American Dream still lives for Ukrainian immigrant

Marina Yanover did her part for her adopted country by pushing needles into people's ears. No, not into Taliban ears.

Yanover is a student in naturopathic medicine and acupuncture at Bastyr University. After the World Trade Center attack, she volunteered at a hospital in New York City to help reduce people's stress through acupuncture, and in the process she reduced her own anxiety.

"When I came back here, people said, 'You look so rested.' "

Her schedule was full, but helping out was calming.

In the midst of events that test America, Yanover is living a life that defines an important part of America: She is an immigrant whose dreams are coming true. Nine years ago, when Yanover was 19, her mother brought her to New York from Odessa, Ukraine, in search of opportunity and security.

The attacks gave her a chance to give something back.

Yanover was supposed to fly out of Seattle on Sept. 12 and spend a week at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx getting training. But then at 7 a.m. on Sept. 11 her mother, who lives in Brooklyn, called her to tell her to turn on the television. "I couldn't really believe what I was seeing," she said.

Over the next few days, she called the airlines repeatedly to find out when she could fly. She was finally able to leave Seattle just after midnight that Saturday morning.

Usually, Yanover is afraid to fly, but this time she was so focused on getting to her mother, she didn't worry about it.

She started her training on Monday the 17th, and on Tuesday, a week after the tragedy, she began volunteering at St. Vincent Hospital in Manhattan.

Yanover would get up at 4:30 or 5 a.m. and take the subway to Lincoln Hospital for her training. Then when she was done there, she'd take the subway to St. Vincent and do acupuncture from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

She worked in an open space where there were tables with sandwiches and juice, people giving out information on how to find missing relatives, grief counselors, a bank of telephones, and people offering acupuncture and massage.

The people who came to her were a mix of exhausted hospital workers and people who had relatives who were injured or missing. Many of them were too stunned to talk, and she didn't want to ask questions, so she just did the treatments.

Coming to the United States wasn't her idea, Yanover says. At first she did not see the need for the move. She liked Odessa, which she describes as a very beautiful city on the Black Sea. New York seemed too vertical and too different.

She says Odessa is known as a multicultural city, and that was one of the things she liked about it, but still, people were not always dealt with fairly. Yanover says that because she is Jewish, "There was not the opportunity to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a doctor, but there was anti-Semitism. They don't officially say it, but you know."

Also, Ukraine is not the most stable place. It was once part of the Soviet Union and had been a sovereign nation for only a year when her family left.

"Lots of people were leaving because of the economy, and it was kind of scary to stay there at that time. Who knows, maybe civil war would strike."

So she, her mother and an aunt came to the safest place they could think of, a place where her dreams would not be curtailed because of her ethnicity.

Here, her options are much greater. She is educated, young, thin and attractive, her bright face framed by a cascade of wavy red hair. America has its standards, too.

Her mother saw the move as a sacrifice for her daughter's future, but now, Yanover says, they both love this country.

"This country opens people up. It's like a litmus paper. It shows who we are in extreme situations. In poverty or in being rich."

New York turned out not to be so bad. It was stressful at first, because it was so different and because she did not speak English well enough to have a real conversation. But things got better. She enrolled in Brooklyn College where, she says, most of the students were Russian, so the only culture shock was learning how to do multiple-choice tests. They only have essay tests in Ukraine.

Also, the college was wedged between a Jewish neighborhood and an African-American neighborhood. Yanover says she liked that mix. "I can relate much more to the type of population in New York City than here."

She came to Seattle because Bastyr is here and she wanted to practice natural medicine. She doesn't like conventional medicine's reliance on drugs to treat illnesses, and says naturopathic medicine is closer to the health care practiced in Ukraine.

Her trip back to New York convinced her that there is where she belongs, so she plans to move to the city after she graduates. She'll intern for a while, hang out her own shingle, get married and live the American Dream.

This country is always under construction.

Jerry Large can be reached at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.