But the thing is, I’m kind of defensive too. So many of my stories about being wronged by Americans involve long descriptions of their tone and the look in their eye, because really, their actual words weren’t that bad. They probably didn’t even mean anything by it, but I’m bundling together my off-brand Nikes and the time I pronounced it “JACK-uzzi” and the time everyone laughed because I didn’t know what an airplane hangar was, and wrapping it in the prosciutto of their innocuous comment, and baking it all in the oven of my immigrant shame, until out pops a hot little oozing nugget of offense taken. When you’re an outsider, you never really know when you’ve finally been allowed in. You’re constantly throwing your hands up in front of your face, probing for the invisible barrier between you and everyone else.

Deana seems to take this all in stride. There was something about meeting her, specifically—a person who is more foreign than I am living in a place that’s more “Texas” than McKinney—that gave me strength. I felt like I had finally met the Russian kid I was always missing in high school. “You see?” her presence assured me. “It’s okay to be like us.” Maybe I don’t need to have gone to Yale and summer camp. Maybe I can just be like me.

Toward the end of our time together, we climbed into Deana’s white CRV, where she likes to listen to Ozzy Osbourne, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC as she cruises the sun-bleached highways. She drove to her office, a route that took us past a brick building labeled simply “Downtown Pharmacy,” another building that looked abandoned, and a shop called “Sam’s Dollar Saver.” When we arrived, I was greeted by her supervisor, who had the kind of swirly mustache you see on men who are about to tie someone to the railroad tracks. It looked like we had stepped out of soy-latte land and into Westworld.

The room where she practiced psychotherapy, though, was trendy and modern, with a salt lamp from Tibet and a fancy hourglass from Walmart. She pays attention to whether the client sits on the big blue couch or the chair next to it—it could say something about what they feel their place in the world should be. Deana sat down in a small computer chair.

She took a Wonder Woman mug off a nearby shelf—a gift from a client. She and the client called each other Wonder Woman in order to pump each other up during difficult times.

Deana told me she had seen the Wonder Woman movie recently and was happy to see that the main character was played by Gal Gadot, a Jewish actress.

Then, out of nowhere, she began to cry.

“I wish my grandma could have seen this movie with me,” she said, wiping away tears.