The late April sun beat down on me as I stood in line on the hot asphalt. I was not used to the humid and sticky Connecticut spring compared to the chilly Lithuanian weather. Sweat trickled down my legs as I shifted uncomfortably in my tights, my long blonde hair stuck to the back of my neck, and my stiff dress shoes pinched my feet. The kids playing around me were enjoying recess and were dressed in jean shorts and sneakers. I felt like an alien in my favorite purple flowery dress and oversized hair bow. I was an alien. A taller-than-average, chubby, pale, bewildered alien. The butterflies I had felt in my stomach all morning had morphed into vicious fighting falcons, and my anxiety skyrocketed when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Behind me stood a petite eight-year-old girl, the size I imagined I should have been. She looked confident and comfortable in her overall shorts and stylish ponytail and she exuded the perfect all-American girl-next-door vibe that I had seen in American movies. There was no preamble, she went straight into a conversation with me. “Who do you like better, the Backstreet Boys or NSYNC?” she asked. The question was unintelligible, and I stared blankly back at her knowing that the right response was necessary for my social survival. It was in that moment of pure panic that I realized that the 4,000 miles I had traveled did not bring me any closer to popularity. Later, I found out that this perfect girl’s name was Amy; Amy kindly explained to me that she was asking about my musical preferences. As I considered how to respond, all could think about was how I couldn’t believe that I was only halfway through my first day of school in the United States.
Because I grew up in Lithuania, English wasn’t my first language. However, English quickly became the primary language I spoke with my parents while we lived in Lithuania after my mother met my American father when I was two years old. Since my grandfather and mother spoke English fluently, and my new father sometimes depended on my translation skills, English came quickly and was never a struggle for me. I even briefly attended an English-speaking embassy school before my parents temporarily pulled me out of schooling altogether. When I finally was put back into a Lithuanian public school, my first-grade classmates and I spoke English with our instructor for at least one period a day. By the time I was eight years old, when we moved to America in the spring of 1998, there were no concerns over my ability to speak English. In fact, there were no concerns over my ability to matriculate into the American public-school system. My education in Lithuania put me years ahead of my American classmates in all subjects, and my parents and future teachers were confident that I would have no academic challenges. Since Eastern Point Elementary School in Groton, Connecticut was going to be the third school I was to attend by the age of eight, they didn’t seem particularly worried about my ability to fit in socially either. After all, young children are resilient social butterflies. Making friends with a bunch of casually dressed seemingly out of control second graders should be no problem.
What my parents and teachers did not account for was the massive trauma of leaving one’s home country and extended family coupled with the baffling experience of culture shock. Generally, children adjust to American culture faster than their parents; my cultural lag, however, has haunted me ever since my first day of school. To this day, I have not been able to catch up on those eight years of missed pop culture. Iterations of the “Backstreet Boys or NSYNC” question have haunted me for the last 22 years. On an almost daily basis I am forced to disappoint a friend or colleague by being unable to relate to their pop culture references.
Them: “You know that scene in Star Wars?”
Me: “No.”
Or
Them: “Have you seen—”
Me: “Probably not.”
Them: “Oh come on, you’ve definitely seen Sand Lot!”
Me: “Nope.”
For some reason, people never seem stop trying to gauge the true depth of my popular culture deficiency.
In addition to the unforeseen culture shock, my crippling and completely undiagnosed social anxiety was also ignored. Psychologists note that there is a distinct the difference between social anxiety and the acceptable levels of nervousness. Normal nervousness includes butterflies in the stomach on the first day of school, a feeling that lessens significantly after the initial event is over. Social anxiety is the consistent growth of nervousness that continues regardless of the outcome. Each social interaction on that first day of school in Connecticut grew my anxiety creating new and never-before achieved levels. Although I’d like to blame my social anxiety on this first day of school in the United States, the truth is, I brought it with me. I grew up in a family of anxious individuals, and I learned at an early age that the world was inherently dangerous and scary, thus creating an endless cycle of fear. I carried mountains of generational trauma on top of my very own brand-new trauma. I held those memories and piled them on top of my own. My mother’s, and grandmother’s, and great-grandmother’s trauma was neatly catalogued next to my own. I had no reason to believe that the world was a safe place. Anxiety was not a choice; it was a product of my upbringing. With that mounting anxiety, I was sent off to tackle my next hardship.
It was the first day back from spring break for the students at Eastern Point Elementary School and I, armed with nothing but impending culture shock and my ever-present anxiety, was unceremoniously thrust into a second-grade classroom. Although this wasn’t my first time starting at a new school, and not my first time in the United States, everything about this day was foreign. In Lithuania, I was used to a formal and almost archaic educational system. We referred to our teacher as “instructor,” as knowing their surname would provide too much familiarity. We did not raise our hands to answer questions; we were simply called on at random to answer whatever question the instructor may have. When called on, we stood to show respect and were expected to have the right answer or stay standing. Not only were our answers expected to be correct, it was expected that they be exactly correct. In those gloomy post-Soviet classrooms there was no such thing as “nice try” or “that was close”, you were either right or wrong. In my first-grade class in Lithuania we memorized sophisticated poetry, learned to ballroom dance, wrote in cursive using fountain pens, and most importantly: we dressed appropriately.
On what felt like an abnormally hot day in April, I was introduced to my new classmates where I quickly realized I was massively overdressed. The first challenge, however, was one that I had never encountered before: my name. In Lithuania I had an annoyingly popular name; there were four of us in my first-grade class and it seemed like every other girl I met shared my name.
Ironically, Lithuania is considered one of the most devoutly Catholic countries in Europe; however, my generation was one of the first to be made up of primarily non-pagan names. Although Lithuania was technically thrust into Christianity in 1385, the pagan traditions continue to live on to this day. Back home, I was furious with my mother for giving me a boring Christian name. In America, I was furious with her for giving me one that was easily mispronounced. From that day forward, I have had some version of the following conversation with ninety-nine percent of the people I’ve met:
Me: Hi, my name is Justina.
New person: Justina?
Me: Actually, it’s pronounced you-stee-nah.
New person: Oh, sorry Christina.
Me: No, you…stee…nah. Silent J, long U.
New person: Hoo-stina?
Me: No, YOU-stina.
New person: Juice-stina?
Me: No, YOU, as in…you.
New person: Do you have a nickname?
I did not have a nickname; I have never had a nickname.
After the mortifying name conversation, I went on to be interrogated by my well-meaning teacher and classmates. When asked to show the class where Lithuania was on a map, I was embarrassed to find out that the school had not replaced their maps in the eight years since Lithuania had won its independence from Russia and broke away from the Soviet Union. As it turns out, the school board was also embarrassed, and that summer the entire Groton Public School system had their maps replaced. After that, my teacher and classmates encouraged me to count to ten in Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, and for good measure, German—a language I did not speak, but could count to ten in.
By the time recess rolled around—another totally foreign concept—I was over socialized and wanted nothing more than to curl up with a book in a corner. Recess was madness. At least a hundred kids ran around, seemingly out of control. I stood paralyzed and opted to sit on the steps of the school until it was time to line up for lunch. For thirty agonizing minutes I waited for the whistle to let us know it was time to get into line for lunch. Once the whistle blew, I tentatively made my way towards the line, expertly avoiding being the first. That is when Amy approached me.
After a long morning filled with embarrassing and culturally foreign moments, Amy’s question caught me off guard. I did not know who the Backstreet Boys were, and NSYNC sounded more like a drain cleaner than any sort of musical group. Not only did Western culture move at a glacial pace across the ocean into post-Soviet countries; my lack of pop culture intelligence was compounded by the fact that I was born into a family and culture of classical music. I was so shielded from popular music that I was made fun of at the music academy I attended in Lithuania for not knowing popular songs—specifically, the Macarena. I could, however, identify the composer and year of a sonata in the first three bars. This was not helpful in social situations in Lithuania and was equally unhelpful in America. Though the names of the American bands were extra foreign to me, I already knew what I was in for based on the bullying I endured in Lithuania. As Amy waited for my response, I was brought back to my last day at the music academy in Lithuania.
It was a dark sub-zero March afternoon in Lithuania. While I stripped off my many winter layers in the frigid hallway of the music academy a few of my classmates approached me. Slowly, in a distinctly predatory fashion, the girls formed a circle around me. As the girls closed in on me, I had an uncharacteristically optimistic moment and I thought to myself “maybe they know I’m moving away and want to say goodbye.”
“Why are you so fat?” the ringleader asked.
Stunned, I stared at them with my mouth wide open. In my short eight years of life I had yet to develop a proper fight or flight response; instead, I froze. Then, like the predators that they were, the girls sensed my weakness and went in for the kill.
“Why are your clothes so ugly?”
“Why are you so ugly?”
“Why is your voice so ugly?”
“Why can’t you sing?”
“Why are you so stupid?”
“Why are you even here?”
I had no answers. As each question was launched at me, I felt wave after wave of shame hit me. The questions felt so legitimate. Why was I even here? My face reddened. My eyes welled. The last bit of optimism I had felt about being able to fit in vanished. I simultaneously felt like I took up far too much space and none at all in that bleak hallway. Disappointed in my lack of reaction the girls got bored of coming up with cruel questions and walked away giggling to each other. “She’s so fat she can’t even speak,” I heard one of them say as they sauntered off in their only-marginally more stylish clothes.
I always felt as if the road to popularity was inherently aggressive; Dr. Yvonne van den Berg, assistant professor of Development Psychology at Radboud University, found that to be true. Dr. van den Berg found that “high status individuals [used] aggression deliberately and in a goal-directed manner to demonstrate their dominance and control over resources.”
Just by looking at Amy I knew she was high status. What I did not know, was what it was she wanted from me. The only resource of any value in Lithuanian public schools was happiness; those who had dominance had it, the rest of us did not. I imagined that the stakes in America must be much higher. In this land of infinite prosperity, the resources must be endless. Yet I had nothing to give up, and so I braced myself.
“I like Mozart,” I mumbled apologetically.
“Oh, that’s ok.” Amy smiled, shrugged, and walked away.
As it turns out, Amy was not aggressive; Amy was perfect. She was kind, compassionate, a talented dancer and athlete, and an exemplary student. Despite the Mozart incident she found a way to befriend me, and I credit her with helping me culturally matriculate in my first few years in the United States. As young girls often do, Amy and I grew inseparable for a period of time. Then, when she inevitably became popular, we grew apart. She was never cruel to me, she simply moved on.
Over the next decade my queens English accent faded, and I eventually learned how to dress for school. I traded in my dresses for jeans; I gave up Mozart for Britney Spears; I abandoned Lithuania for America. Over the years, I flirted with popularity and by the time high school rolled around I took my place in the social hierarchy as “the friend.” At this level I was invited to parties as an unspoken plus one, stood a half step out of the circle, and had to always make sure that my contribution to the conversation was witty. Of course, I also helped most of the “in crowd” pass whichever classes we shared. Ultimately, being a trusty sidekick proved exhausting and in my senior year of high school I phased myself out of the popular group with little fanfare. I never experienced the same type of bullying in the United States as I did in Lithuania. Yet the fear of exclusion haunted me for decades.
From my first day of school, to my first day of work, and every day in between, one questioned lingered: why are you even here?