An Immigrant Family

An Immigrant Family

Rimma Kucheynik, Reporter

Alena and Valeri Kucheik were an immigrant family. They had to experience a lot of trouble when they moved to America on September 20th, 2000. They moved to Renton Washington, a little town next to Seattle and Bellevue. 

They wanted to be able to give their three children, and fourth on the way, the best opportunity they could. They packed all their lives into three  little suitcases, and they flew on a plane from Moldova, to Turkey, then Chicago, and then their final destination… Seattle. It happened to be that Alena’s aunt used to live in a big home in Renton. She was willing enough to give up a room or two for Valeri’s and Alean’s family. 

The family later on moved out and got an apartment. Sadly, the kids were with their grandma most of the time. She moved to America 6 days after the small family did. The neighbors didn’t like this family that much because she would always call the cops on them, even though they never did anything wrong. But it wasn’t all bad in this neighborhood, because this family was so poor they could barely afford food. One day after a hard day of work, they came home to over 6 grocery bags laying on the floor right next to the door with a note on them. The note said that the groceries were for them. It brought Alena into tears seeing this. 

Rushing to the hospital because Alena was giving birth to her son, she got very sick after and couldn’t even walk for a couple weeks. But of course, she slowly got better and got back onto her feet. She was told by the doctor if she would have more kids, she would surely die. 

Alena started up a business. She said, “Starting a business from nothing was hard. We didn’t know anyone or did not speak any English.” Yet her business began to bloom, she was a cleaning lady. Not the best job, but it was good enough for her. She needed the money for her family. Valeri, on the other hand, went to school to become a truck driver. While he was at school, he worked with some people in construction. They built a big house in Bellevue and sold it. earning thousands of dollars.

After they got this money, they bought a house and two cars. One was Alena and the other one for himself. Valeri became a truck driver and wasn’t home often. He was trying to make money for his family so that they could have whatever they wanted. They later on had more beautiful children, both girls and everyone loved them so dare. The mom was always working, and when she wasn’t, she would give all her attention to her kids. Always sleep deprived, she still managed to give all her six children attention and gifts. Today this family could have anything they want or wanted. Their children are all grown up and with a family of their own. Alena and Valeri became grandparents and are spoiling their grandkids as much as they can.