"Race and gender may be analytically distinct, but in Black women’s everyday lives, they work together.” – Patricia Hill Collins I am a proud Black woman, but it is not something that I have always been constantly aware of. I grew up in Nigeria, where everyone looked like me and our collective 'blackness' was normalized. We were all for the most part, dark-skinned people, with the exception of a few people here and there. When I moved to the United States in 2017, I immediately became aware and hypersensitive about my race. I had never lived in a place where I did not look like everyone. As an immigrant Nigerian Black woman, I began to realize that I had a different experience. First as a Black woman, next as an immigrant. I became proactive in the way I assessed situations in the media. The way Black people are portrayed, and who we actually are. In the Fall of 2019, when COVID tore at the state of the country and gravely affected Black people and other POC, I was asked to write a paper about the intersectionality of race, class, and sex in the lives of many Black women around the world. The quote in the beginning of this essay was from that paper, where I realized that in order to help people like me, I needed to learn about the things that affected them in every area of life. By understanding this, I have learned through my experiences and the papers that I write, and even the life I live is that I need to stand up for Black women. I have decided to create a support system but to start at my college lever. I have created connections between the women in the Black Student Union and the African Student Union. Black women need to be more respected and it starts with me. With us- with whom the future holds.

In the past few years, being an immigrant has become a sort of taboo topic. From the stigmatization of immigrants on the media, and just blatant hate for people who are trying to make a better life for themselves. I have been told ever since I was a kid that America is the land of opportunities for those who step into this land with nothing but hope in their hearts and dreams in their pockets. So, when I landed in JFK airport in the afternoon of the 14th of April 2017, I knew that I needed to make this place my home. Before I came to the United States, I lived in Lagos, Nigeria, surrounded by friends that I have known since I was in diapers, and family that bathed and clothed me for as long as I could remember. I lived a good life. I was on a scholarship in my secondary school, I was on the way to becoming the head girl, and I was well known as an honor roll student. I was suddenly uprooted from my easy going, seemingly perfect lifestyle one Sunday night. I know that my parents had been praying concerning something very serious, but I had no idea that we were going to be moving away across the world to somewhere where we had no family or friends. It was all a blur from that Sunday night. A family in New Jersey had decided to take us in pending the time that we found a place to stay. My father flew to New Jersey first in February, and my mother and my siblings flew into New Jersey in April. The family was kind, they had two dogs, but soon the house became too small for all of us. There was friction and disagreement between that family and my parents. They did not let me complete my junior year of high school, neither did they want to assist my father anymore like they had promised. Soon, not just the house, but America itself seemed like she was against me. The land was hot against my feet like she wanted to vomit me out. For months, I slept on the bare ground in the sweltering heat. This whole time, I broadened my thinking and writing using Khan Academy, so when I was finally admitted into high school, I easily flowed with their style of teaching. Even though the accent was hard for me to understand, or when I spoke softly and never asked questions, I succeeded and passed with flying colors. I can tell you all the bad parts of my immigrant story, but the good outweighs the bad. In my two years at college, I have received accolades for outstanding character and recently gotten approved to study for a semester at the Oxford University in London. I came to the United States to be the first ever lawyer in my own family, and despite all the odds that have been set against me, I am on the way to making it a reality. I am ready to defend those who were just like me and got preyed on by others. I wish to go to law school, and make my parents proud of making the sacrifices that they did. . I have made this land my home with hope in my heart and dreams -no longer in my pocket- but now in my hands. To be an immigrant is not a shame, but a true part of who I am, in my character and in my resilience.

I am a big lover of stories. From the traditional folklores that are passed down in my family for generations, to regular paperback and hard cover books. From a very young age, my favorite genre of stories was fantasy. Majorly because my tribe -the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria- loves to tell stories about the animal kingdom, real stories, and made-up stories with a strong lesson. The story that inspires me the most is one that I believe everyone needs to hear. My father told me when I was young of a land where trees could speak, and the trees were like gods before men. In that land, the biggest tree -the Iroko tree- was lord over all the trees and could also grant the wishes of men. Naturally, men worshipped the trees. They brought them gifts of thanksgiving as signs of appreciation. Over time, the villagers became more demanding and less thankful, that way, the trees stopped speaking. However, there was a story of a woman who was very faithful. She had no children and asked the great Iroko tree to bless her with a child. In exchange, the Iroko tree asked for domestic goats to be brought as a sacrifice. She ends up getting pregnant and has her child, but she never fulfilled her promise to the Iroko tree. Years passed and her child fell terribly ill. When she went back to the Iroko tree to heal her child, the Iroko refused to speak. And that is why till this day, trees have refused to speak to any other human. The moral of this story is to learn not to bite the hand that feeds you. As an immigrant, I have had many people give their all for me to go to college and become successful, and I have every intention to pay them back and also pay it forward to future immigrant children. My life is a story that I want to tell. That is my inspiration. That at the end of the day, I can look at many young girls and boys and say that I made it through trials and tribulations. Even when my back was against the wall and I felt cornered, I remained the heroine of my own story. At the end of the day, I want to see the smile on my parents’ proud faces when I graduate from law school, and be happy that I did not bite the hand that fed me or the womb that carried me.

Name: Christiana Jegede Karen Jegadish. Karen is an Indian international student that I met in my freshman year of college. Me and Karen were actually not friends in the beginning. As a matter of fact, I did not like her because she reminded me of another girl that had made my high school life miserable. So, I gave her the cold shoulder every time I saw her. There was no way to avoid Karen because she was everywhere! She lived on the same floor as me in freshman year, and we had two classes together. And I thought to myself about how unreasonable I was being by hating on Karen for no reason. I decided to befriend her, and that has to be the best decision I made in my college career. I learned a lot from and about Karen. She is an immigrant whose parents brought her to the United States from India when she was six years old. Her father’s company had promised to file in for their family’s green card, and after twelve years, they decided to pull their support from the family, leaving them displaced. Her father, mother, and sister had to move to Germany because luckily, there was a job offer waiting for her dad there. I felt compassion towards Karen in that moment because I had a similar experience as an immigrant coming into the United States. My family and I were displaced within three months of living in the United States after the family that had promised to file in for us were tired of us. Me and Karen reveled in each other’s comforting presence. Because we were first born, first gen immigrants, growing up in a world detached from the one we knew, and our parents have to make a way to survive so that we do not suffer. This is not what drew me to Karen the most. When COVID19 struck, international students were hit the hardest. Many of them could not go home, and were stuck in school for the whole summer, knowing that if they went back home, they would not be able to come back for the fall. I saw Karen’s heart break, as I waved her goodbye to Atlanta to stay with her uncle’s family. I saw that she was sad but she put on a brave face. Come spring semester of our sophomore year, Karen was very excited to go back home, but all those dreams were crushed as soon as the German embassy denied her visa application. It occurred to me as she cried, that she had not seen her family in a year and some months. All the while, Karen put on a brave face for our college. She acted as the Asian American Alliance Representative, a Women Empowered Executive, the Vice President of the Student Government Association, and a Thrive Mentor. Karen became a role model to me in these moments because she channeled her frustrations into areas that our campus. When the BLM movement came around, Karen held a hand out for me. When Stop AAPI hate rolled around, Karen was there once again. This prompted me to write a letter to her. She is strong even in the face of adversity. When I faced backhanded racism on my college’s campus, she was there for me. I know some might find it odd that my role model is someone my age, but I say it is very inspiring to watch someone whom you can mirror their steps. Age is not the only deciding factor for a role model, but knowledge and activism. I could come on here and write about both of my parents because they have made tremendous impact on my life, but my friend, who has now become a sister to me, has held me up in ways that my parents could not or did not know how to. Growing with Karen in our college life has been very inspirational. I always knew that I wanted to be a lawyer, but after meeting her, I knew my purpose as a lawyer. I want to deal with customs and immigration, so that people never have to suffer the same fate that me and Karen’s families experienced. To create a safe space for immigrants who have no place to go and protect them from the vultures of the land. Thank you, Karen Jegadish, not just for being my friend, but for helping me realize my purpose and vocation.