Kalé Kponee shares her American narrative

March 2017

“My name is Kale Kponee. I’m a third year joint doctor of science student in environmental health and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. I am a refugee from Nigeria. I came here about 18 years ago. And we fled, just my mother and I, from the Nigerian militia due to human rights violations that were being inflicted upon the Ogoni people.
I want to give you a narrative of refugees just like myself who fled their country because their government had given up on them, because their government had failed to provide them with basic human rights. And they came here not to take from Americans but to give, to share in that American dream, to be a part of a different society.
When I was in the refugee camp, we were told that America was the land of dreams, that it was the land of milk and honey and my mother really latched onto that narrative. And even when we were in the refugee camp and we were starving and we were afraid and we were hungry, we were sleeping on mats, we were afraid that the militia would come at any time to harm us, the narrative of America as a place of opportunity, as a place of light was something that kept us going in a very dark time.
And because of this dream, because of the generosity of the American government at that time, my mother and I were able to come to this country. And we started very small. She was a custodian in my middle school in Louisiana. And again, that same dream, that same narrative at that time of the American dream, America has a land of opportunity America as a land of generosity, America as a land of second chances, that was what pushed her and propelled her towards a career as a nurse. And eighteen and a half years later, last week, that same dream is what propelled her into finally being a homeowner, which I consider the epitome of the American dream.
And I just want to let you know that we as Americans, we can get back to that. We have a chance to rise above the chaos and do something for humanity, for ourselves, and change the narrative that is propelling us towards darkness and come towards the light. And so that is why I wanted to share my story. Because if it wasn’t for America, if it for wasn’t for that American narrative in the 90s, I probably wouldn’t be alive. I probably wouldn’t be a Harvard doctoral student and I wouldn’t be here challenging you to change the narrative.”
– Kalé Kponee, SD ’19