Reaching for the American Dream

August 24, 2018 | By Gale Cady Williams

The words “Give me your tired, your poor” on the base of the Statue of Liberty that stands in New York harbor to welcome
immigrants to America have been playing a drumbeat in my head for the past two years, ever since I first heard the future president
refer to Muslims as “terrorists.” His hyperbole and hate speech have only intensified since he won the White House. As I hoped and
waited for America’s latest vile level of prejudice and discrimination toward these once-welcomed immigrants to wane, it only
worsened.

I work as a professional writing tutor at Central Ohio Technical College, a community college in Newark, Ohio. We serve students of
all ages, but in the past few years, as bloodshed and humanitarian crises multiplied across the world, a growing percentage of those
students are immigrants. At last count, the college serves students from more than 20 different nations, and many of those students
come to the lab where I work for help with formal essays, research papers, and reports. As I work with them, I always try to form a
bond with each student by asking them the story of how they came to America. While these stories are sometimes hard to hear, they
also inspire me with the hardships that these students and their families often have had to face as they made their way to America, to
Ohio, to Columbus where they usually live, and to my school. I am always impressed by the percentage of them who hope to achieve
a certification or degree in a medical field, which only serves to underscore the fact that these are people who’ve come to help, not
harm.

Over the nine years that I have worked there, I have come to know some of these students well and felt called from the beginning to
tell their stories to an American public that seems far too unaware of their existence here, and of the bravery so many of these young
immigrants possess.

Despite that calling, I put off starting their stories until this summer, when news stories showed the world the horrifying images of
immigrant children, some of them in bassinettes and cribs, being held by the American government in cages and cells. America
learned that more than 2,000 children had been separated from their families. And despite a federal judge’s June 2018 court order to
stop the practice and reunite families, more than 500 children still remained separated as of August 21, according to a report on the
American Civil Liberties Union website.

Things are not getting better. As I write this, Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in Manhattan’s United States District Court is at the top of
the news, and the babies in cages have fallen to the bottom of the news cycle. Thus, now seems like the best time of all to begin
sharing the stories of these students, to raise awareness of these “others” who have come to America to reach for their own piece of
the American Dream.

This is the story of Mana:

S
he is 28 years old, but her wide-eyed face appears far younger – 20, 21, maybe. The petite Somali immigrant is perhaps 5
feet 3 inches tall, although it is difficult to make an accurate guess based on the floor-length dark abaya she wears. The
plain-colored hijab she wears frames her face, emphasizing large brown eyes that are the focal point of a face full of
compassion and intelligence. She emanates a calm, gentle poise, and when she speaks, it is in lowered, measured tones. She
chooses her words carefully, and self-confidence and determination shine through her shy demeanor. She does not want me
to use her last name, does not like to talk about herself, and does not want her picture taken. Yet, when pressed, she will tell her story.

The mother of two young girls, Mana has typically American dreams for them, and for herself. She wants her girls to go to the
Columbus School for Girls, a five-star private academy in the nearby state capital. Like many immigrants in this and centuries past,
she and her husband live sacrificially to provide this part of the American Dream for their daughters. Her husband, also a native of
Somalia, is an accountant. They work hard and live what she calls a good and happy life. After a year of rigorous preliminary study,
she has earned entrance into the highly regarded cardiopulmonary sonography program at the local technical college. She dreams of a
successful American life for her daughters, possibly in medicine. She’d like for them not to have to work in the restaurant business,
which is how her mother survived after their flight from Somalia. She’d like for them not to have to wait on people. She maintains a
surprising calm when she relates the story of their journey from Mogadishu, Somalia, to Nairobi, Kenya.

Born in 1990, Mana was still a baby in 1991 as civil war broke out in Somalia after the ouster by rival clans of the ruling dictator,
Mohamed Siad Barre, who had ruled Somalia since 1969. Over the following months, more than 300,000 Somalis died. As warring
Muslim clans competed to control the government, the country descended into war-torn chaos with no one clearly controlling the
nation. With bloodshed in the streets and food not reaching the people, a large-scale humanitarian crisis soon developed, and the
international community responded. The United Nations sent peace-keeping forces to oversee food distribution and to protect relief
workers, and under public pressure from shared media images of the widespread starvation and piles of bodies, the United States
began relief in 1992 under then-President George H.W. Bush. Under President Bill Clinton, U.S. troops withdrew in March 1994, and

Reaching for the American Dream 1

U.N. forces later, but preceding the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. under President George W. Bush began military
operations in Somalia in 2002, claiming it was a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda fighters. Unrest, government chaos, and bloodshed continue
in Somalia to this day.

Like hundreds of other families, Mana’s family lived an average life in the Somali capital of Mogadishu before the civil war. “We
lived in a nice home, living a middle-class life, and my father had a good job,” she says, adding that as in traditional Somali families,
her mother stayed home and cared for the home and the family’s seven children. However, that changed with the outbreak of the war
in 1991, and the family fled Mogadishu in 1992.

Mana said that to keep the family safe, her father hoped to get the family to a large refugee camp in Nairobi, Kenya to escape from the
war, and made arrangements for them to escape from the city hidden in a truck.

“We were loaded into a big truck with many other people,” Mana says. But before they reached Nairobi, her father was murdered
when he left the truck to get food. “Soldiers ordered him to stop, and he was shot. The shot went through his head and he bled out, and
instantly our lives changed forever. My mother, who had never worked her whole life, had to take responsibility for seven children
and was now a widow.”

Despite the fact that her father had been killed, the family continued to Nairobi with nothing but the clothes they wore and grief for
their murdered father burdening every step. When asked how her mother found the strength to go on to unknown places alone with
seven children, she replies that her mother could not think of anything else to do. Behind them lay civil war, violence, and the
bloodshed of Mogadishu, with no man to support them in a country whose culture is based on traditional gender roles. Ahead lay the
unknown. Knowing that behind them lay almost certain death and more likely starvation, her mother went forward. Mana reflects that
her mother was brave to go on under these circumstances, when it may have seemed safer to return to their home and to her uncles,
despite their fear of the consequences. Thus, they persisted, although her mother had never worked outside the home in her life. When
her newly-widowed mother arrived with her seven children in Nairobi, they lived on the streets with no money, no shelter, and no
food. “When we arrived in Nairobi, we were starving,” she says. “Years later, my mother told me she did not think I would survive
because I had been without food and drink for five days.”

Mana says her mother found a way to earn money by cooking Somali street food in a small oven she set up outdoors, then sending the
children out to sell it. Because she was still a baby at the time, Mana does not know the details of this, but she says that eventually her
mother found a person to help them, who connected them with passage to a large refugee camp outside Nairobi, and things began to
improve.

“When we later came to the refugee camp outside Nairobi, life became somewhat better for us, as we had food and a tent to live in.
My mother got a job and signed up for the lottery to go to the United States of America, a country foreign to her, but she took the
opportunity she had for the sake of her children. Living the refugee life was different from everything we had known; in our tent, we
had no mattresses, so everyone slept on the dirt floor.”

From there, with help from strangers and a lucky placement in the refugee lottery, her family journeyed first to live with an uncle in
Minnesota, then to stay with another relative in Michigan, finally landing after six years in an apartment on the outskirts of suburban
Westerville, Ohio when she was six years old. She says she hated the weather in both places because “I was always cold,” adding that
she’s not sure if the humid weather in Ohio with slightly warmer temperatures makes up for the bitter cold of her previous American
homes – “it’s either too cold or too hot,” she says with a smile and quiet laugh. Life in Ohio was better; they found a one-bedroom
apartment. Despite the fact that they still slept on the floor when they first arrived, life seemed good: “We had walls and a roof over
our heads, and carpet on the floor. This was much better than dirt.”

Mana is driven to sustain her 4.0 average, driven to complete college, driven to be successful in life by American standards. Like
many immigrants before her, it seems that every life goal she achieves puts more distance between her and the dirt floors she slept on,
near starvation, and the possibility of death on the streets. That will to succeed also drives her to visit the college writing tutoring
center where I work, which is where we came together as tutor and student. Over the past two years, we have talked of many things.
She was surprised when I asked her questions about her Muslim faith and beliefs, but not offended, and willing and pleased to answer
my many questions. I was eager to discover the truth about Islam, not the half-truths and myths in the news. We discussed the
similarities in stories and people in the Quran and the Bible, and she pointed out that many Christians do not know that the Moses,
Abraham, and Jesus of the Christian Bible all people the landscape of the Quran, as well. I told her about the Bible; she told me about
the Quran.

I worry for her safety in this world of ever-growing violence and hatred towards all people of color, towards Muslims. I worry that
she may make a target of herself by wearing traditional hijab. I ask her if she would consider wearing American-style clothes to blend
in better, but she is quite firm in that response. She says she used to wear her hair uncovered and wear “American clothes” throughout
grade- and middle-school, but America’s growing prejudice against Muslims only served to strengthen her faith, spurring her decision

Reaching for the American Dream 2

while she was in high school in a high-end middle class suburb of Columbus, Ohio, to start wearing full hijab, or the full-body layers
of coverings that Muslim women wear for modesty.

Things have been more difficult for them in Central Ohio since 9/11, she acknowledges, and more so since the presidential campaign
of 2016. The Twin Towers went down when she was just ten years old, when her family had lived in America for nearly ten years. She
declines to talk about acts and words directed her family’s way in 2001 and afterwards, preferring to focus on a more hopeful future.

A few weeks ago, I helped her shape a scholarship application so she can continue towards her degree in cardiopulmonary
sonography, and in that, she wrote:

“I learned from my mother to take whatever life gives and make the most out of it. Education for me means so much more than a
degree; it is a way to a better future for my children and me,” she wrote. “It is the chance to be the first in my family to be a college
graduate, and also my way of thanking my mother for all the sacrifices she has made in order to give me the chance to be here and
attend school. As a woman who once lived in a refugee camp, had nothing in life, and slept on dirt, I am grateful to now have the
chance to do something in my life that can help better my future and my family.”

She is now into the final segment of her college work, happily involved in real-life, hands-on patient care. On a recent visit to the lab
where I work, she explained with obvious excitement how fascinating and important the work is that she does. She wants to save lives.
I tell her that she is exactly the sort of healthcare provider that I want to care for me in a hospital situation: A savior, not just a
technician. Someone who pays attention to every detail. Someone who wants to save a life. Because it is quite clear: Mana will be
saving lives, because this is where her journey has led.

Mana’s story is not exceptional; of our foreign students, many of them are Muslim; many are from Somalia. There is a common thread
that runs through these immigrants’ stories: Hardship and hope. No time seems more relevant than now for people to see the oneness
in humanity. It is important for people to know the stories of sweet, ambitious Mana, of her family, and of thousands of other families
just like them, all with similar stories to tell of escape from hardship in order to come to America. As our Lady of the Harbor lifts her
lamp beside the golden door with her eternal promise of freedom, I see a local man with a red pickup truck driving proudly through
town, four enormous flags flying in the bed, one Confederate, one Don’t Tread on Me, and one National Rifle Association, all erect
together next to the American flag. I see that, and I see that America has lost sight of our original promise to the world. I am of
German, Polish, British, Welsh, and Irish descent. At some point in the past, all my ancestors came from other countries. Like nearly
all Americans, I am an immigrant, no matter how many generations removed.

Reaching for the American Dream 3