A Second Chance at a Dream
By Yanira Rodriguez
Sitting on the sand in Treasure Island, Mantas Kuzmackis smokes a cigarette, stares at horizon and thinks about how, not too long ago, St. Petersburg was far from the American paradise he expected.
Kuzmackis, 22, came to this country with one thing in mind—reaching the American dream. But for some, the dream is easier to define than for others. Kuzmackis, like many immigrants, struggled to adjust to a new place with new customs that at the same time had offered opportunities for so many, for so many years. And today, he said as he smokes his Parliament, he still doesn't know where his path is taking him.
A native of Lithuania, Kuzmackis grew up watching such shows as "Saved by the Bell" and "Beverly Hills 90210" and wanted to have the same American high school experience he saw on TV.
While those shows were airing all over the world, Lithuania, a country with 3.5 million people, was proclaiming its independence from the Soviet Union. Soviet forces remained in the country until September 1991. After their departure, a period of economic instability followed, with corruption and scandal overwhelming most of the free nation.
The country and its people have struggled to overcome this instability, with many opting to leave. Some have left sooner than others. Those who fled traveled throughout Europe in search of greater opportunities, but some, like Kuzmackis and his family, immigrated to the United States.
The First Time Is the Hardest
Looking through a newspaper in his hometown of Kaunas, the second largest city in Lithuania, Kuzmackis came across an ad calling for students to join a study abroad program in the United States. The only requirement was that students take a written exam to prove they could write and understand English. He took the test in 1999.
Kuzmackis' mother, Audra Uogintiene, 45, a graduate of the University of Cambridge in London, worked as a translator for one of the biggest international corporations in Lithuania. She speaks Lithuanian, English, German, French, Polish and Russian. Given the uncertainty of her country's situation, she made it a priority to teach her son those languages, she said.
"I aced the test and I was off to America," he said.
He arrived in Salem, N.J., in the fall of 1999, where he enrolled as a senior at Salem High School. But Kuzmackis said he never overcame the culture shock.
"Everyone was really nice but very materialistic," Kuzmackis said. "The people in my country may not be as nice as they are here, but I think they are more sincere."
Adapting to a new family posed another challenge, he said. His host parents, who had raised two children who were then in their 30s, began enforcing the same rules their teenagers had growing up. Because his mother was always traveling, Kuzmackis said, he was used to having more freedom.
"The first time I stayed out all night, I was 15 years old," he said. "Here, I had to be home by 10 p.m."
The two-story, eight-bedroom home he lived in for that year was not exactly the skyscraping condominium he saw on television. Kuzmackis said he realized he had many misconceptions about what America was like, and living in a country home in the middle of a field was not where he expected to be.
Kuzmackis, who had left a lifestyle of unenforced laws in his country, said he was shocked when he went to buy a pack of cigarettes and was asked for his identification. He was 17. For him, partying was an everyday thing back home, and so was drinking.
Two months before his May 2000 graduation, he and his high school friends had a party. They made a bonfire, talked and drank alcohol. Before he knew it, it was 1 a.m., Kuzmackis said, and he was walking into his host parents' home, drunk.
"They didn't accept it and sent me back to my country within a week," he said.
Some People Get a Second Chance
Kuzmackis was back in Lithuania by June 1, he said, and while his mother was not only facing the fact her son had thrown away a great opportunity, she said, she was also facing a far bigger problems of her own.
Uogintiene, who had been the sole provider of the house since Kuzmackis' father left them when he was 4, lost her job after the company she worked for went bankrupt.
The family's instability prompted Uogintiene to apply for a green card, with hopes of immigrating into the United States.
Early in 2002, Uogintiene's persistence was rewarded. She met all of the extensive credentials for the green document permitting foreign nationals to work in the United States. Within two weeks, she and her son packed five suitcases with what they could-clothes and mementos of their native land-sold the rest and headed for St. Petersburg, Fla.
"We had never won anything ever, and before you know it, I'm on an airplane back to the United States," Kuzmackis said.
The two landed in St. Petersburg because Uogintiene had a friend who owned several properties throughout the city, and he had promised they could stay rent-free in one of them while they settled in.
After two months of fruitless job searching and a landlord claiming rent, the family went into their first challenge together in the United States.
"My mom and I only had $400 and with this we had to pay rent and survive," Kuzmackis said.
Kuzmackis, thanks to his mother's hard work, never had a reason to get a job before. Here, he found himself working two.
At a sports bar, Kuzmackis worked as a dishwasher from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. He had just enough time to eat and walk straight to his other job at the Columbia restaurant, where he worked as a busboy from 4 p.m. until closing, which was anywhere from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., he said.
His mother, who knows several languages and has business English and education degrees, is still working two jobs: One is at Lonni's Sandwiches, the other at the Columbia.
"My first year here was pure depression," Kuzmackis said.
While Kuzmackis said he considered suicide, his mother kept him going, helping him focus whenever he lost sight of his two goals: getting back to Lithuania to visit friends and family, which would cost him $1,500. The other would be a greater challenge: He wanted to make a career out of his passion—music.
For All, the Future Is Uncertain
Whether washing dishes or waiting tables, Kuzmackis always had music on his mind. The clinking of plates and utensils created beats in his head he would later re-create on his computer.
One day, his mother asked him the question every 20-something dreads: "What are you going to do with your life?"
Kuzmackis, who finished high school in Kaunas, a city with 400,000 people, said he always knew he wanted to go to college.
"It's what everybody in America does, you know, go to college," he said.
While his interests included physics and chemistry, something that would give him a real job in the future, his mother said, his real passion was music. So he began looking for music schools online.
In March 2003, Kuzmackis enrolled in Full Sail Real World Education music school in Winter Park, Fla. He is five months shy of obtaining his associate's degree in recording arts, wants to get a bachelor's degree in fine arts or music and hopes to someday help those in Lithuania with dreams of coming abroad.
"It would be nice to set up a fund or a school to help young musicians," he said. "But I first need to make that kind of money."
For now, Kuzmackis said his future is uncertain.
He must worry about paying off school loans, helping his mother pay the bills and reaching financial stability, he said.
It's all included in the price of obtaining the American dream.
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