Martin Kuz

The Long Way Home

Earlier this year, Land Park journalist Martin Kuz spent five weeks in Ukraine, both as a reporter covering Russia’s invasion of his late father’s homeland and as a son hoping to better understand the forces that shaped his father’s life. He returned to Sacramento—home to the largest concentration of Ukrainian immigrants in the United States—with a profound new understanding of his complex heritage forged by war and loss. In this essay, Kuz chronicles his journey at the intersection of global history and personal identity.