Her schoolmates made fun of her as a first-generation Ukrainian refugee in the US: ‘They decided to go for the fact that my country is getting bombed’
They turned her country's situation into a punchline.
Shapeshifter (@shape_shifter01), known for her makeup videos on TikTok, shared her experience of being a first-generation Ukrainian immigrant in the United States. She alleged that schoolmates bullied her because of her migrant roots.
“I want to preface this by saying that I’m a first-generation Ukrainian refugee, which means that I did escape the war, and I have been living in America for the past four years,” she told TikTok. She experienced varying degrees of exclusion as an immigrant but started with a story she considered relatively “tame.”
“A thing that a lot of people in my grade did, they would ask me where I’m from, and then they would laugh really, really hard, even though they knew where I’m from,” she alleged. For reasons unknown, whenever she was asked and replied, “Ukraine,” her schoolmates would laugh in her face. Regardless, she would still feel hurt whenever they reacted that way.
Facing a language barrier and being knocked down for it
“Another thing that happened to me, which I find extremely bizarre, is when my English teacher thought it was hilarious to make fun of me in front of the class,” she claimed. The student said she wasn’t used to writing essays in Ukraine, and this was her first essay in the United States. She asked about the document format, and the English teacher told her it needed to be double-spaced. She was confused and didn’t understand what double-spaced meant in that context.
However, her English teacher allegedly told her that she was already supposed to know what it meant. The student continued, “And then I go home and spend an hour-and-a-half putting double spaces in between every singular word in my essay.” At the time, she didn’t know double-spacing should be applied between the lines of text. She turned in her essay, and two weeks later, she got her paper back with the comment, “incorrect essay format.”
She asked her English teacher, in front of the whole class, what she did wrong. The teacher corrected her, saying that the double-spacing was supposed to be between the paragraphs. “And then that teacher just used that joke for the entire year,” she alleged.
Bullied as an immigrant who escaped a war
“I wake up one day, and my mom tells me that my uncle has a piece of missile stuck in his leg. So, he’s either gonna die, or they’re gonna amputate his leg,” she shared. It was bad news to wake up to. However, her day took a turn for the worse after an encounter with three girls at the gym.
She said those girls didn’t like her, and they called her name to get her attention. The student ignored them because she was already having a bad day. However, she finally got irritated with one of the girls. Just as she was about to tell her off, the girl allegedly made an inappropriate, offhand remark.
“Are any of your relatives dead yet?” After which, the girl allegedly started laughing. Recognizing the gravity of the remark, the friends apologized to the student and pulled the girl back. “I don’t know what prompted such a question,” she said.
Accused of overreaction
But the exclusion didn’t end with cliquish groups. She said that during a public speaking class, they were encouraged to make a presentation about an event that changed their lives. She decided to write about the war in Ukraine.
“Around slide three, I was talking about how my family is basically always in bunkers now. So, obviously, I was starting to get nervous, because the topic was still quite fresh in my mind,” she said. At that point, she had only been in the United States for two years. She continued, “So, my palms did get a little sweaty, and my knees started to get a little jiggly.” The topic was important to her, and she was nervous to talk about it in class.
After the presentation, her classmates started commending her. But a couple of days later, while walking down the hallway, she overheard someone talking about her presentation. They pointed out that she was trembling and allegedly accused her of “doing too much.”
“I feel like it is such an odd thing to talk about someone’s reaction to an absolutely horrific experience,” she said. But bullies aren’t always reasonable, as one woman from North Carolina shared after her ex-best friend turned against her and sent her to Dominican jail over $25. The student continued, “But I feel like they had nothing else to bully me for, so they decided to go for the fact that my country is getting bombed.”
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