Illiteracy

 “What that say?”

A gentleman in jeans and a light sweater handed me a can in the small grocery store on Truman Road, across from St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri.

“Say what?” I didn’t know what I should do with that can of tuna.

“What that say here?” The guy pointed with his dirty fingernail at the label.

“Ah, you forgot your glasses? Sure! This is tuna in oil.”

“No, I need tuna in water.”

Is he blind? No, the man handled himself with confidence. The mystery was solved, “I can’t read. I am illiterate.”

My grandmother was illiterate, but she was from the old world. My grandfather, her husband, wrote several books. She was the only one who didn’t know how to read. Everybody, I mean, EVERYBODY could read in the former Soviet Union, except for my grandmother. This is America, the country of enormous opportunities, and the man couldn’t read!

We Soviets always looked up to Americans, who had desk computers back in the Soviet era. I've heard some even used email. Primitive of course.  My confused brain refused to accept the revelation that America could be behind Russia in something.

I patiently led a tiny Sunday-School class, where a few white Americans tried to put letters together, reading the Bible out loud. I wanted to cry, and I did cry; how would I improve my accent, if people around me can’t read and even speak right?