My mom, a refugee, is vetted every day

“I doubt my mother would pass the “extreme vetting” process Donald Trump has in mind for refugees seeking a new life in the United States. After 26 years in this country, she still speaks with a heavy accent, misplaces tenses, mumbles. She doesn’t know the Pledge of Allegiance. Her job as a night security guard requires staying awake and making sure the doors stay locked, the perfect position for an immigrant like her.

Before coming to America, Mom was a psychiatrist, working in a busy clinic in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The city’s population was more than a million, but after decades as a doctor, she couldn’t run an errand without bumping into a former patient or grateful family member. It used to annoy me as a child, and I’d tug on her arm, impatient to move on. Once we came to the United States, that was no longer a problem.”

Lev Golinkin is the author of a memoir about his family’s immigration from Soviet Ukraine to the West – “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka.”

KJ