suggestion i sent into studio360 to do an episode on 'On the Road'

I am a twenty-three-year-old Belorussian immigrant and  I have been fighting with a disabling feeling of the loss of national identity and the unclear emotions following the event of moving to the States at the age of twelve, for ten years now. Anger at my mother, at the governments, at myself, at art, at anything, really - it's a frantic kind of feeling, like an egg that got dropped out of the nest and went into shock. It's the kind of anger that egg would feel after the shock is over, and it's supposed to fell like a happy little egg 'because this new place is better, so slap on a smile and run along!' I learned fast, but I could not find a sense of peace in the new identity I was supposed to identify with and even though my accent went and my Russian instead got an American accent (which was a traumatic realization brought on by a visit to Belarus after two years out and getting called 'an American), despite my assimilation,  I still felt like an outsider, especially in the subtle matters like humor and childhood memories, that people around me could share, and settle their nostalgia and camaraderie into. It's the intimacy of the cultural identity that I lacked and that lack brought me the most painful confusion. Nevertheless, I managed to get myself a full scholarship to BU and graduated with a double major in painting and sculpture and went along with my life, got a job. But the momentum of my migrant youth didn't let me stay put and I decided to backpack through Europe (again, but for longer this time) and go to the Balkans and see the gypsies and roam and have no home, because I was so sick of having a changing my permanent address, always with a feeling of shame somehow, and of being the undercover outsider, like an unpaid spy. 

But as I was getting ready to leave for the journey... I discovered the Blues and Woody Guthrie, then jazz, and then the whole wide mystical country rolled out before me, like a veil lifted and through the music  I 'got it'. And I left for my journey with a new feeling boiling up inside, the feeling of 'leaving home to go on a journey', but a home that I could come back to, a wild home, and home that was itself homeless, wandering, desperate for greatness, and I can live there, because so was I. And somewhere along my trip I found 'On the Road' online and listened to the whole thing in a gulp and Kerouac opened for me the last floodgate and I finally felt happy to be... well, I have to say it - an American. I am planning many projects based on these new feelings - paintings, murals, documentaries, and I want to talk about home to those who feel like they don't have one, I want to talk about the Blues, about singing,  about storytelling. America is nothing but road, and on the road I found my home.