GRAD SUCCEEDS IN NEW LAND; UKRANIAN TRANSPLANT DISIRES CAREER IN LAW.

Byline: David R. Baker Staff Writer

Landing in Los Angeles six years ago, decked out in a sweater and heavy boots, Anna Tolkunova looked at the palm trees in amazement.

It had been cold when she boarded her plane in Moscow, as bleak as the political landscape in the ruins of the Soviet Union. Anna was half-Jewish, and to the ultranationalists seizing power in former Soviet republics, people like her represented easy targets for public discontent.

So she and her mother fled, following the path to Los Angeles taken by thousands of Soviet Jews. On Thursday, she will graduate from Reseda High School, the first step en route to a career in law.

Tolkunova also is planning her first trip back to Ukraine since she left, although she said she's glad her mother made the decision to emigrate.

``If I was still back there, I'd probably be encountering a lot of anti-Semitism right now,'' she said. ``It's gotten really bad.''

She has adapted to life in a new land with what her teachers describe as a strong inner drive to succeed.

``She's very self-directed,'' said English teacher Sandra Ulrich. ``She goes at things with a kind of ferocity, and if that counts for anything, she'll go far.''

While not limited to one ethnic group or country, the wave of immigration triggered by the Eastern Bloc's collapse brought many Jews to Southern California. A survey last year by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles found more than 24,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union living in western Los Angeles County and southeastern Ventura County, most of them recent arrivals.

Although she was only 11 when she moved, Tolkunova still can remember the way people in her home city of Lvov, not far from the Polish border, talked about Jews.

``I'd be talking to someone in a store, and they'd say all these things about Jews,'' she said. ``I'd say, I'm Jewish. And they'd say, Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean you.''

There were other reasons to leave. Tolkunova's grandfather, a World War II veteran who fought the Nazis all the way to Berlin, had long wanted to take the family to America. His skepticism about the grand future promised by Soviet leaders passed on to his daughter.

``As she grew up, she saw that everything the Soviet Union stood for was a big hoax,'' Tolkunova said.

Tolkunova's older brother moved first, settling in Encino. Tolkunova and her mother followed four years later, in 1993.

She tackled her first task - learning English - by watching television, learning quickly enough that she was able to leave Portola Middle School's English as a Second Language classes after just one semester. Her voice no longer betrays a hint of accent.

Once at Reseda, she also landed by accident in the school's Naval Junior Reserve Officer program as a way to fulfill a physical education requirement. She liked the program enough that she has since become the cadet commander for Reseda's program.

``Every year she's grown in her leadership ability,'' said Capt. J.M. Holmes, Reseda's naval science instructor, who praised her ability to organize people and events.

``Some high school-age kids these days don't stop to think of all the things you do to make things happen. She does,'' he said.

Tolkunova said she hopes to transfer to the University of California, Los Angeles, after spending two years at Pierce College. Her dream job: district attorney.

``I like to talk a lot, and that seems like a job where you can talk a lot,'' she said.

Next year, she hopes to travel back to Ukraine. Her father, who stayed in the country and remarried, has a young son Tolkunova wants to meet. She also wants to visit her elderly grandmother.

``My family, that's the only reason to go,'' she said.

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Photo: Anna Tolkunova, cited for leadership ability, will graduate Thursday from Reseda High.

John McCoy/Daily News