ImmiGRIT

Immigrants are often cast as the dregs of the earth, but there's a lot to be learned from the two women we feature today. Both are immigrants, both are leaders, and each has a story worth telling.

I know we’re all very concerned about a porous Southern border and the way immigration has remained unchecked for so many years due to political squabbling. Twice in this century alone, the comprehensive immigration law that everyone says they want, has gone down to defeat at the hands of Republicans. The first time, they betrayed George W. Bush by walking reform all the way down the aisle, only to bolt like so many runaway brides when it occurred to them that fixing the problem robbed them of “gotcha” talking points. This year, they did it to Joe Biden at the behest of the putative Republican presidential nominee, who expressed the same misgivings that brought down earlier attempts: it takes the bat out of their hands. They’d rather have crisis at the border than a fix, because the fix robs them of their best attack.

That’s all old news, so today I’m going to look at immigration from a very different perspective. Here, we will compare and contrast the experiences of two immigrants. One is my sister-in-law, Betty Wilkinson, a white woman from Southern California, who, for all intents and purposes, has immigrated to Africa, where she currently uses her skills as an international economist to help on matters of policy with the most robust democracy on the continent, Zambia, as it continues its course of economic evolution.

The other is Ukeme Awakessien Jeter, a black immigrant from Nigeria, who came here as an 18-year-old college freshman, got multiple degrees, and has written a new, and essential book, called ImmiGRIT: How Immigrant Leadership Drives Business Success.

I was hoping not to name the Former Guy in this commentary, and then over two recent rallies, he talked endlessly about making immigrants fight cage-style for the UFC, telling UFC ownership how much money they could make by exploiting these immigrants. His proposal—which, as always, was cast by his beleaguered spin-doctors as a joke after the fact (c’mon, everyone knows he’s not joking)—is to make money off of them and then deport them. It’s a level of exploitation that seems harsh even for him.

Anyway, enough of the zeros, back to our heroes.

Betty has spent her life overseas. She’s worked for a variety of banks, governmental, and non-governmental organizations, on behalf of poor people, especially women, in small villages throughout the South Pacific, Asia, and Africa. When not teaching basic economics in the villages (she has a masters from Cornell in the field), she can be found advising presidents and finance ministers from Katmandu to Manila to Lusaka. She always exudes hope for the future, literally banking on the people in these small villages to learn to create better lives for themselves and their families. My sister-in-law could have remained United States-based, and done quite well working for the government, or done extremely well in the private sector. It’s just not who she is.

Times change.

There is a global competition for leadership talent. Just the other day we met an extremely bright young man from the Congo who is in the United States working as a financial analyst for Callaway, an international powerhouse in the golf industry.

Ukeme is the first black mayor, and was the among the first city councilmembers of color in Upper Arlington, Ohio, a Columbus suburb on the edge of the Ohio State University campus. It’s a white, upper middle class town that through its history enforced red-line rules that kept home ownership out of the hands of minorities. (Growing up there, we were the only Jewish family, and there was also just one black family in this community of 36,800.)

Ms. Awakessien Jeter left Nigeria for college here in the United States, got engineering and law degrees, went to work for a major insurance company, and is now the mayor of my hometown. Ukeme is a natural leader who wrote ImmiGRIT because she knows just how much an immigrant’s experience can lend to leadership at all levels.

Some immigrants have little choice but to emigrate. Violence threatens; they’re starving; or living in abject poverty. But it also takes grit to leave the safety of family and home for foreign shores, even if you think the streets are paved with gold. Ukeme didn’t have to come here anymore than Betty had to move to Africa. Motivated by ability and desire, they knew where and how they could contribute.

As Ukeme notes, we live in a connected world, and not putting immigrants in leadership roles represents opportunity cost. Look at Coca Cola, Pepsico, Google, and WhatsApp, to name just a few companies whose global footprint means they have to think big. They were all founded by or run by immigrants.

Let’s not get left behind in the global war for talent.

©2024 Jon Sinton