Latvian "mail order bride"

Summary

Natasha is a Latvian "mail order bride" who ended up in rural West Virginia with her young son. Issues in her history of domestic violence include physical violence, control, isolation and immigration status problems. Note: Legal Aid was able to resolve Natasha's visa status, which was still uncertain when this story was done. The story is 5:50 long.

Full Text Transcript

(Leffler, Narrator)
Domestic violence shelters around the state have been seeing an increasing number of "mail order brides". Many of these women are from the former Soviet Union and contact their future American husbands through agencies on the Internet. If the marriages turn abusive, the lucky ones find their way to shelters and then have to face a mountain of red tape in the immigration bureaucracy to be allowed to stay and work legally in the United States.

Natasha, who is using a pseudonym, is from Latvia. There she divorced her battering husband who was in jail on un-related charges. She was afraid for her life and that of their seven year old son because her husband had threatened to retaliate when she left him.

(Natasha)
Latvia is a very small country and we both were living in one city and before he go to prison the third time he promised that when he will go out from prison he will find me and revenge so because he got six years in prison I promised myself that I had six years to go away, far away from him because he was very dangerous and cruel and prison makes him even worse.

(Leffler, Narrator)
So she logged on to a match making Web site in hopes of finding a new husband.

(Natasha)
I tried to meet somebody special using the Internet I was looking for the man who will take me away from my country so my first husband will never find me and my child.

(Leffler, Narrator)
So Natasha met an American and became a "mail order bride" after her new husband-to-be visited Latvia for a whirlwind two week courtship. Once the couple were back at his home in rural West Virginia and married things started going very wrong.

(Natasha)
He abused me sexually and physically abused my son. And every time he was drunk or with drugs intoxication he always told me to get out from his house. He always told me that nothing belongs to me here and everything belongs to him and he always told me that he rescued me and because he brought me to the United States I should do everything what he wants to do. So he treated me like a slave. Didn't let me go out from his house and he always make me feel that I am nothing. I'm just like his property.

(Leffler, Narrator)
To make matters even harder, Natasha didn't have a work permit and was totally financially dependent on her new husband.

(Natasha)
It makes my life even worse because every time when I need to buy something I need to ask money and he always feel that he can refuse to give me money or he can allow me to have like twenty dollars. He never gave me more than that and he always keep saying that he is like a god who can make me and my son happy or very unhappy. Who can feed us or make us starve.

(Leffler, Narrator)
After he tried to push her from a moving car, Natasha decided she'd had enough. She wrote to the match making agency and they forwarded her letters to the local police. They came and took her and her son to the domestic violence shelter. Besides giving them a place to live and counseling, the shelter contacted Legal Aid of West Virginia to help with Natasha's divorce and immigration problems.

(Natasha)
It's a big paper work in the future and I hope my self-petition will be approved and I'll be eligible for permanent residence.

(Lefffler, Narrator)
Natasha came to this country on a temporary "Fiancee Visa" and her husband refused to fill out the papers for permanent status. Without this she is in danger of deportation and can't apply for a work permit. Because she has been here for less than five years she isn't eligible for most social services. Legal Aid is still working to get her status under a special provision for battered women so she can stay while her permanent residency is being worked out. Her advice to other "mail order brides" is to try to get to know their perspective husbands very well. But she cautions that in her case it was impossible because, as she puts it, "Mine was like a chameleon".

This interview was produced by Susan Leffler and is being presented by the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence with financial assistance from The West Virginia Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this interview do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.