It fell to my dad to explain the situation to both his countrymen and to his host, who was increasingly feeling like perhaps this surly nation wasn’t worth dealing valves with after all. “They say, ‘I can eat meat at home,’” my dad explained, apologetically, to Bobby.

The week was saved with a trip to Walmart, whose bright aisles and bargain prices dazzled the Russians more than the wettest of beez-ness lunches could have.

However, the next time the Russians came, everyone went to a strip club instead.

While they worked, my parents put me in a series of Baptist daycares, which were the cheapest and most abundant option in our town. I was never asked by my new overseers whether I was Christian, nor was the theological element ever really explained. We learned every Christian children’s song in existence, and I thought it was just because Americans are really into this “Jesus” character, much like they revere Barney or Big Bird.

It was there that I began to realize how weird I already was.

At the daycare, we prayed before every meal and snack. These meager snacks were never enough for me, a beefy four-year-old with cheeks like skillets and a height in the 90th percentile for my age group. My parents decided to supplement the snacks with small boxes of raisins from home, for me to eat as a sort of snack-between-snacks.

One day I got busy playing, realized that snack time was nearly upon us, and decided to just quietly sit in my chair and eat my raisins before the daycare-provided snack had been distributed. A daycare worker saw me, asked, “Are you eatin’ without prayin’!?,” and punished me on the spot.

I didn’t know how to tell them that I’m from somewhere else, that I don’t believe what they do, and that this whole thing—my whole life thus far, really—was just a big misunderstanding.

When my mom came to pick me up, the daycare instructor complained to her about my misbehavior. My mom said nothing. (“We were afraid. We were new,” she says now. “It was a small town. Everyone knows each other. We were trying to play by their rules.”)

Someone told me, around this time, that I was an “alien,” like E.T. That day, it felt more true than ever: like I had traveled to a new planet, and I’d never learn to breathe its air or speak its tongues.

Alina

In 2013, Russia passed its so-called “gay propaganda” law, which made holding gay-pride events or even defending gay rights punishable by fines and jail time.53 The country’s policymakers weren’t out of step with their constituents: at the time, only 16 percent of Russians considered homosexuality acceptable.54