【CNN 20150505】英国移民讲述他们的故事

满仓

【中文标题】英国移民讲述他们的故事
【原文标题】Outsiders welcome? UK migrants share their stories
【登载媒体】CNN
【原文作者】Monica Sarkar
【原文链接】http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/05/europe/uk-immigration/index.html




移民一直是英国大选中争论最激烈的问题。目前英国入境移民数量达到历史新高，从1998年开始，每年的入境移民数量都超过出境移民数量10万人。

那么，这些离开家乡到英国来生活的人都有怎样的故事呢？



“律师依然是一个精英人士所独占的职业。它已经发生了一些变化，而且变化还在继续，但很难。我必须要证明自己，我必须比周围的人更加努力。”

弗拉维亚•肯扬，40岁，是英国唯一一位罗马尼亚裔律师。她说自己生长在共产主义政权下，让她不得不与不公正的现象做斗争。她说：“别误解，我的童年很快乐，因为我的父母尽一切所能满足我的需要。”

他的父亲对艺术颇有兴趣，很喜欢甲壳虫乐队，是个典型的喜欢英国和英语的亲英派人士。

肯扬回忆到：“但他小的时候无法在学校里学习，所以他为我聘请了一位家庭教师（在我8岁的时候）。她每个星期都会来到我父母的公寓，她教我英语，让我看到了自己非常想成为其中一部分的那个世界。

与家庭教师的学习实际上是在私下进行，因为当局反感任何来自西方的影响。“我们身处铁幕之下，那是罗马尼亚最黑暗的年代。”

之后，罗马尼亚在1989年发生了革命。肯扬在BBC担任翻译，之后来到英国在牛津大学学习，最终她和BBC的一位记者结婚。

作为曾经的罗马尼亚和现在的英国公民，她说她从未因为自己的身世而受到歧视。

“当我在1994年来到英国学习，人们对我的家乡罗马尼亚特兰西瓦尼亚很着迷。‘真的有这个地方吗？’‘那是一个神话国度吗？’”

在一家广告公司工作了两年之后，肯扬完成了法律学专业的学习，并且通过了漫长的律师考试。她现在成为了英国男性所主导的职业中的一员。

“律师依然是一个精英人士所独占的职业。它已经发生了一些变化，而且变化还在继续，但很难。我必须要证明自己，我必须比周围的人更加努力。”

但是当代理罗马尼亚人和社会中的弱势群体时，激励肯扬前进的是他必须改变这些人生活状态愿望。



“有时有我很想念家乡小镇的尘土，我想念那里的雨水、雪、孩子和肮脏的街道……但英国是我的家。”

戴安娜•纳米，前库尔德斯坦女战士，别无选择，只能把自己和年幼的孩子交给前途未卜的偷渡客，秘密前往英国，躲避在伊朗和伊拉克的危险生活。

51岁的纳米的移民决定主要受到家庭的影响，尤其是她的父亲曾经在一场婚礼上保护被发现已经不是处女的新娘。在那样的社会环境中，这种禁忌有可能导致新娘被杀害。

但她是一个罕见的例外。在伊朗，包括荣誉杀害（译者注：指男性家庭成员以捍卫家庭荣誉为由，杀害被他们认为与男子有不正当关系的女性家庭成员）在内的女性权利问题，不可以在公共场合讨论。实际上，库尔德人甚至不可以说自己的语言。

1979年伊斯兰革命期间，纳米秘密加入了库尔德斯坦自由战士组织。起初在媒体部工作，因为女性不可以作战。但最终，她还是拿起武器成为伊朗的一名战士。

在战场上的枪林弹雨中沐浴了12年之后，纳米怀孕了，她知道自己必须为孩子做出改变。朋友和家人帮她筹集了一笔钱，让她偷渡离开这个国家。

但是当她在1991年来到伦敦，情况很艰苦。她回忆到：“一开始的时候，我被安排在国营公寓居住，那里有很多毒贩。有几次他们想杀死我，或许是因为我看到了他们的非法行为，他们还做洗钱的生意。我花了5年时间才从那里搬出，换了一所稍微好一点的房子。”

戴安娜刚到英国时，曾经得到一位库尔德翻译的帮助。这个人的死亡刺激她着手组建一个组织，为库尔德和伊朗女性的权利而斗争。如今，作为一名社会活动人士的纳米，相信她那位在英国居住了11年的朋友是被她的丈夫杀害的，因为她返回伊拉克时引起了丈夫的妒忌。

因此她在2002年成立了“伊朗和库尔德女性权利组织”，她组织各种运动反对荣誉杀害和其它迫害行为。纳米说：“这不是我们的文化，没有任何正当的理由。”

起初，她的英文是工作中的一个障碍，但是经验帮助她克服了这些挑战。现在，她把捍卫女性权利的战争从伊朗带到了英国。她说：“我们生活在一个没有秘密可言的国家，这里做事情很方便，在伊朗根本是不可能的。那种安全感、言论自由、批判政府、警察、要求他们坐下来与不满的人民对话，这些事情在其它国家不会发生。”

13年来，纳米获得了许多奖励和表彰。尽管家乡的生活充满了艰难和困苦，她依然对家乡充满了回忆，但她对家乡有独特的定义。“有时有我很想念家乡小镇的尘土，我想念那里的雨水、雪、孩子和肮脏的街道……但英国是我的家。”



“被迫成为一个移民，是很艰难的一件事。”

现年28岁的艾哈迈德•库德尔出生在伊拉克北部的基尔库克，他的家人在2006年为了躲避宗教冲突逃往约旦。尽管他已经开始了大学的学业，但动荡的局势让他无法忍受。“我记得有一次，从我住的地方走到学校，我看到路边躺着一具尸体，浑身是血。那一年我只有18岁。”

2006年底，他随家人逃往约旦。2008年他取得了银行金融学的学位，之后由于语言原因，到英国继续深造。与他一同前往英国的是一位约旦朋友，穆罕默德•阿尔•贾纳比，他也是宗教冲突的受害者。

他们来到格拉斯哥的苏格兰大学，但是库德尔的学生签证无法续签，因为他的姓氏与他的父亲拼写不一样，父亲一直在支付他的学费。库德尔回到伊拉克待了一段时间，但依然担心宗教暴力对生活的影响（他的父亲在总理办公室工作）。2013年他得到了5年的难民庇护身份，再一次离开伊拉克。

阿尔•贾纳比就没那么幸运了，他回到伊拉克与库德尔见面几天之后被人枪杀。库德尔依然不愿接受这个事实：“他是我最好的朋友。”

库德尔在南英格兰牛津从事风险分析的工作，他说自己并不是那么受欢迎。“在机场，我总是被留下来盘问，他们专门搜我的身。”不友好的不仅仅是机场保安，“我有一些英国朋友，他们经常抱怨移民的问题，比如占据了房屋资源之类的事情。”

他说：“你无法回到自己生长的地方、有那么多回忆的地方，这是件悲伤的事情。”2013年他回去的时候，看到房子空无一人，家具落满了灰尘。“被迫成为一个移民，是很艰难的一件事。”



“我有一些罗马尼亚朋友，他们不像我这么幸运，所以他们可以感到来自某些人的抵制心理。”

艾米•高尔29岁，来自罗马尼亚，他自始至终是一个创业者。

19岁的高尔在布加勒斯特的卧室中就创办了第一个软件公司，后来又尝试过各种行业，他笑着说：“大部分都是蹩脚的想法。”最后他创办了Brainient，这个平台可以让播放者在视频开始之前播放一段可以互动的广告。

2009年来到伦敦之后，高尔参加了Seedcamp创业大赛，获得了5万欧元的奖金和商业支持。他的公司总部位于伦敦，客户遍布全球，在伦敦有14名员工，还有26名员工在罗马尼亚。

高尔说他生长在一个“普通的工人阶级家庭”，他把自己坚定的信念归功于他的父亲和两个姐姐。他感到自己进入英国的方式——赢得Seedcamp创业大赛并成功地创办一家公司——为他打开了一扇与自己身世迥异的大门。

他说：“我有一些罗马尼亚朋友，他们不像我这么幸运，所以他们可以感到来自某些人的抵制心理。”

尽管高尔毫不费力地融进了英国社会，但他发现伦敦生活方式的显著差异。他每年都会从事一项工作，每周与一位老人交谈，把他们的谈话和想法发布在博客中。他发现，很多老年人都希望自己对以前的一些人可以更加和善、更加慷慨。“这里的人，在一定年龄之后不会再交新的朋友。在拉丁语国家（比如罗马尼亚）完全不是这样，每个人都是朋友，50多岁的两个人相遇之后有可能成为最好的朋友。这就是最显著的文化差异。我认识很多很多人，或许有几千人。但是我只有几个好朋友，其中有一两个英国人。这是一个有断层的城市，因为每个人都关系自己的事业和工作，为了目标不惜一切手段。在某种程度上说，这是令人悲哀的。”

他说，尽管他看到了很多对祖国不利的言论，但他认为那都是谎言。“英国的移民都有自己的工作，而且很勤奋，因为这个国家对于那些对社会没有贡献人不那么友好。”

他认为自己的未来属于美国，而不是英国，因为那里的人更加友好。那么他会建议罗马尼亚的同胞追随自己的脚步吗？

“想好就去做吧。制定目标，努力工作去达成它。当我决定来到伦敦的时候，并没有经历复杂的思考过程。有一天早晨醒来，我说：‘我要去伦敦。’然后就开始盘算怎样去，何时动身。几个月之后，我就出现在这里。”

“人们不需要害怕失败，因为那并不是多大的事情。”



“至少在这个国家，人们可以有尊严地生活。”

1972年8月6日，乌干达总统、残暴的独裁者伊迪•阿明宣布，所有的亚裔人士必须在90天之内永久离开乌干达。

对于现年65岁的印度裔乌干达人迪拉捷•卡塔利亚来说，这不是他与阿明的第一次遭遇。1971年，他和35个人被囚禁在肯尼亚首都坎帕拉郊外的军警总部中。条件非常糟糕，他说他是仅有的4名幸存者之一。

他和家人在1972年11月离开乌干达，他们只可以随身携带5英镑，所有的贵重物品，包括珠宝和手表都在通往机场的检查站中被没收了。他的父亲在几天前由于压力过大去世。

卡塔利亚在英国政府在莱切斯特设立的一个难民营落脚，但是他很难找到一份工作。他回忆到：“你只能咬紧牙关，捱过一天又一天。压力来自内部家庭，因为印度人家庭观念非常强。不仅如此，还有社区、宗教团体、节日……”

他最终在伦敦的一家商业机构找到了工作。但或许更重要的是，在经历过监狱的苦难和残暴的政权之后，他决定投身于为社区服务的事业。因此他成为了一名政客，努力游说英国政府根除种族歧视。

卡塔利亚已经退休，住在伦敦北部一个四居室的房子中，还有一个修建整洁的花园。他和一个印度裔乌干达女人结婚36年，有一个已经成年的女儿。闲暇的时候，他会看看股市，更新脸书上的信息，写一些有关印度哲学的文章，到当地一所养老院做义工。

他说，英国毫无疑问是他真正的家乡。

“非洲不是我们的祖国，由于帝国等原因，我们恰好生活在那里，仅此而已。我的父亲是英国公民，我也是英国公民，所以英国才是我的祖国，也是我女儿的祖国。至少在这个国家，人们可以有尊严地生活。”



“每个人都可以自由地去任何地方，有那么多英国人在西班牙、法国，甚至保加利亚。”

34岁的德西•赫里斯托娃住在伦敦，她说：“我从未觉得因为自己是保加利亚人而受到歧视。“

她说：“我有时会听到一些话语，但我从不认为那是恶意的，我觉得主要是担忧。”她指的是去年英国政府实施了用工限制之后东欧移民的变化。

赫里斯托娃出生在保加利亚北部城市加布罗沃。在完取得了政治和东欧研究的学位之后，作为交换生在牛津大学读过一年书，她在那里遇到了未来的丈夫。2011年，她移居到伦敦。

赫里斯托娃在保加利亚有多年的慈善工作经验，因此她在一家打击全球腐败的非政府组织做志愿工。除此之外，她还为伦敦皇家盲人社区提供志愿服务，因为她的父亲就是盲人。“我是个盲人向导，具体的工作就是在周末帮助盲人进行社交活动。你带着他们乘地铁、郊游、参加音乐会，甚至会带他们去圣保罗的大本钟。”

尽管她很快在英国安顿下来，但她依然有时候感觉就像一个外人。“我一张嘴说话，别人会问我这是哪里的口音，我会说，这很重要吗？尤其是在伦敦这样的地方……如果我说是英国人，你能识别出来吗？”

但是她一直拒绝在政治上针对东欧和她的祖国。“如果你太过计较，就等于承认他们赢了，所以我从不把那些话放在心上。”

赫里斯托娃通过书写有关保加利亚的事情，试图改变这种偏见，她认为移民不应当背负经济失败的负担。“当经济危机出现，我们都担心失去工作，生活会更艰难，因此往往会指责别人。每个人都可以自由地去任何地方，有那么多英国人在西班牙、法国，甚至保加利亚。我希望每个人都可以到国外生活两个月、六个月，仅仅是体验一下。否则，你永远不会打开自己的视野，无法了解我们都是一样的。无论你去到哪里，人们都是一样的。”

那么，赫里斯托娃有归属感吗？

“我去参加一个文学聚会……有一位作者在那里，是土耳其人艾莉夫•沙法克。她说你总是把一只脚放在一个地方，另一只脚放在你向往的地方，而两者之间就是深渊。”



原文：

Immigration has also been one of the most hotly-contested issues in the UK elections. The number of people migrating to the UK is at an all time high, with immigration taking over emigration by more than 100,000 in every year since 1998.

So what are the stories of some of the people who leave their home countries to come and live in Britain?

Flavia Kenyon, 40, is the only Romanian criminal barrister in the UK. Growing up during the communist regime, she says, compelled her to fight against injustice. "I had a happy childhood, don't get me wrong," she says, "because my parents really made sure that I had everything I needed."

Her father, in particular, was very arty and into the Beatles; a big Anglophile who loved England and the English language.

"But he couldn't study it at school when he was little, [so] he made sure that I had a private tutor [at the age of eight]," Kenyon recalls. "And she used to come to my parent's flat, every week, and she used to teach me English and it transported me to a world that I very much wanted to be a part of.

The teaching however took place in secret, because the authorities frowned upon any influence from the West. "We were truly behind the Iron Curtain and those were the dark moments of Romania."

But then revolution came to Romania in 1989. Kenyon worked with the BBC as an interpreter and later moved to the UK to study at Oxford, eventually marrying a BBC reporter.

As a Romanian and now a British citizen settled in London, she says she has never felt discriminated against because of her background.

"When I came in 1994, I came to the UK as a student. People were rather mesmerized when I told them I come from Romania, Transylvania. 'Does that exist?' 'Is that some sort of fairy tale country?'"

After working for about two years for an advertising agency, Kenyon completed a conversion course in law and followed the long process of becoming a barrister. And she was up against a majority of British, male candidates.

"The bar is still, I'm afraid, quite an elitist profession. It has changed, and it's changing, but it is hard. I had to prove myself; I had to work harder than any of my colleagues."

But representing fellow Romanians and those vulnerable in society, Kenyon is motivated by the potential she has to make a difference to people's lives.

Diana Nammi, a former female Peshmerga fighter, had no choice but to rely on untrustworthy smugglers to secretly bring her into the UK with her young child to avoid the dangers of living as a Kurdish woman in Iran and later, Iraq.

Nammi, 51, was inspired by her family and especially how her father stood up for a bride at a wedding when it was revealed she was not a virgin, a social taboo amid the community that could have led to her murder.

But this was a rare exception: in Iran women's rights issues, such as honor killings and forced marriages, were not spoken about in public. In fact, Kurds were not even allowed to speak in their own language.

By the time the Islamic Revolution began in 1979, Nammi had secretly joined the Peshmerga, initially working in their media department because it wasn't acceptable for a female to fight. Eventually she took up arms and became a fighter in Iran.

After spending 12 years on the frontlines, Nammi fell pregnant and realized she had to move on for the sake of her child. Friends and family raised enough funds for her to be smuggled out of the country.

But when she arrived in London in 1991, she found it tough, initally. "When I came here, I was stuck in a council flat, an area where there were drug dealers," she recalls.

"They attempted a few times to kill me, perhaps because I saw them; they were exchanging money. But it took five years for me to be moved from that house to somewhere a bit better."

The death of a Kurdish interpreter who had helped Diana when she arrived in the UK spurred her to start an organization that fights for the rights of Kurdish and Iranian women.

Nammi, who is now a social activist, believes her friend, who had lived in the UK for 11 years, was killed by her jealous husband when she returned to Iraq.

As a result she established the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO) in 2002 to help to establish campaigns against honor killings and other forms of persecution. "This is not our culture," Nammi says. "There is no justification."

Her inability to communicate fluently in English was a barrier at first, but her previous experiences helped her to overcome challenges. Now she's taken the women's rights battle from Iran to the UK.

"We are living in a country where you cannot hide anything," she says of her new home. "It helps a lot being here, this kind of activity you couldn't have back in Iran. The level of safety and freedom to talk, criticize the regime, government, police, and make them come and sit with us and the people to talk about these things, these things don't happen in other countries."

Thirteen years on, Nammi has won awards and accolades: despite her hardships, she has fond memories of Iran, but her definition of home is boundless.

"Sometimes I feel I miss the dust of our small town. I really miss the raining, the snow and the children, the dirty streets. But I have lived here more than anywhere else."

Born in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, Ahmed Khudhur, now 28, and his family fled his country for Jordan in 2006 due to sectarian conflict. Although he had already begun university, the unrest was unbearable.

"I remember when I was walking to my university, 1km from the place I lived in, I've seen a dead body lying there with blood. At that time I was 18."

In late 2006, the family fled to Jordan: he graduated with a degree in banking and finance in 2009, then continued his higher education in the UK for language reasons.

He wasn't completely alone: a university friend from Jordan, Mohammed Al Janabi, also a victim of the conflict, arrived with him.

They ended up at Caledonian University in Glasgow -- but Khudhur had a tough time renewing his student visa because his surname was spelled differently to his father, who sponsored his studies.

Khudhur returned to Iraq for a while but feared for his life due to sectarian violence -- his father worked in the Prime Minister's office -- and left the country for a second time in 2013 when he was granted refugee status for five years.

Al Janabi was not so fortunate: gunmen killed him when he returned to Iraq, only days after he had met with Khudhur. "He was my best friend," Khudhur says with disbelief.

Khudhur now works as a risk analyst in Oxford, southern England -- but says he hasn't always felt welcome: "At the airport, when I travel, I'm always stopped; skipping everybody, they search me."

But he says it's not just airport officials who can be inhospitable.

"Some British people are my friends, but they still complain about immigrants, that they're taking houses and things like that.

"It's sad that you see the place you grew up and you have all those memories, your things, and you still can't come back and live. It was empty," he says, describing his house, the furniture covered in layers of dust, after he visited in 2013.

"It's difficult being an immigrant when it's not your choice to be an immigrant," he says.

Emi Gal, 29, from Romania has been an entrepreneur all his working life.

Starting his own software company at the age of 19 from the comfort of his bedroom in Bucharest, he trialed several businesses -- "They were mostly bad ideas," he says, smiling -- before he came up with Brainient, a platform that allows broadcasters to create interactive adverts that appear before the beginning of a video.

Moving to London in 2009 at the age of 23, Gal entered the Seedcamp start-up competition and won a 50,000 euro investment as well as business support.

Established in London with clients across the globe, the business employs 14 people in the city as well as 26 workers based in Romania.

Gal says he had a "normal, working class family upbringing" with his parents -- he credits his determination and focus to his father -- and two elder sisters.

He feels the way in which he entered the UK, winning Seedcamp and establishing a successful business, opened a lot of doors regardless of his background.

"Because I have Romanian friends who haven't been as fortunate as I have and they have felt some resistance from a certain class of people here," he says.

Although Gal has never had problems integrating into British society, he notices a marked difference in the London way of life.

He carries out projects each year: one of his current ones is to speak to an old person every week and document his interviews on his blog.

Through this he has discovered that many senior citizens wished they had been kinder and more generous to people earlier in life.

"People here, after a certain age, they don't make new, close friends. Which isn't at all the case in a Latin country (such as Romania) where everybody is friends with everybody and people meet in their fifties and they become best buddies. But that's more of a cultural difference than anything else, I think.

"I have lots of acquaintances. Lots. Thousands. But I have a handful of close friends. Out of which, I'm thinking now, one or two are British ... It's a very fractured city, because everyone's focused on career and work, achieving whatever they want to achieve. And that's sad, in a way."

He says that while comments against his country upset him, he dismisses them as untrue.

"Immigrants in the UK are hardworking people with jobs because it's a country that isn't really friendly to people who don't contribute in some shape or form to society."

But he sees his future in the United States rather than the UK because of that unfriendliness. So would he recommend fellow Romanians follow in his footsteps?

"Just do it. Set objectives, and work hard to meet them. When I decided to move to London, it wasn't a complex thought process; I just woke up one morning and I said 'I'm moving to London.' And then I just had to figure out when and how. And a few months later, I moved.

"There's no point why people should be afraid of failure. Because it's not that big of a deal."

On August 6, 1972, Idi Amin, President and brutal dictator of Uganda, announced that all people of Asian descent had 90 days to leave their homes in Uganda. Permanently.

For Ugandan Indian Dhiraj Kataria, now 67, it wasn't his first encounter with Amin: he was imprisoned in November 1971 along with 35 others in the death wing of the military police headquarters outside Kampala, the capital of Kenya. He suffered in horrific conditions and says he was one of only four people to survive the ordeal.

The family fled in November 1972: they were only allowed to take £55 ($83) with them, but even valuables like jewelry and watches were taken at checkpoints on the way to the airport. His father had died only days earlier from stress.

Kataria settled in a refugee camp set up by the British government in the city of Leicester. But he found it impossible to get a job.

"You just gritted your teeth, and you just survive from day to day," he recalls. "The strength comes from within, it comes from families, because Indians, fortunately, have a strong family tradition. And not only that, there are various communities and institutions and celebrate festivals, religions ..."

He eventually found work in the commercial sector in London. But perhaps more importantly, having experienced the hardship of prison and a brutal regime, he dedicated himself to serving the community, becoming a local politician and lobbying the British government to eradicate discrimination against ethnic minorities.

Kataria is retired, settled in a large four-bedroom house with a manicured garden in north London, and has been happily married for 36 years to a fellow Ugandan Indian. The couple has a grown-up daughter.

He spends his spare time keeping an eye on the stock market, updating 53 Facebook groups about Hindu philosophy and volunteering at a local old people's home.

The UK, he says, is undoubtedly his real home.

"Africa was not really our country. We happened to be there because of the empire and all that. My father was a British subject when he was born, I was a British subject when I was born, so Britain has become my country. And it's going to be my daughter's country. At least in this country, one can live one's life in a dignified way."

"I've never felt I'm discriminated because I'm Bulgarian," says Dessi Hristova, 34, who lives and works in London.

"I can hear, from time to time, some comments; but I would never say they were really nasty comments. I think it's mostly fear," she says, commenting on the surge of interest in Eastern European migrants to the UK after employment restrictions were lifted last year.

Hristova was born in Gabrovo, a city in the north of Bulgaria. After completing a degree in Politics and European Studies, she spent a year studying at Oxford University as part of an exchange program, where she also met her future husband. She eventually made the move to London in 2011.

Spending many years working with the charity sector in Bulgaria, Hristova started out as a volunteer working for an NGO that fights global corruption.

Aside from fighting injustice, Hristova has also volunteered for the Royal London Society for Blind People (RLSB), motivated by her own father's blindness.

"I'm a sighted guide, so what you do is that you're helping people during social weekends, and you're guiding them, on the tube, or helping at events and outings, music events ... We've taken them to St Paul's, Big Ben ..."

Despite integrating and settling in the UK relatively quickly, there are still moments where she feels like an outsider.

"When I speak, people always ask where my accent's from, and I'm like, is that the most important thing? Especially in a place like London ... If I say I'm British, does it make a difference to you, or not?"

But she refuses to take any political rhetoric against Eastern Europeans and her nation to heart as "if you take it personally, that means that they win, in a way. And also, I don't obsess myself with the comments they say."

Blogging and writing about Bulgarians to try and change some of the prejudice, Hristova believes immigrants should not bear the brunt of the real cause of an economic downfall.

"When there's a crisis and the economy isn't working, we fear every single thing that is going to take your job away or make your life harder and you look for someone to blame. Everyone is free to go somewhere else; there are so many British people in Spain, France, or Bulgaria, even."

"I recommend to anyone to go and live abroad for a bit, [for] two months, six months, just to do something that will scare you. Otherwise you'll never be able to open your eyes and just see how we're all the same. Wherever you go, people are the same."

So, where does Hristova feel she belongs?

"I went to a literary festival ... and there was this author, she's Turkish; Elif Shafak. And she said you always have one foot in one place and another foot in another place and you're looking over, and there's like an abyss in between."