Honor Immigrant Stories: Fund Alexandra's Poetry Project

I’m Alexandra Hewett (Alexandrahewett.com). As a first-generation American, I hold dear the art, language, and culture of my Belarusian heritage.

I’m requesting funding to support preparation for publishing of Homeland, a poetry translation manuscript (Belarusian to English) that will be offered to the Belarusian/Eastern European and other immigrant communities along with poetry workshops and community discussions that are designed to validate the lived experiences of immigrants; these events will take place at Bergstrom Books in Kensington, MD, and beyond.

A $4,000 grant application for this project was recently rejected and I am crowdsourcing funds to complete the project.

My father, Leonid Surak, was born on May 14, 1928 in Belarus. He escaped Communism in 1949 and fled to a displaced person’s camp in Watenstedt Germany at the end of World War II. He immigrated to the United States in 1950. He served as a Corporal in the US Army from 1952-1954 during the Korean War.

My father’s story was shrouded in secrecy for many years. He was devoted to my mother, Lillian, who suffered from schizophrenia and was her caregiver during their fifty-one years of marriage. Throughout this time, he wrote poetry.

A few years before my father died, he shared his earliest memory when he was a child in the 1930’s. “I remember the sound of the shot. The KGB officers came to our home and murdered my father. My uncles were then taken to the Gulag in Siberia. We never saw them again.”

I discovered his poetry shortly before his death in 2018 while cleaning out my childhood home. I was referred to Ihar Kazak, a Belarusian poet and translator who was working on translating his father’s poetry. I’ve recently learned that Kazak died earlier this year.

I began working on this translation project with Kazak in 2018. I was a recipient of a Turner Research and Travel Grant which supported this part of the project.

We collaborated to translate the poems from Belarusian to English. This set me on a very personal journey but as I traveled through my father’s words, I realized there was an immigrant story to be told that could honor our collective history.

Having my father’s words translated uncovered for me a new understanding of his life and my Belarusian heritage. Kazak, (who reminded me, surprisingly of my father), and I discussed the poems and the challenges of translation from Belarusian to English. I am grateful that I have audio recordings of Kazak reading the poems in Belarusian.

As part of this project, I interviewed a ninety-year-old Belarusian immigrant who met my father in the displaced persons camp in Germany near the end of World War II and was a life-long friend to him and my family. I felt it was important to capture the last first-person witnesses to the war from the Belarusian experience.

Here are some excerpts from my interview about fleeing Belarus when she was an adolescent:

“When we were running away, Polish people helped us, Ukrainian people helped us, that’s how we survived. We went through hell.”

When she heard my father’s poem “Васількі, васількі” (“Cornflower, Cornflower") she shed tears. “It sounds like home. This is my country.”

The themes of the poems in the collection include fleeing communism, war, immigration, love and family, and celebrating Belarusian culture. We currently live in an age where many people around the world live under authoritarian oppression where journalists and poets are being jailed for sharing their words. In the United States, some are being fired for speaking the truth. Is violence next? This project celebrates artistic freedom and integrity that hangs in the balance.

Bergstrom Press & Books, located in Kensington, MD is publishing the poetry collection and is covering the cost of printing the book. The company started as an importer offering Eastern European books and other services to universities, schools, libraries, and individuals. I am collaborating with a designer on the final design and layout of the book.

I plan to present readings, community events and poetry writing workshops that celebrate the immigrant experience and longing for one’s homeland. As poetry connected my father with his homeland and immigrant experience, through these events the community will be engaged and asked to connect with their family’s immigrant experience.

Proceeds from the book will be split with the publisher and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Baltimore, Maryland: https://www.rescue.org/united-states/baltimore-md. This organization provides opportunities for refugees and immigrants to thrive in Maryland.

I plan to connect with the International Rescue Committee and arrange for a representative to share about their organization’s work with immigrants and refugees that come to the U.S. to start a better life. I will be donating my profits from the sales of the book to the IRC.

The near loss of the poems of my father is similar to the larger loss of Belarusian culture. The Belarusian language is a dying language, as the country is becoming Russified. Just as Russia is suppressing the voice of its artists, this project gives other Eastern Europeans the opportunity to connect with their heritage and stories in ways that I have before it may be too late.

Working on this manuscript for the past few years helped me survive the grieving process. It celebrates art that was suppressed under the former Soviet Union. It’s a way to honor my father through the creative process. To honor the grandfather I never met. To honor the refugees who did not survive, to the immigrants today in our country who are being ripped away from their families. I want to honor your culture, your language, your Homeland.

I will keep you updated once the book is available and invite you to an event.

Thanks in advance. Your patronage and generosity help to keep the arts alive.