I met a Russian woman today who'd won the lottery -- the U.S. lottery to immigrate here. She and her husband moved here six years ago from Uzbekistan and she says she has no intention of ever going back.
"We were not legal citizens in Russia, even though I am Russian. We were aliens there," she told me. "We were treated like the illegal Mexicans here. We could not get jobs."
Still, I asked her whether moving to America was a hard decision when she found out she was eligible for the visa. She said no; she didn't even hesitate for a second. She described her homeland as dangerous and unfriendly. She says you would never walk around in Russia and see people smile at you. There was also a lot of terrorist activity nearby. She has two children here now and never plans to take them back to where she came from.
Getting the visa wasn't easy. She'd applied for the lottery two years earlier. Only about 100,000 are granted worldwide each year, and only half of those lottery winners actually get a visa. When she got the letter in the mail, she took immediate action. After hours and hours of grueling questions and interviews, she was granted a visa. She and her husband left their country and are gainfully employed here in the United States, raising their two children. She'll take her citizenship test in a few weeks.
As Americans, we like to wonder what we'd do if we won the lottery. But I don't think we can imagine what it would be like to enter a lottery to uproot your life and move halfway around the world in the hope that you'll have a better life and "win the lottery," so to speak. We like to imagine the riches and adventures that we might enjoy if we hit the jackpot. Perhaps we'd go see the world. It's a fun "what if...".
But Vicky knew exactly what she'd do if she won the lottery: everything in her power to make sure that she kept her prize and moved halfway around the world.
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