Trapped and Trafficked By Age 4: What It’s Like to Grow Up the Daughter of a Mail-Order Bride

Katya Suvorova spent much of her childhood trying to be invisible. She kept her head down and drew as little attention to herself as she could. 

She grew up in Texas in the 1990s: The undocumented child of an undocumented immigrant, her life was shaped by struggle, scarcity, and fear of the law. It was a situation she found herself in because her mom moved to the United States from Russia as a so-called mail-order bride. 

(Editor’s note: Although the term mail-order bride has fallen out of use, in part due to its potential to stigmatize the women it references, we’re using it here because it’s the term Suvorova herself uses.)

The concept of the mail-order bride originated in the early 20th century, when answering matrimonial ads was a popular immigration route into the U.S. By the 1990s, it was big business, mostly among women from poor Asian countries. Then, when the  Soviet Union collapsed, young women signed up to international matchmaking catalogues that promised an escape from poverty via marriage to wealthy men in the West. 

Many were trafficked or abused, and in 2005, the U.S. government introduced the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act to protect them from violence and exploitation.

Suvorova was just 4 years old when her mother took her away from her father and grandparents in Russia and smuggled her into the U.S. Her mom had been “chosen” from a catalogue by the first in what was to become a series of American partners. Determined to remain in the U.S., Suvorova’s mother made choices that took them into a series of abusive homes and relationships, exposing Suvorova to a childhood filled with violence and abuse.

That childhood is the foundation of Suvorova’s memoir “The Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter,” which explores trauma, migration and identity as she recalls her experiences of growing up as an undocumented immigrant. 

Suvorova no longer has contact with her mother. She says she stopped speaking to her on the advice of her therapist. It was supposed to be a temporary break, but she found it easier to think straight, free from her mother’s influence.

This year, Suvorova, now in her 30s and a U.S. citizen, decided to move to Europe, citing the ICE raids and mass deportations from the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s administration. 

Suvorova sat down with The Persistent to talk about life as an undocumented immigrant and what it was like to grow up the daughter of a mail-order bride. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

In your book, there is a very specific moment when it dawned on you that your mum was a mail-order bride. How did that reframe your experiences of being a migrant child growing up in the U.S.? Did that change how you see your mum?

When I found my mom’s mail-order bride catalogue, I got very angry. My entire life, I grew up with people calling my mom a Russian whore, and I was told not to grow up to be like her by her friends and my stepdads.

When I first found that magazine, one of the first thoughts in my head was, “they were right.” I was angry. I was embarrassed. No one wants to see their mom posing in a magazine, waiting for a man to choose her. 

I think most of that initial anger came from how my mother and I were treated by American men. When I found that photo of her, it seemed like she had given up her power; that she wasn’t the one in control. The men were. I hated that. Our whole lives were dictated by the whims of terrible men, and it wasn’t fair. 

Now, as an adult, I really admire that my mother had the sort of calculated bravery that gave us a chance to escape the wake of the USSR collapse. I realize she never really did give up her power. She fought constantly for a better life. Because of her, I never have to marry anyone for a better life. 

Your book, much like your social media page, is a raw look into not only growing up as an undocumented child in the U.S., but also as the daughter of a mail-order bride. What motivated you to document these experiences?

I had always been told my life was interesting, but I didn’t really understand why. I realized when I told funny stories from my life, people’s eyes would get wide, and the little story that I thought was relatable seemed to not be so relatable after all. 

Over a decade ago, I started writing essays about my life. I wanted to capture the absurdity and humor of my memories, but the essays didn’t feel right. I hadn’t found my voice yet. I would try every few years again, but I couldn’t crack it. 

It wasn’t until after the anti-immigrant wave that the first Trump administration had landed that I realized the value of my memories wasn’t the humor; it was that I could write the book I needed when I was a scared undocumented kid. 

I became determined to write my story with that audience in mind. I started my TikTok in 2022 and began dipping my toes in the water — seeing what it would be like to share my story. I reached a point where I was going to give up because it didn’t seem to be relatable after all, and the constant rejection was hard. 

Then, suddenly, my TikTok blew up with video after video going viral. I began getting an influx of messages from people telling me that their moms were mail-order brides, or even their grandmothers. There were so many people messaging to say how they related to my experiences of being undocumented, in poverty, or estranged. 

I was shocked, and I felt, finally, like I wasn’t alone in this, which has been exceptionally healing. I decided it was time to start writing and found the words flowed now like they knew where they belonged. The response from social media showed me my story could help others feel seen, and that has motivated me through every step of the process.

You’ve mentioned to me that it was after you wrote the book that you realized you were essentially a victim of trafficking. Can you please share what led you to that realization?

Now that I no longer live in the United States, I realize there is a vigilance every single person, citizen or not, must have to live there. Everyone is struggling for resources, especially the working class. 

When I moved to Europe, I felt my shoulders drop for the first time in what felt like decades. I didn’t realize how tense I was every day before. I finally felt brave enough to open a news article about the Epstein files and open myself to the terrible knowledge of what had been done to countless women and children. 

A particular detail caught my eye about how women became trapped. In a mixture of outrage and sympathy, I told my husband about how horrible it was that trafficking victims get their documents stolen. The comment sparked something, and he gently pointed out that my mother and I had also had our documents disappear sometime shortly after we crossed the border in the U.S. 

I had recently finished writing my memoir, so it was fresh in my mind, and everything kind of came crashing into me. I re-read my chapters in a way I couldn’t have when I was writing them. Now, after looking at my memoir from this lens, thanks to the bravery and testimony of Epstein victims, I strongly suspect we were sex trafficked. 

What did you learn about the mail-order industry while writing this book?

In the age of the internet, the mail-order industry has been rebranded as “international dating” and is run by international marriage brokerages who offer matchmaking services through apps and websites. 

The same relationship power dynamics exist though. I saw firsthand how men who seek these relationships use the promise of filing for citizenship as a form of control in a relationship. 

In some cases, the American citizen in the relationship will even refuse to file so that the foreign partner will become undocumented, so the American has even more control in the relationship. 

Anastasia King, a Kyrgyzstani woman who found her American husband through a matchmaking catalogue in the late 1990s, was later strangled by her husband and an accomplice near Seattle. I was shocked when I discovered the coverage of her murder because it felt like that could have so easily been my mom. 

I think the most disturbing thing I’ve come to realize is that as soon as a country’s economy is collapsing, or a country is struggling, women are the ones who pay the price. Women are the ones who are trying to get out, trying to get their families out, even if it costs their body. 

When my mom put herself in that magazine, the USSR had just collapsed. The ruble was worth almost nothing. Grocery stores were running out of food. Gambling with her youth and body was the best she could figure out to survive.  

Have people with similar experiences reached out to you? 

I’ve had a startling number of people reach out to me and tell me that, through my content, they realized their mom or step-mom was a mail-order bride. 

What’s striking to me is how many people said their parents just never talked about how they met, like it was a family secret. It tells me people are ashamed of it. I also felt ashamed when I was younger. I’ve also had a lot of undocumented people, or children raised undocumented, reach out to me. 

Stories come to me of people who have had to leave the United States because, despite being there for decades, they still hadn’t been able to get their citizenship. It has made me reflect immensely on my privilege. 

You’ve been very vocal about the Trump administration's anti-immigrant policies, especially when it comes to undocumented child migrants. How did your experiences affect your advocacy?

I am acutely aware of my privileges as a white undocumented immigrant because I could easily compare my experience to that of my undocumented neighbor who had darker skin than me. 

I saw early on how we were treated differently. I remember being in an immigration lawyer’s office filled with non-white Latino immigrants and my stepdad saying that we deserved to be in the United States while they didn’t. I asked him why, how we were different. He got angry and didn’t give me an answer. Something like “you just do.” 

That interaction stayed with me because at school Latino and Asian undocumented kids were my friends. They were the only kids in my school who shared my experience. In elementary and middle school, the American-born white kids would bully me for being different, and I could not relate to most of them. 

Even though a lot of the memoir deals with very traumatic experiences, there are parts where you remain sympathetic to your mum’s situation. How do you navigate the complexities of her role in your life?

I love my mother fiercely. I wish so badly she was in my life. Who doesn’t want their mother in their life? I want to call her and vent to her or just listen to her voice, but that vision I have is a fantasy. 

The trauma my mother experienced at the hands of the United States has turned her into someone who hurts me constantly, even though it’s not her intent. I know she loves me. But I think she has been through so much that she doesn’t know how not to cause me pain. 

It would be easy if she just berated me. I think we could get through that. But the most pain she causes me is through repeatedly making decisions that hurt herself. I can’t watch that because I am not strong enough. 

Her love for me and my love for her, couldn’t overcome the extreme pain of undocumented immigration in the United States. 

You often talk about things you’ve learned from your mom’s experiences of being a mail order bride, and your own as an undocumented child. Can you share a few of the unique life lessons and perspectives you still carry with you?

I love this question so much I am going to give you a very long answer… 

→ I learned white privilege is very real. Globally, but also white privilege is woven into every fiber of the whole tapestry that is the United States. It is how we were able to get our citizenships when Black and brown people who worked harder than us, were better citizens than us, weren’t able to. We struggled, but we didn’t have to struggle the same way.

→ Watching my mother claw her way into a better life for us made me really appreciate the life I have. This appreciation is how I was able to become estranged from my mother. My mother didn’t lose everything just so I could be miserable. I need to live the best life I can, even if that means she’s not in it. 

→ Trauma comes from the loss of power and agency. Power dynamics in relationships should never be ignored, because they can be exploited to remove agency from one partner. International marriages have an incredibly high probability of steep power dynamics because they are more likely to be transactional at some level; otherwise, the significant investment from both sides would be hard to justify. 

→ Children are sacred and innocent, always. There are no exceptions to this. When I hear of children being taken from their families and held in detention by ICE, it breaks my heart. Those children will have to live with that horrible trauma for the rest of their lives. They will remember that America did this. When I hear of children becoming pregnant while in detention, I am beyond disgusted. It is inhumane for anyone to be treated this way, but my blood boils, and my stomach turns that children can be so mistreated by our government. Every child deserves a childhood. Every single one.