Joshua Kangere

Joshua Kangere arrived from the Congo in February 2017, after spending five years in Nairobi, Kenya where he applied for refugee status. In his country, he was a medical assistant/nurse in a hospital. Since coming to the United States he has been working in a restaurant.  

I came from war:

I come from Congo, South Kivu, Uvia is the name of my village, my town. There is a war in my country. I can say, all of my place is a lot of war. My people is fighting with the war...So there I was doctor’s assistant, like a nurse. I was a human rights officer in the department of health."  

In America I can say, I like the American people, they show you what you can do, or what you don’t know, they guide you for understanding, if it is problem of a job, to show you, “We do like this, we do like this." It was my first time to work in a restaurant...But for me, I have a problem of language. In America if you speak the language well, you are able to do everything, to organize the way you want life. 

If there are things that I don’t understand, they show me. They say put here, put there. I can say I’ve found good people in America. Especially it is a blessing that I came to CIRI office. 

On getting to know America:

It was very difficult to know people, especially the neighbors, to know people, to talk to [them]; it wasn’t possible for me to greet he or her because everything for me was very strange. Slow by slow we start to know one another, but it was not easy. [He’s talking about when you are living in the same apartment, he was in the first floor, and he didn’t even know people on the second or the third floor. They can’t even say “hi” to you; which was strange for him. Where he comes from, when you are living around with other people, they greet each other, say “hi,” and they know each other, but here it is possible to just pass (without speaking).]   

If my children come, the first things I tell them: they have to learn English. And to be ready to work and to be humble—to respect the laws of the US government. 

Here it is better for you if you have a job. In Africa [even] if you don’t have a job, you can [still] live. But here, if you don’t have a job, you cannot live. In Africa, it is not expensive. But here, if you don’t have a job, you cannot live. 

Once you have an American job for the first time, it is not easy just to learn it, you have to  learn everything, slow by slow. The example is that here, he is working in a restaurant, he is doing dishwashing,.. but here it is completely different. In Africa you use your hands, you take your soap, but here [there] is a machine, you have to place [the dishes] in the machine, take out, put there, dry . .  . Here, you have to learn [be taught how to do] everything. Even if it is the same job here as in Africa, you must first learn. 

You don’t have to change your way of living, you have to be yourself, living according to the new environment, if . . . I have to do it, I have to live the way that people do here, but to live my normal life, to be ME.