 

We left in the middle of a winter night with one suitcase, packed lightly as to not raise suspicion. 

Once in Rome, we surrendered to a chaotic inspection by border guards accompanied by hostile German shepherd “search dogs” that stank up the place like it was the pit of hell. Everyone knew the unspoken truth of why we were there; refugees leaving behind the Soviet regime. A whole plane full of people with return tickets back to Poland who would never use them.

Since we arrived in Italy right before Christmas, my mother and stepfather thought it a good idea to take me to a charity event held for refugee children. I felt shame at being a “charity case” as pity oozed from behind the fake smiles of the organizers… though pity was not as bad as having to hear Italians voicing disgust when public transportation got crowded because of us, “dirty refugees”, as they “encountered” us to go back to where we came from… It’s one thing to be “poor”, it’s another to have your dignity chipped at because of it.

As I sifted through piles of used clothing and shoes, I found a track suit (as per photo above) and some other items including super scuffed teal colored shoes which belonged in the garbage and not in a donation bin. The shoes fit so I wore them to any social occasion I could, mostly as a “fuck you” to my parents for the humiliation.

At the end of the event, I was gifted a Marilyn Monroe doll with hyper erect nipples which shot out like torpedoes from her green dress. I yearned for a plush toy to sooth me and instead got stuck with barbie’s creepy sister; a perfect ending to a perfect evening.

Going into Italian grocery stores was a different experience, since unlike Polish grocery stores which had nothing on their shelves and mile long lineups if they happened to get toilet paper or bread or milk, there was no shortage of anything on the shelves. When getting used to this new normal, I binge ate hot dog meat for a month straight until my body finally had enough, threw up and got over it. 

First authentic impression of environment while walking around the city of Latina when the novelty of it wore off and the ugly showed its ugly face: “stranger danger” when adult males routinely stopped their cars to whistle and cat call me as a 10 year old child.

First up close and personal impression of Italian adults when I told them I did not speak Italian so they proceed to raise their voice to a slow scream as if louder and slower noise making was their Rosetta Stone of language translation: pity for the cognitively impaired!

First impression of Italian television: garbage, with its most trashy accomplishment airing at 10 pm nightly, a show called  “Colpo Grosso”. It was comprised of sleazy males akin to Simon Cowell, sitting on pedestals, as hoards of Italian females competed with each other to the theme music of Dynasty and were voted on by the Simons, on which one of them had the biggest and most attractive looking titties! Italy, the crown jewel of patriarchy, even at a young age of 10, appeared ridiculous to me!

Not as ridiculous as my stepfather threatening me with rape when alone in a bedroom of an apartment we lived in prior to moving in with the mafia…

Humans closed down the refugee camps in protest of my arrival in Italy — “sorry Christ we decided is the Antichrist despite you being the ONE TRUE CHRIST, the refugee camps are at capacity, yes, 100% human and nothing else children of refugees live in these here refugee camps, they get food, clothes and school 100% free of charge, and you, alien freak, can go and die on the side of a road for all we care”… just like they shut down the water supply, “no water for the 100% alien in a 100% human female body making her THE REAL MESSIAH AND SAVIOR OF EARTH”, during my “first communion” celebration in May a few years prior… humans say I am the Antichrist so no I cannot be the Christ because I am the Christ but they say I am not so groundhog day nightmare has been my life since I got into this vessel… me the 100% alien crossed with 100% human, the very definition of the CHRIST…

Back to me, a prepubescent, being threatened with rape while alone with and in the care of my stepfather… In the tiny apartment shared between 4 adults and me, a prepubescent female alien, in lieu of the safety of a refugee camp outfitted with a high fence and security, there was a poster of a naked female with nothing but a “heart” sticker placed on her vagina… she was tied to a bed, spread eagle, looking like she had just been gang raped and pissed on… what a wall decoration… (what? such “wallpaper” is normal, just like the photograph of your “grandmother”, Melania Przerwa, with her middle finger between her toddler granddaughter’s legs — you’re a delusional retard if you think anything else — sneer hateful, soulless, gaslighting human handlers!)… no, it was not sexy… it was disgusting… it was a creepy show of force 100% aimed to traumatize me… it made me feel uncomfortable… it made me fear for my safety… sensing how frightened I felt, my stepfather, the guy who collected me from preschool and took me to see movies like the glorifying of mummies film called “King”dom of the Crystal Skull, had a psychotic personality change form the eccentric, happy-go-lucky flaming gay or at the very least asexual (he and mean mommy looked like a “queen” gay and a “butch” dyke got together to waste each other’s time, until the very end, absolutely zero sexual chemistry… one time, in Canada, I caught him attempting to stroke his flaccid dick to porn containing females… there is no fucking way he was attracted to them!)
caregiver he had played… why not, I was his “target” and as a hostile human handler he took advantage of a perceived vulnerability (carpe diem) and learned in to deliver a blow that landed right in the jugular…

“If you don’t behave, I am going to do that to you!”, he laughed pointing at the enslaved female as if she was an animal in a zoo… glitch in the matrix.. another “check-please” moment!

We then moved to a trailer park ran by the mafia where my mother and stepfather worked as maintenance staff.  I never trusted him again.  Eventually, my stepfather worked up the courage to show the mob boss photos of his art (or so the story goes, however, given Jelena Pajovic Duric admitted my life is a micromanaged bullshit lie, maybe not…).  Once the mobster recognized my stepfather’s “talent”, he gave him a large studio space where he and my mother (as his assistant) painted large scale reproductions of artists such as Renoir and van Gogh.

When my mother and stepfather were at work, which was all the time since the goal was to save as much money as possible, I was left to fend for myself. I watched a tiny, black and white television which only worked when it was placed on its side that taught me how to speak fluent Italian without the need for yelling. I also entertained myself by riding a borrowed bicycle, like a speed demon around the property, and playing with stray cats and an old, chained up dog. My chores included venturing outside the camp ground to go grocery shopping on the bicycle and making siesta meals, and, at times, dinner.

We left the warm climate of Italy for what was supposed to be a mild climate of Vancouver, Britiah Columbia, Canada. But, as luck would have it, it was an unprecedented winter of snow on our arrival.

Prior to enrollment in elementary school, I was required to write an exam aimed at assessing my skill level. The whole thing was written in English, a language I did not speak. I became excited when I got to the math section because math I could do!  My enthusiasm quickly dwindled when I realized half the equations were using a strange looking symbol I had not seen before, never mind knew how to utilize. The administrator seemed surprised I failed to complete the math section and placed me in a grade below my own age group.  However; once in a classroom setting, the teacher quickly realized there was nothing wrong with my division skills; it was the symbol which Canada used that was not universal!

I started grade five at a school which kept all of the immigrant kids together in one classroom except for lessons in music and physical education. All of us, regardless of grade level were taught English as together, with the curriculum being individualized in subjects like math.  Unfortunately, the result of this well meaning “experiment” created a sense of division within the school itself because the “normal” kids saw us as outsiders, calling our group “dirty immigrants” and refusing to make friends. Having been exposed to similar name calling in Italy, I was not shocked by the ignorance of my Canadian schoolmates. In contrast, my ESL classmates were a friendly and fun group from countries over the world who coped with being outcasts by avoiding the Canadians, especially in the school cafeteria, like the plague.  

For the start of grade seven we move to the suburbs, and into an apartment building  with the infamous number of 6969, for which I was teased… my new school did not have a segregated ESL program so I was placed into a regular classroom and was welcomed by my English speaking peers.  

As I transitioned to high school, the old outgoing me from before immigration began to shine. I enrolled in electives like leadership, choir and drama and made friends with ease. Like any teenager, I wanted to belong but I also knew from early experience “popularity” was an artificial and often  arbitrary construct. Prior to leaving Poland, my stepfather was a successful artist who among other things, designed clothing.  Once in Canada none of that mattered as even people  who were doctors in their own countries started from the bottom with scrubbed toilets for a living. I recall my stepfather saying “it is not what you wear, but how you wear it” which I took to heart, and started a trend with an old pair of Italian corduroys.