There Is No American Dream for a Black Man
Growing up in Cameroon, I believed America was the only dream. But the reality is much more complicated.
As a kid, I always knew I’d leave Cameroon to pursue my education. My older cousins had left, and talks about higher education in the country were hopeless. I was the firstborn son, so it only made sense that my parents would go into debt, borrow from “ndjangui houses” (community credit unions), and find a way for me to join my cousins in Germany or the U.S.
The image of my impending escape was so clear that when I turned 17 and finished secondary school, but didn’t leave Cameroon, I had no idea what to do with my life anymore. It crushed me so hard that I almost never took the leap of faith to move to the U.S. again. At 17, I lost all hopes of building a future in my own country — partly because I let my parents’ insistence on college overshadow my own ambitions, but also because I didn’t have a backup plan if my dream of leaving the country failed.
When I moved on to college, the usual adventures followed. I lost my virginity, found friendships, drank myself into a stupor. I broke hearts, and I got my heart broken. Over the next few years, I became who I thought was, on my own terms. I had an identity and some image of what I thought my life…
