Marianna Vertola is a thirty-two-year-old Russian woman who was once married to a Greek man and has since been divorced and now has a son. She has always maintained her Russian nationality and married a Greek man in the first place, so, technically, the marriage is considered to be Russian. Marianna has always been curious as to why her father never mentioned her being an American by her own father, though he always referred to her mother as American. And now that she is finally free to marry someone of her choice and to live in the United States, has become curious as to why this is such a big issue for her.
Marianna was born inverse (Siberia), a region in what is now known as Russia. Her parents, Yuliya and Vasili, were originally from Ukraine. They emigrated to the United States when Yuliya was four years old, and she was taken in by relatives in Texas. At about age seven, however, Yuliya began to suffer from mental illness, which resulted in her becoming institutionalized for two years. Once discharged, she was told that she would need to get herself ready for “her American dream” by serving her time in a reformatory. Since Yuliya was not interested in studying further, this was not done, and later she moved back to Russia.
While in prison, Marianna’s health deteriorated and she developed tuberculosis. This was a terrible shock to her family because her father was very worried about her health and because Yuliya was her only remaining child. Since tuberculosis is not curable, and since Russian standards of beauty are very strict, neither was it possible to get the doctor to allow her to pass on to her son any of her citizenship or nationality. Because Yuliya was unwilling to give up his citizenship or Yulia wanted to keep hers, both decided to marry each other so as to retain their nationality and retain their good fortune.