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<\/p>\nMihail Iordache is an older man, on the short side. His hair is becoming white, and the fine layer of facial hair he has is peppered with grays. His eyes, a deep grey, were nervous and twitching when entering the booth where my companion and I waited for him. He introduced himself, and asked about the purpose of my project. Early on he admitted to having a public speaking problem that stemmed from aggressive language teachers in his childhood, and coming to speak to me was a kind of closure. He began his story, but was coughing and complained of a dry throat. We stopped to buy drinks. Afterward, he dove into his narrative right away.<\/p>\n
The whole time, top 40 pop music was playing loudly from overhead speakers. At first I thought that it ruined my audio, but throughout his talking, I found it almost humorous that he had made it through all these dangerous and amazing things, and he had found himself sitting in Panera Bread listening to Taylor Swift. In that way, I appreciated its presence. He had also begun to speak louder and share more details. By the end, I found him to be a pleasant man with artistic talent, who never loses hope for the future. This is his story, uninterrupted.<\/p>\n
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\u201cLike I said, I would like to focus on the idea of challenge. And the key point in my life where\u2014 my life has changed because I took a step, or I challenged myself.”<\/p>\n
\u201cI first landed in Cleveland because a Lutheran church sponsored me. The Romanian community jumps in, introduces you, you go to church with people. So I met in this context a gentleman\u2014 he was probably in his sixties at the time, I was twenty five. He said, \u2018I was a lawyer when the communists took over and I was put in jail for that one reason. I was lawyer. 16 Years in the labor camps.\u2019 I was so fresh out of that communist system, it was hard for me to believe this. I was seeing a real person who was jailed for that reason only. He gave me a tiny book about an anti-Communist leader that ended up dead, obviously. A famous name in [the early period of] Romanian history. He carried my name, Mihail. A different last name. Kotoraneu. I was almost afraid to take that book with me. I still felt like I was in Romania. I did not have enough time to adapt to the freedom, where you can read what you want and you can put that book in your shelf and not be afraid that somebody is going to walk in and arrest you. Believe me, it may sound very weird, but I hid that book in my own apartment. I couldn’t just freely keep it because I heard that in that church there was one informant that was informing the Romanian government at the time about every individual that was going to that church. We\u2019re talking 1982.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of trouble in that time, the late seventies early eighties. And a lot of people wanted to leave [Romania] illegally at that time. I was a young man, of course I could wait for a Visa, but they were just meant to slow you down. Crossing the border, which was\u2014 you took a very very big chance to do that. So talking about challenge- the challenge to leave Theo country was terrifying because you knew you could end up being shot at the border, So that was a huge challenge. But the desire to leave and to make something of yourself, a future. Every body knew that America at the time was a symbol of freedom. A symbol of possibilities. A place you can get in work and dedicate yourself, and you could be something. And everybody wanted to escape the communists.\u201d<\/p>\n