I grew up in two different cultures.

When my friends are at my house, they always comment on how weird it is that my parents speak to me in Russian, and that I answer back in English. For the most part, they’re right.

Being a first-generation natural-born American in my family, I experienced school and society differently than my parents did. As a Jew in the Soviet Union, my dad did not have many opportunities growing up. My parents immigrated to the United States to build a better future for my brother and me, and for themselves.

When I was younger I hated being Russian. I was different. My parents made me take Russian language classes with my cousins, and we complained constantly, convinced these classes were useless. I cringed at the thought of telling people I was not like them.

I was always embarrassed by the food I brought to lunch in elementary school. I would look at the other kids’ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with envy. I was constantly overwhelmed with questions of “what IS that?” from the kids at my lunch table who saw my syrniki, which is a pancake made of a cottage cheese mixture.

The employees at the tree nursery look at us weirdly when we buy a tree after Christmas for the Russian New Year and my parents serve weird food to my friends.

All of these situations I went through when I was younger built an aura of embarrassment around me. This prompted me to try to hide my heritage when people asked.

I thought I would lose my friends if I told them who I really was. I was so immersed in the ways my heritage made me different, that I completely forgot about how my heritage introduced me to new people and how it is a part of who I am.

Through the years, I’ve learned to embrace it fully and have come to enjoy my different heritage. In reality, it’s awesome being different. I get to experience a whole different culture in my home, I can speak a language that’s not taught in schools, and I have interesting food to bring to lunch.

Sometimes it’s challenging to be different, but I learned to embrace it fully and to remember that my friends will still love me even if my mom tries to feed them fish eggs.