By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, News correspondent
While counseling at the Fountain of Hope center for former homeless children in my most recent Dialogue of Civilizations in the Republic of Zambia, I came across a profound 14-year-old named Blessing. Blessing had barely any protection in his young life; while living on the drug-filled and alcohol-abused streets of Lusaka, he was crippled in a hit and run. He was rescued by the Fountain of Hope center, but he still didn’t have enough money to pay for secondary school, let alone college.
Like the definition of his name, Blessing longed for a favor from God, and that was to escape the life he lived and come to America. For the most part, that was universal among every young person I met in Zambia. There were times when I was begged to bring someone back to Boston with me, but what would happen if I did?
The children believed that by coming to America their dreams of becoming doctors, pilots, teachers, pastors or professional athletes would come true. They thought this was truly the promised land of the “American dream.” I am in no way saying that America would have less opportunities for these children than Zambia, but their image of stepping off a plane into a land without poverty is far from reality.
“There was always opportunity in this land that we live, although it’s not equal, it’s just about how you go get it,” Chibuzar “Prince” Kalu, a fourth year College of Professional Studies business major, said of the States.
Kalu came to America as a 16-year-old immigrant, sponsored by practically his entire family in Nigeria. He lived in Dorchester during his high school years with his aunt, her husband, her mom and his aunt’s four children.
From the moment Kalu entered Dorchester Academy, he realized America wasn’t the utopia he had been told about in Nigeria. He described himself as “the minority of the minority of the minority,” because of his immigrant status in high school. He was not truly accepted socially until his senior year, after he began to assimilate into a new American accent and sense of style. However, with the college process and finances looming, Kalu would realize how truly alone he was.
While Kalu was accepted to multiple schools, he had very limited resources to pay for his education. He was not yet a legal immigrant so he could not receive any financial aid. The bill for the schools his parents wanted him to go to was greater than any amount of money he had ever seen.
The aspiring business major was lucky to pass two rounds of interviews and be accepted into the Foundation Year program at Northeastern University. The program allows students to attend day classes at Northeastern and collect enough credits to transfer to another university.
It only cost him $1000 and his 3.5 GPA was enough to get him admitted into the College of Professional Studies four-year bachelor’s program.
Kalu is an exemplar of the American dream – not because he came here with practically nothing and now has the opportunity to walk away with a degree in business – but because of the trials he endured to put himself in that position.
Even after both of his parents died in Nigeria he continued to pursue the path towards success they had laid out for him. Soon after, he learned that he could return to Northeastern following his Foundation year.
He joined multiple student groups including NASO, Black Engineers of Northeastern, the Legacy Mentoring Program, the Husky Volunteer team, the Haitian Student Organization and the Caribbean Student Organization. He also recently just accepted his first co-op at Sports in Society – a group that uses the broad appeal of sports to create positive social change.
“The whole mindset that everyone back in Africa is having, that America is the land of great dreams, when you come here you’re going to be wearing an all-white suit – it’s not real,” Kalu said. “It’s not real. You have to fight for it.”
I struggled to find ways to tell the children at the Fountain of Hope that nothing would ever come easy for them, whether they were in Zambia or the States when the answer was right in front of me. It was in the shape of all of the immigrants that had come to the States and found their hardships had not escaped them, yet they still put themselves in a position to succeed.
It is the form of Kalu, whom at times has had to sleep on friends’ couches for weeks at a time because his house in Dorchester is full and his family in Lynn is too far away from school.
Yet he never complains because, while it may not be what Blessing imagined, Kalu is in the realistic pursuit of the American dream.
