MILWAUKEE— Maria Haigh is a Ukrainian immigrant. In fact, she has now lived in the United States longer than she lived in her home city of Kyiv.
“I came here in 1989,” she said. “I came holding my dying child and I had nothing.”
That dying child was her daughter, Hanna. Hanna had cancer and is the reason Haigh immigrated to the U.S. She wanted the best medical care for her sick child.
“She was born on May second in 1986, which was about a week after Chernobyl happened,” Haigh recalled. “Kyiv is very close to where the explosion happened, so she was born on this day when radiation was very high.”
Hanna’s death is one hardship of many Haigh has dealt with as a Ukrainian refugee. She fears another heartbreak is imminent, as Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine looms.
“I’m a firm believer in the resilience of my people and they will not surrender easily, but in reality, who knows?” She said. “When the bombs are coming, it’s unfathomable.”
Haigh moved to Milwaukee from Philadelphia in 2004, where she took a job as an associate professor at UWM. She teaches in the college’s School of Information Studies and has published scholarly research on the impact of disinformation on the human psyche.
She is paying particular attention to Russian propaganda and how it ties into a potential invasion of her home country.
“Being a borderland, that’s why all nationalities mix and you can’t separate who is Russian, Ukrainian, or Armenian.” Haigh said. “Russian language is the majority and Russian speaking people are the majority in Ukraine, so it’s not a foreign war.”
Haigh has an aunt who still lives in Kyiv. The person she speaks with the most there is her best friend, Alyona Yarmolyuk. Yarmolyuk said to the untrained eye, the country appears peaceful.
“The last two days, I feel bad because all the news is about the war,” Yarmolyuk said. “It’s a strange situation because when we walk around, no one speaks about the war.”
Neither of the two women can imagine an invasion of the country they love.
“I think it was enough, the second world war,” Yarmolyuk said. “People have to understand war has no place in the world.”
Haigh worries everyday for her childhood friend.
“Of course I worry,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does, we will help.”