Somali student's determination yields success

By Mohammad Reza Najafian
Thursday, April 16, 2015

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Escaping from civil war to a country known as the land of freedom, Ahmed Ali decided to flee from Somalia in 2005 and come to the United States, where he could start a new life.

He is thankful for being away from war, but finds himself battling for his rights as an immigrant.

After attending college in Chicago, he decided to get involved in as many community activities as he could, which resulted in co-founding a nonprofit organization called the East African Community Center.

Ali encouraged members to participate in elections to become active citizens. His efforts also led to the formation of a union for Chicago cab drivers of all colors and producing a weekly program with the Asian Broadcasting Network about Muslims' voice.

Few years passed and he decided to leave everything behind and move to St. Cloud because his wife was a student at St. Cloud State University. Starting from scratch, Ali began to get to know people and the community better so as to lead a life like that of Chicago. He soon became a community medical interpreter to help doctors understand patients' needs and illnesses better by eliminating cultural barriers.

As he tried to widen his network, he met a Somali, Abdulahi Bureh, who was distributing flyers about forming the Greater Minnesota Worker Center. Through the assistance of a sociology professor, Stephen Philion, they established the organization to better working conditions of immigrants.

Ali was chosen as a board member, but promoted to lead staff organizer. An example of the conspicuously unfair cases he faced was how the chief executive officer of a restaurant chain like McDonald's can earn thousands of dollars an hour while paying $6.50 per hour to workers.

Ali's lobbying in St. Paul helped succeed in raising the minimum payment to $8.50, which will jump to $9.50 in 2016. He believes anyone who has a full-time job should be paid fairly regardless of their race and immigration status.

Speaking of race, he said he lost his enthusiasm of becoming a reporter due to discriminatory behavior he has seen and felt in the city as well as at the university.

For example, he says students are reluctant to have him and people of color as their teammates in class activities. Most often, professors force white students to let them in their groups.

He was also impacted negatively when a professor demanded he write down what he wanted to say instead of stating it verbally. The professor claimed his English was not good enough to convey what he wanted to say. Interestingly, the teacher told him that he was not going to fail.

That incident disappointed him so much he thought of dropping his class or his studies, but he decided to tolerate the situation to avoid creating tension between the two of them. Plus, even if he decided to drop the class, he would have had to retake it with the same teacher because no other faculty taught it.

In spite of losing his interest in journalism, he is about to graduate in a month with grade average point of 4.0. He has now established a traveling agency where he has many workers and intends to bring more business to the area.

Pointing to the rise in housing purchases by Somalis and their contribution of more than $2.4 billion to the economy of Minnesota, Ali says they are now part of this state and call it home.

Still, he says he regularly receives calls saying people don't want Somalis in this community or he should not be leading the Somali community. Ahmed's message to those who don't like him is to get to know Somalis before judging them.

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