Russian immigrant, black woman finds a home in Everett

Published 9:38 pm Sunday, October 18, 2009

EVERETT — Life was tough for a black child in the Soviet Union, even in the 1980s.

So Natasha Makanju learned to pick her fights.

She learned to run fast, and to blend into the background of Leningrad. She never did learn to ignore the hostility staring back at her from people’s eyes.

Makanju, 31, was born in what is now St. Petersburg, a city founded by Peter the Great along the Neva River and home to Russia’s aristocracy. The Soviet government changed the name to Leningrad in 1924.

Makanju’s mother was Russian. Her father was a medical student from Nigeria. He was one of thousands of Africans taken in by Soviet universities for education and to build relations with that continent’s emerging nations.

She was 8 when her family moved to the States.

Makanju moved to Everett a year ago to build a new life with her boyfriend, their baby and her stepson. The rejection she faced in Russia as a little girl taught her what it takes to belong.

In a way, her journey is familiar to many immigrants living in Makanju’s north Everett neighborhood.

“We were never really accepted anywhere. In Russia, we were black. In America, we were Russian,” she said.

Makanju found a lot to love about St. Petersburg. She marveled at the solemn beauty of the city’s bridges, the off-white grandeur of its palaces, the long summer days where the sunlight lingered.

A smile brightens Makanju’s face as she recalls playing with gaily painted matreshkas. Each wooden doll revealed a smaller one that fit so neatly inside. And another one. And another one.

She loved to spend time at her grandparents’ country house, where the garden was full of fresh, delicious fruit all summer long. She remembers exploring the city with her grandpa and feasting on her grandma’s homemade pelmeni, a kind of ravioli with ground meat.

She now gets her pelmeni frozen from a neighborhood Russian deli in Everett.

Still, she found so much more to hate about Russia.

A dull, old photo with a crack across the middle brings back memories.

The picture was taken on Makanju’s first day of school, a holiday in Russia. It shows a smiling little girl, a textbook and a bouquet of flowers in hand. Two huge white bows hold back her dark hair in two curly ponytails. She is wearing a brown Soviet schoolgirl’s uniform with a white apron and collar.

That day, children lined up to touch her hair. Perhaps for the first time in her life, she beamed at the attention.

Makanju only saw her dad a handful of times. Save for her older sister, she never came across another black person on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Over the years, the Soviet government made efforts to promote relations with third-world countries, said Glennys Young, an associate professor of history and international studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Africans came to Russia’s big cities for education and training.

Many went to study at Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University, which was founded in 1960 and named after a Congolese leader.

The Soviet Union also attracted black Americans beginning in 1920s, Young said. Some had ties to the Communist Party. Others simply believed they had a better shot at finding racial equality in the USSR. “In practice, of course, they found discrimination,” Young said.

Makanju didn’t forget the rejection she faced in Russia. When her son is old enough to learn about racism, she hopes to find the words to explain.

On a brisk September afternoon at Wiggums Hollow Park, Makanju wore a black jacket over a sleeveless, black-and-white dress.

She sat on a bench, shading her eyes from the sun, facing the playground where her stepson Trè, 9, was pushing a friend on a swing.

Her 6-month-old son Nino lay cradled in her arms.

She named him after her mother Nina, who brought the sisters to America more than 20 years ago.

“I was just really, really happy to be leaving Russia. I hated the way people treated me. I cried because I was leaving my family, but I was happy because I thought we were going to a better place.”

Makanju’s mother’s new marriage brought the family to Arizona. They moved around a lot over the years.

The first wave of culture shock hit even before the family arrived in the states, at the airport in Germany, Makanju said.

“There was so much stuff. I’d never seen so much stuff before in my life,” she said.

There were new colors, smells, sounds.

There was even bubble gum in a tube.

She may have been black, but she was still a girl from Soviet Russia.

When Makanju moved to Everett a year ago, she was relieved to find her neighborhood blooming with languages and cultures.

At the playground in the park, there is a pole with arrows pointing in different directions: Scandinavia, Iraq, Canada, Ukraine, Vietnam. The message is clear: People come from everywhere.

But the playground also can be an unforgiving place, where children, excited to play, don’t always think to hide the prejudices that their parents may have passed along.

Makanju has watched her stepson struggle to make sense of how his ethnic background — American Indian, Japanese and black — fits into the world.

She told him no one is better or worse because of the color of their skin.

She didn’t want him to learn that lesson the way she did.

“People picked on me so much, but I didn’t have anyone at home telling me ‘You’re OK; don’t listen to them,’ ” she said.

Makanju is determined to teach her children the Russian language. She hopes to find friends who will help her preserve the language.

When she speaks the language of her childhood, she sounds like a Russian person who has lived in the U.S. for a long time. She can feel the words slipping away.

She hasn’t met any Russian speakers in her neighborhood yet. Other Russian immigrants she has come across in Everett seem puzzled to meet a black woman with a common Russian name.

Their reaction reminds her of her childhood in St. Petersburg and the gray world she left behind, hoping for a better future.

Makanju says she’s finding it, as a mom, watching everybody’s children play in Wiggums Hollow Park.

Katya Yefimova: 425-339-3452, kyefimova@heraldnet.com.