Each year on the Fourth of July I feel the need to call my parents and wish them a happy day. I used to think it was just because for the first couple of decades of my life, we celebrated the day together. But today I woke up and it all came together. On the Fourth of July I don’t just celebrate America, I celebrate my parents. They are the ones who chose America as their home and the reason I was born here. 

In the early 1990s my parents fled the former Soviet Union (what is now Uzbekistan). Like most people they fled to escape communism. And as Jews they also fled to escape religious persecution. They made it to America in 1993. They barely knew the language and had to go back to school and retake their boards if they wanted to keep practicing medicine in the U.S. I was born in February 1994—the first person in my family tree to be born in America. That’s usually the extent of what I tell people if asked where I’m from or why I speak Russian. 

It’s my go-to fun fact where the conversation usually goes a little something like this:

Me: I speak Russian.
Everyone: How? Where are you from?
Me: My parents immigrated to the U.S. while my mother was pregnant with me and I was the first person in my family to be born here. I actually learned English after most of my peers and had trouble reading in English when I started elementary school. I could read Russian though.

Most people are impressed, the conversation logically segues into languages and a request for me to say something in Russian. Very few people ask the compassionate questions—about my parents: What was it like for your parents to learn English? What was it like for your parents to immigrate here? What do your parents think of America compared to growing up in the Soviet Union? Those questions aren’t quite as fun as “Can you teach me how to say bad words in Russian?”

While I never thought much about people’s lack of interest in what my parents were born into, lately, I have been feeling the need to speak out about it. With friends calling me up telling me maybe communism is the right way and claiming to be proud socialists themselves, I can’t help but think that maybe if they had ever asked for a first-hand account (my parents) of what it was like to live in a communist country, they wouldn’t be so quick to condemn the United States of America. This country has afforded my parents so many opportunities, and me to be the first person in my family born in a free country, so I feel compelled to share the longer story, past the fun facts everyone heard during the get-to-know-you game on the first day.

When my parents made it to America, like most immigrants they ended up in New York. From what I remember of my early childhood, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and aunts while my parents were busy going back to school. Then there was a time when my parents lived separately—my mom was with us in Syracuse while my dad attended Yale. We visited my dad when possible and he always took us for bagels in the morning and pizza in the afternoon. We lived very simply in a bare-bones apartment, sleeping on literal cots. We spent a couple years in St. Louis, Missouri while my dad completed more schooling at WashU. My parents and four of us kids—six people—in a two-bedroom apartment at this point. 

I remember when my dad got his first “real” job (because residency paid so little) when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old and we moved to Colorado. My parents bought their first house (in their 40s) and we had a backyard of our own to play in. I remember they struggled to learn how to do everything. One time a neighbor even came up to me and asked about the “jungle” that was our yard because my parents hadn’t figured out how to mow the lawn. Still we loved it and I was proud of my parents and our first house.

Later my parents moved us to Boston. They bought a big house (although I still shared a room until my sister went to college). I went to highly rated public schools (where I wasn’t the only Jew in the class). I took gymnastics and ice skating lessons. I was on my high school’s cross country team. I finally got to attend Hebrew school and learn more about Judaism. I fasted for the first time on Yom Kippur. My siblings got their bar and bar mitsvahs. I took an SAT prep course. I got into a great college where I met the love of my life. All of this was because my parents came to America when my mom was pregnant with me. I will always be forever grateful for that. 

And now on July 4, 2025 while I am not going through another milestone, I am feeling gratitude for my parents, my husband, my country. My life would have looked vastly different if I was born in Uzbekistan. While it’s no longer the Soviet Union, it’s no United States of America. And as someone who grew up listening to stories of what it was like to live under a communist regime, I am so thankful I don’t have that experience. I had barbecues and lake days on the Fourth of July, lighting candles on Hanukkah, getting into a great school that afforded me great career opportunities to make and save money so my husband and I could buy our first house before the age of 30. 

So I’m not sure who else needs this reminder but it’s okay to be grateful, today or all days, for the opportunities afforded to you. It’s okay to look up in the sky this evening and just be thankful that you’re here and you’re doing okay. To be thankful that you’re not in a country that discriminates based on race, gender, or religion. To consider that maybe the grass isn’t quite greener on the other side but your grass could be greener if you tended to it. Or, at the very least, to be thankful that you’re in a country, that while is not prefect by any means, is still young yet.

Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow Americans, those both proud to be American and those who aren’t. Today I’ll be cultivating gratitude during my yoga practice, reflecting on my accomplishments and areas of improvement, and above all, celebrating this country I am lucky to have been born in.

Until next time,
Leah Ost