I was recently applying for a travel visa and was stumped by an unexpected question.

“What is your native language?”

After 70 years on this earth, I couldn’t answer that simple question. I had to choose, so I wrote English.

Your native language is the tongue you learned as an infant from your parents. I spoke a different language with each of them, and neither knew a word of English when I was born. But would I even be granted a visa today if I wrote Russian?

Growing up through the Cold War as a child of Russian heritage was not easy. But reliving that again after all this time is beyond pain.

Just weeks ago, when I agreed to share my story—Homeland—about my first visit to Russia in 1977, I had no idea I would be talking about a country waging a war against Ukraine. About a people broadly despised.

But I am persevering.

Please come to my reading:

Healdsburg Center for the Arts, Saturday April 2, at 3 PM.

This will be a fundraiser for the Arts Center. Any books you purchase will be a contribution, and will be doubled by a matching grant. Hope to see you there!