Waiting vs reality: Ukrainian told about life in the USA after winning a green card
'01.10.2021'
Source: Gloss.ua
27-year-old Olya Gamolya won the Green Card in 2015, and after a year she moved to Chicago. Olya is from the Ukrainian city of Rivne, before moving to the USA she lived in Kiev. Now he works in the finance department of the medical center and maintains his blog on Instagram. We publish her story in the first person.
I won the green card from the first time, took my Ukrainian cat and moved to the States, Olya says Gloss.ua... It is worth noting that before moving to the States, I had never been, therefore, all my expectations were based mainly on stereotypes from American comedies, on which we all grew up. My life here is a bottomless well of Waiting is Reality stories. I will try to systematize point by point.
1. Repeatedly received a question Do the United States pay for flights, housing, and cash grants? for the winners of the Green Card Lottery. Unfortunately, there is no super-uncle waiting for you at the airport with a suitcase of dollars. The winnings itself are already cosmic happiness: many people who live and work in America illegally are ready to pay more than one tens of thousands of dollars for any fraud in order to be legalized and have documents. And iPhones are not handed out here either.
2. I, a naive child, waited just outside the airport skyscrapers view on downtown... In reality, most of America (I have seen only 7 states so far, but still) is suburban settlements, or, as they say here, saberbs. Housing in downtown itself is very expensive and limited in size, so people go further. For example, the Ukrainian diaspora prefers quiet neyborhuds, where you can buy a house and raise children. Accordingly, there will be fewer blacks, Mexicans, and so on, so the level of security is higher. For example, I still live within the city of Chicago in a very small studio, where the bed is already in the doorway. Sometimes this surprises our people, but I really wanted to live by the lake, and I also wanted the documents to say that I was in Chicago, and not in a village nearby.
3. The next joke is housing. I remember, I came completely green, my acquaintances talked about the basement housing options of the Poles and Ukrainians. This is a very popular scheme here: the family buys the house and takes the newly arrived immigrant residents in the basement. I did not understand why only such options are available. Darling dreamed of looking at the lake and so on. For comparison, they wanted 600 dollars for the basement, and the studio near the lake could be taken for 750-800 dollars. I learned from my experience that even if you have money, you will not give up your apartment, because you do not have a credit history. There is such a general indicator of your financial responsibility FICO score: it starts from the mark of 300 and can grow to 850. If you have it above 700, everyone wants to give you credit cards for maximum limits, the coolest apartments and low interest on a mortgage. At that time, for three days in the States, my credit history had not even begun. When I moved to my studio in March, some people asked me if I had bought this housing: this is America and zero credits. But in reality, I prayed that with my 6-month history I was at least given a rent. In the banks here, too, intelligent people are sitting, and no one gives money to the right and left.
4. Language is a separate story. I have a diploma in foreign philology, and although my knowledge of German and French evaporated as soon as I left the university, I was one hundred percent confident in my English ... Before the first dialogue with a black bus driver. I gazed like a sheep at a new gate, because it was not English. All my Present Perfect / Past Perfect Continuous skills burst like a soap bubble due to slang and speech style. I had a special grief with Indians and blacks. When I worked at the reception, I remember one phone call: a dark-skinned woman decided to mock me. I politely asked about five times what she wanted, and asked her to speak more slowly, and in return received something in the style of "come in large numbers here." I redirected her to my colleague, and I ran to cry in the toilet. There are no problems with Americans, because they have an understandable pronunciation, and I am still not friends with blacks. I already understand them, but their style and intonation instill fear in me. Just kidding, but with some truth.
On the subject: The family flew over the green card to Philadelphia, but not sure if it was worth changing their homeland to the USA
5. Back in Ukraine, I knew that medicine is expensive here, so I packed in my suitcase a large smuggling kit with our Strepsils and similar means. I knew that everyone here is on insurance, and it’s happiness if you have one. When I started working at the medical center, I first heard that there are different insurance policies too. For example, the majority of doctors do not want to accept social insurance Obamacare, or such patients are written down for later. Bureaucracy in all its glory: a patient calls you and you ask what kind of insurance he has. If self pay (pays independently - ed.), Then write it right for today, because it is real money. If it is private insurance, then I must write it down for today or tomorrow, and if the insurance is simpler, then the next date is next month. I'm exaggerating a little, but this is the basic principle. Plus, there are often cases that the cost of treatment with insurance is even more expensive than a person would pay out of their own pocket. And all because the cost of one procedure differs depending on the insurance policy.
6. I associated states with McDonald's and 200-kilogram people... I admit that cola is sweeter here, most of the dishes are fatty, and the locals are crazy about fried bacon, but there are a lot of "fitons" here that keep themselves in shape. I live by the lake and all the time I see the flea market in the parks: everyone is running, swimming, cycling, I have nowhere to go with my fatty ice cream. There are also fat people, but these are mostly poor people who eat in fast foods. Separately, it is worth noting the hysteria on organic: here this word is everywhere. Everything from milk to toothbrush is organic, and this affects the cost. Although, in fact, it is not all so “organic”: I suspect that most of them use “organic chemistry” instead of standard chemistry on farms.
On the subject: How to fill in the application form for the Green Card 2021 lottery: complete official instructions in Russian
7. It is worth remembering about the holidays. Ukrainian darling loves the May holidays, when the whole country is cut down in a binge for a week. When you come here, reality awaits you. There are three or four public holidays here, and everything else is arbeiten, folks. Vacation also needs to be coordinated six months in advance, because Americans are terrible planners: they schedule everything a year in advance.
8. Favorite item - roads. Ukrainian roads left an “indelible mark” on my psyche, and I kept dreaming about space American roads. In fact, I've only seen high-quality ideal roads in the south (California and especially Texas). In Chicago there is a change of seasons and there is a winter, you can see it on the roads. Although we often have lanes closed for repairs, even in downtown there are places where you can be left without a wheel. Once we were on the highway (expressway) without a wheel and were having a midnight tire service with a Mexican who didn't speak English. There are many toll highways in Chicago: the fare ranges from $ 1 to $ 2, and pits are still present in some places.
9. Taxes: at this point most locals are likely to shudder. There are taxes in Ukraine, but everything is special here. As a shopaholic, it is uncomfortable for me to see price tags without tax: you take something for $ 80 and leave $ 90 at the checkout. The same is with the salary - some employers themselves deduct, and with some you yourself report at the end of the year and must give a good amount to the state ... If your taxes have been deducted throughout the year, then at the end of the year a bonus awaits you: the state returns you some of the amount. That is why jokes in the style of “bumming before tax-season, and then sitting in gold” are popular here.
10. And the last thing is measurement. You see, for example, cherries for $ 2,99, row more, and at the checkout it turns out that you piled on $ 7. All this is due to the fact that prices are in pounds (pounds, 1 pound = 0,45 kg - ed.), And Ukrainian darling understands in kilograms, so you pay twice as much. Still not used to Fahrenheit and my three-digit pound weight.
In fact, you can talk endlessly and talk about your mistakes and unexpected moments. But for now, dozens are enough. I want to emphasize that all observations are subjective and made only from the height of my modest flight in the States.
As Woman ForumDaily wrote earlier:
- 2 October 2019 at noon Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) opened accepting applications for the Green Card 2021 lottery. It will be possible to fill out and send applications by noon Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Tuesday, November 5, November 2019. We tell how to do it right, and thereby increase your chances of winning.
- Are you eligible to participate in the lottery? How to answer all the questions? What should be considered when photographing? We know exactly how to correctly fill out an application for the Green Card 2021 lottery - full official instruction in Russian will help you not to be mistaken.
- Often, applicants make mistakes in documents submitted to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Because of them, the consideration of the issue of issuing a green card may be delayed or even lead to failure. Find out what constitutes 10 most common mistakes when submitting documents to a green card.
- There are many misconceptions about everything regarding the lottery, which opened up a huge number of people the way to the United States. Due to a misconception about the lottery, many lose the chance of winning. We are offering to you a selection of factsthat will help you make the right moves towards your own American dream.
