About this episode

Yuliya Patsay shares her experiences of immigrating to America and the complexities of cultural identity and belonging.

My expectation was that we were going to buy me a Barbie ... jeans, and bubble gum! This conversation with writer and storyteller Yuliya Patasy is an unusual exploration of what it means to arrive somewhere new — physically, emotionally, culturally, and generationally. Yuliya immigrated to San Francisco as a child, landing in a converted garage apartment packed with grandparents, great‑grandparents, aunts, uncles, and the weight of her parents’ hopes. Her early memories of life in a country that no longer exists are vivid: “I’ll never forget what it was like to live with 12 people in an apartment [ in the Soviet] sharing a bathroom.” She shares the pressure her parents felt to “turn things around quickly,” the loss of professional identity, and the disorientation of entering a system where the rules — social, cultural, bureaucratic — were entirely different. She also speaks candidly about the humor and heartbreak of childhood expectations, like the moment she realized Barbie was not life‑size: “I was like, this? No. I hate this.” We talk about belonging, language loss, and the tension between honoring the culture you came from and raising children who are fully rooted in the…

People in this episode

Guest: Yuliya Patsay

Topics covered

• immigration
• cultural identity
• family
• childhood memories
• belonging
• language loss

Keywords

• Barbie
• bubble gum
• immigration
• family
• cultural identity
• childhood
• San Francisco

Mentioned in this episode

Places: San Francisco, Soviet

More episodes of The Places We Call Home podcast

• #69. Feeling Lonely After Moving Abroad? Here's How to Lighten the Emotional Load · July 16, 2026 · 9 min
• #68. Bubblegum, Barbie and Becoming American. Pt.1 Yuliya Patsay · July 9, 2026 · 39 min
• #68. 3 Lessons Every Migrant Woman Needs to Hear When Starting Over Feels Impossible · July 7, 2026 · 5 min
• #67. The Truth About Success, Friendship, and Starting Over in a New Country · July 1, 2026 · 42 min

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