Contrary to Trumpian stereotypes, Africans come to the U. S. well-prepared to contribute to our economy and society. A recent study found that African immigrants are, in fact, about 50 percent more likely to hold graduate degrees than is the rest of the nation. They have been raised to work hard at home and at school. Hence, just two years after leaving a refugee camp in Syria, one Somali student I know has learned English and is an outstanding student at Portland State University.

And Africans enrich much more than our schools and economy.

Orphaned immigrants from places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo embody courage and resilience. A high school student I worked with last year wrote this: “I don’t have parents, no brother or sister. I feel so broken … but I want them to know that I will not sit and fold my arms. But I will stand for my future. I will not give up.” Ibrahim Ibrahim, a student at the Oregon Islamic Academy whose parents are from Sudan, donates many hours a week to improving our community. Already a highly effective leader at 18, he just accepted a full scholarship to Harvard University.

Another 89-year-old woman I know is the conscience of her small church near Northeast 82^ndAvenue. She is heartsick over the political and spiritual state of both her native Liberia and the U. S., and is trying to persuade her doctor to let her travel to West Africa. She believes that she is not entitled to rest her aching body when there is so much work to be done.

The person who most changed my own life was Brando Akoto, who came to Portland from Ghana. He gave up weeks of his time and much of his income to return there and teach me about community development and how to comport myself in a world of deep inequalities. He traveled despite health challenges that turned out to be stage-four cancer, which took his life a year later.

He said, “if you take care of relationships, everything else will take care of itself.” Africans as well as other stigmatized immigrants are often supremely skilled at making and being friends, at building and maintaining community, and at accepting and overcoming hardship. As people in the U. S. feel both more lonely and entitled, we can hardly afford to dismiss such gifts and the people who offer them.

Africans, of course, have a long and often tragic history in the U.S. More people came to the thirteen colonies from Africa than from England, though seldom voluntarily. Today’s African immigrants are often shocked by our poverty, racism, permissiveness and social isolation. Many find life in the U. S. to be much harder than they had imagined.

For our sake, I hope they keep coming.

David Peterson del Mar is an associate professor of history at Portland State University and president of Yo Ghana!, a nonprofit devoted to connecting students in Ghana and the Pacific Northwest so that they can learn about each other first hand. He lives in North Portland.

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