My Story

My name is Taras Gorbachenko. I am from Ukraine. I came to the U.S. in October 1998. I live in Kent in Washington Park apartments. I live alone, but my wife should be here soon. My parents and my younger sister’s family live in Kent too. I have three daughters. They live in Ukraine.

            I am enjoying learning about American history, culture, customs and traditions. I read a very interesting book: ‘The American Ways”. This is an introduction to American culture. I have known the six traditional values from this book. Its are:

• individual freedom
• self-reliance
• equality of opportunity
• competition
• material wealth
• hard work

I guess U.S. is really the country of individual freedom and equality of opportunity.

I like the nature in the state of Washington, and I like to go to the parks, mountains and lakes. My hobbies are jogging, hiking to the nature and learning English. I love this country, and I want to be able to speak English fluently, therefore I go in ESL and TALL classes.