Family History

I was born and raised here in Spokane Washington. I've gone to the same church for 18 years. I've been in the same school system, with the same people, and same teachers. Needless to say my life has been consistent. I have only known one life until moving away to college.

However, it was not like this growing up for my grandparents on my fathers side. They were both born in Estonia, a small country on the head of the Baltic Sea, which become occupied by the Soviets in 1940. At this time my grandparents were early teens. Mass arrests, deportation and execution commenced with this occupation. Because of this and the many casualties to come from WWII, the estimated death rate was around 25% of the population. As it was no longer to safe to stay in the country my grandparents (separate at this time), fled the country to the east coast of the United States.

Although there are countless more stories they have told me, this is the general idea of what it was like to grow up in a nation under occupation and at war for something they do not believe in. One main story my grandma always tells me is that of the Singing revolution. Its about how Estonia was forced to sing Soviet propaganda songs at their traditional song festival, but one year they sang an Estonian patriotic song and the military could do nothing about it because there were 25,000 singers in the choir along with 300,000 citizens in the audience. This was more than one third of the population of Estonia.

This story is special to me because the reason I was born in the United States is because of all the events that happened to my grandparents. This contributes to my Culture of One exercise in which I wrote down the influence of my grandparents and the trips I have taken to visit where many of their stories played out. All of these experiences have made me the person I am today.

This video is a TED talk on the Singing Revolution

http://estonianworld.com/culture/david-drummond-on-the-singing-revolution-at-tedx-houses-of-parliament-2013-uk/