Citizen Akoy

by Steve Marantz

  Akoy’s citizenship coincided with a separate legal action in which Hammer became his co-guardian, with Adaw’s consent. Hammer’s rationale, with which Adaw agreed, was that Hammer was better equipped to deal with the onslaught of college recruiters and with Akoy’s basketball future. Adaw trusted Hammer and took his offer to be co-guardian as genuine and heartfelt. “Scott was like a big brother to Akoy,” she said. Behrens was skeptical. “I had players who really needed help. That wasn’t Akoy. He had two parents who were concerned. Maybe they didn’t know exactly what he was up to or what he needed—that was the cultural gap—but they gave him a home. Lots of people want to help the star players. But we had fifty kids in our program, and a lot of them needed help more than Akoy.”

  Near the end of May, Akoy showed up at the Sjulin’s sumptuous west Omaha home for Lucy’s high school graduation party. Akoy still had a girlfriend at the time. “Lotte, you need to back off,” Ann said. Lotte replied: “We’re just talking—it’s no big deal.”

  Akoy was in the role of Eliza Doolittle. He wore his favorite Hawaiian red shorts and had his hair picked out. He declined Ann’s offer of food and took a seat on the couch. “He sat on the couch the whole time and wouldn’t hardly look around,” Ann recalled. “He was totally freaked out because we didn’t know him.” “Yeah, I was scared,” Akoy recalled.

  Akoy’s growth owed much to his fluency in English, the first beachhead for refugees and immigrants in America. They need it to figure out what to do, where to go, and how to be. Sometimes they need it to summon police.

  In January 2011, as Akoy advanced upon his second championship, the primacy of language played out at the public housing project where Adaw’s sister lived. A Somali Bantu refugee who lived at the Southside Terrace Apartments was mugged and beaten. The victim’s call to police was ineffectual due to language difficulties. The assault had been preceded by a series of attacks on Somali Bantus in which the victims deemed police response inadequate. Now more than one hundred Somali Bantus gathered in frustrated but peaceful protest and asked the city for more police interpreters, more summer school programs for their children, and more ESL programs for parents.

  The request for ESL instruction was particularly dire. An anecdote was told of a Somali mother who asked her son to go upstairs and bring down her purse. The son went upstairs and came back without the purse. “You disobeyed,” the mother scolded. “Mom, I don’t know what you’re asking me,” he said.

  The argument escalated until a Somali elder was summoned to mediate. Among officials who listened was Susan Mayberger, head of the ESL program for migrants and refugees for Omaha Public Schools. “Students were learning English but weren’t maintaining their home language, so there was a breakdown in the family,” said Mayberger. “So the parents said, ‘Help us learn English.’”

  School officials expanded an existing program at the Yates Community Center, a former elementary school not far from Central. Mayberger, whose daughter and two sons had been or would be Central students and were fans of Akoy, was in charge. The program offered ESL classes for parents for three hours on weekday mornings, with five levels of proficiency. The classes were “open door,” which meant adults could attend as long as they wanted or needed to. Along with expanded ESL the Yates added sewing classes, a computer lab, and early childhood classes to prepare children for school. A grant from the Sherwood Foundation funded a social worker on site.

  The goal was to make parents proficient in English so that they could raise bilingual children. Early in her career Mayberger had worked for the New York City school system and had been dismayed to see second- and third-generation students in ESL classes. “What I realized is that you want to do things right as soon as families get here,” Mayberger said. “If we teach them well, they should be able to raise children bilingually, and hopefully families will stay bilingual. If we do things right with the first generation, we can head off long-term societal problems.”

  Omaha Public Schools served about 1,350 refugee students in 2011. South Sudan and its border countries accounted for about 40 percent, while about 60 percent came from Myanmar, Bhutan, and other Southeast Asian countries. Nearly 6,800 students, or about 13 percent of the district’s enrollment, were native speakers of a language other than English. Most came from rural areas of Mexico and Latin America, were not classified as refugees, and spoke Spanish as their first language.

  All of Omaha’s seven high schools, eleven middle schools, and sixty-two elementary schools had ESL programs with ESL-trained teachers and staff. Other supports included family-resources centers in twenty schools, dual-language classes at six schools for Spanish and English, teen literacy centers at two middle schools and district headquarters, and ESL classes for parents in targeted schools as well as at the Yates.

  A teen literacy center for non-English speakers aged 13–21 operated out of the fourth floor of district headquarters. There students got intensive instruction with the goal of a third-grade proficiency in English and basic proficiency in other core subjects. This was the first school experience for some refugee and immigrant students. Because newcomers had so much to learn before they aged out of the program at twenty-one, they took no fall or spring breaks and attended a special Saturday school and two months of summer school, twice as long as mainstream students.

  Apart from the school system ESL classes were offered at Metro Community College and Omaha Public Library. Adaw and Madut had attended ESL classes at the South Sudanese Community Association (which became the Refugee Empowerment Center) before they had applied for their drivers’ licenses. Adaw’s proficiency increased to where she could pass the naturalization test, while Madut’s did not.

  Mayberger’s connection to her ESL program ran deep in her Nebraska blood. Her great-grandparents were Czech immigrants whose rural Nebraska experience mirrored that of the Shimerda family in Willa Cather’s century-old novel My Antonia. “They spoke Czech as a first language, and their children spoke Czech,” Mayberger said. “My mother’s first language was Czech, even though she was third or fourth generation because a lot of her community spoke Czech.”

  Mayberger’s mother, whose maiden name was Voboril, grew up in the farming community of David City, Nebraska. Her mother’s family was able to farm throughout the twentieth century without English as its first language, just as Akoy’s father worked at meat-processing plants with limited English. But proficiency is needed today, Mayberger said, for most jobs and economic opportunity. That’s the carrot her ESL program holds out to refugee and migrant parents. “I just feel language is power,” Mayberger said. “If you can help a parent learn English, how could they not be better able to parent in the U.S.?”

  As Somali Bantu refugees protested in Omaha, Arab Spring swept over the Middle East and North Africa. A populist movement against autocratic rule, it began in Tunisia and spread to civil uprisings in Egypt and Bahrain; street demonstrations in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Oman; and insurgencies in Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Social media fueled the insurrections with messages and images of discontent—and organized protests—on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

  Arab Spring was born of idealism and hope for democratic reform, but instead it caused the largest upsurge of refugees since World War II. On World Refugee Day in June 2011 UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon cited the “unfolding crisis in North Africa and the Middle East” for bringing the worldwide population of forcibly displaced persons up to almost 44 million. He called on the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia to provide more help:

  Poor countries host vastly more displaced people than wealthier ones. While anti-refugee sentiment is heard loudest in industrialized countries, developing nations host 80 per cent of the world’s refugees. This situation demands an equitable solution. No one wants to become a refugee. No one should have to endure this humiliating and arduous ordeal. Yet, millions do. Even one refugee forced to flee, one refugee forced to return to danger is one too many. On this year’s Wo
rld Refugee Day, I ask people everywhere to spare a thought for the millions of children, women and men who have been forced from their homes, who are at risk of their lives, and who, in most cases, want nothing more than to return home or to start afresh. Let us never lose sight of our shared humanity.

  Legislation proposed in the U.S. Senate and House, called the Refugee Protection Act, sought to protect refugees and asylum seekers from a rising tide of fear and xenophobia. Middle Eastern refugees in particular faced suspicion of terrorist intent. Senate sponsor Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said, “The bill ensures that innocent asylum seekers and refugees are not unfairly denied protection as a result of overly broad terrorism bars that can have the effect of sweeping in those who were actually victimized by terrorists. The bill ensures that those with actual ties to terrorist activities will continue to be denied entry to the United States.”

  Sudan sidestepped Arab Spring because in January 2011 it allowed South Sudan to vote for independence. By then the strife that had started in the late 1950s had cost the lives of two million and displaced another four million in South Sudan. More than 3.8 million votes were cast by the South Sudanese and by expatriates in eight countries. Polling booths were opened in Nebraska and seven other states, and voting was conducted in an atmosphere “electric with excitement,” according to a refugee service provider in Omaha. Adaw and Madut voted to secede from the Khartoum government and explained their votes to their children. “We told them Sudan has a war, and war is what brought us here,” Adaw recalled. “We explain that north and south need to separate and that we pray for peace. Then we tell them they need to focus on America. They have a good life here; they go to good schools. We tell them to make their future in America.”

  Results were announced in February; more than 98 percent had voted to secede. Of the 8,487 South Sudanese who cast their ballots in the United States, Omaha accounted for about 36 percent of the votes. Of 3,076 votes cast in Omaha, 3,054 were for secession. The formal inauguration of South Sudan was set for July. It was born rich, with half of the former Sudan’s oil wealth. But its challenges, as outlined by a congressional report, began with its need as a land-locked state to take its oil to market through pipelines and ports in Sudan. Economic development was hamstrung by minimal infrastructure—roads, airports, telephone and electric services—and by a shortage of skilled labor. Of its population of 10.5 million, 72 percent were under thirty, adult literacy was 27 percent, and more than 51 percent lived below the poverty line. An estimated 38 percent had to walk more than thirty minutes to collect drinking water. Climate change and decreased rainfall threatened agriculture, which employed about 80 percent of the population.

  The hope was that an independent South Sudan would bring about peace, stability, economic development, an end to the refugee diaspora, and repatriation for those who had left. Adaw and Madut prayed that her mother and his brother in South Sudan would be safe at long last.

  Meanwhile, Akoy bonded with Central’s first-year principal, Dr. Keith Bigsby, whose resume included a stint as a basketball coach. They stood side by side in the hallways, Central’s odd power couple. Akoy hung with Bigsby because, well, a guy never knew when a principal would come in handy. Bigsby hung with Akoy because he genuinely liked him and because it raised his “cool” factor with the student body.

  Then, too, Bigsby understood Akoy’s value to Central’s brand, which he feared was at risk. The state had slapped it with a “persistently lowest achieving school” (PLAS) designation because its graduation rate had averaged 74.2 percent from the years 2007–2010, a shade below the 75 percent crossbar set by the state. The designation was more of a bureaucratic technicality than evidence of academic malaise, but Bigsby worried that it undercut the school’s image. He worried about a lot of things: that charter school proponents were out to get Central, that white middle-class kids from the western suburbs would stay away and thus “tip” the school’s delicate socioeconomic balance, and that barbarians—that is, street gangs—were at Central’s gate.

  Bigsby also worried about student behavior, which he believed had spun out of control in recent years. In his first month on the job he gave a talk in the auditorium that was disrupted by an unruly student. Bigsby banished the student to his office, and the next morning Bigsby had the offender make an apology to the entire school over the intercom system. It wasn’t long before Bigsby drafted Akoy as an enforcer.

  “We had a problem on the first floor after lunch when kids came down from the cafeteria,” Bigsby recalled. “Some kids didn’t understand expectations, and some were basketball players. Akoy would come and stand with me. And if somebody got out of hand and Akoy called him out, that was the end of it. In a sense, he became official. He took on a huge role.”

  Bigsby practiced the “seven correlates” of successful schools and promoted the “Eagle Way,” which encompassed lofty attributes of scholarship and citizenship. To lighten the mood he kept up a running gag about pop star Justin Bieber in his morning intercom announcement. To the broader community he proclaimed Central “Champ High” and “the best downtown high school in the country.” Bigsby knew that good PR required a team effort: administrators, faculty, and alumni. Within a year Susie Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation would start the nonprofit Nebraska Loves Public Schools to resist the onslaught of charters. Even students could help with PR, Bigsby realized—particularly naturalized refugees who were personable and poised and delivered state basketball championships as dependably as spring brought young love.

  Going forward, Akoy would be the unofficial face of Central, the de facto “ambassador.” When possible, he would greet officials, VIPs, and alumni. When eighth graders came for Open House, he would lead them through the old wooden hallways so that when it came time to pick a high school, they were star-struck: “Mom, guess who I met at Central today?”

  Akoy began to wrap his mind around the notion that he was a role model. A letter came in the mail from a boy in the middle of the state. Central had played in Kearney, Nebraska (population thirty-two thousand) in February. He read the letter to a teacher, Michelle Synowiecki.

  “Thanks for coming to our town,” Akoy read. “I loved watching you play. Good luck in the future.” A smile lit up his face.

  “Somebody looks up to me,” he said.

  “You know what to do,” Synowiecki replied.

  “Write him back?”

  “Yes.”

  10

  @ZerotheHeroAkoy

  As a new citizen Akoy did what red-blooded American youth did in 2011: he started a Twitter account. After its debut in 2006 with one thousand users, Twitter had eighteen million users by the end of 2009, among them mogul and reality TV host Donald Trump. Arab Spring catapulted Twitter to one hundred million active users by the middle of 2011. No slouch on Facebook, Akoy wasn’t about to fall behind on social media. He agonized over a Twitter handle that would do justice to his persona. Then he remembered a phrase a female admirer had printed on a sign and brought to a basketball game and subsequently had posted in a photo on Facebook. “It said ‘Akoy, Zero the Hero,’” he recalled. “I took it from there.”

  Akoy wore number zero, which rhymed with hero. @ZerotheHeroAkoy was born, with ego aloft and tongue in cheek. “Some people thought it was catchy; a few thought it was cocky,” he recalled.

  Akoy’s debut on Twitter came as high-profile athletes embraced it to connect with fans, dispense opinions, and shill for products and services. Within a year Akoy’s role model, LeBron James, would have 4.2 million followers and rank fourth among pro athletes, behind soccer stars Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo and retired NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal. Hashtags such as Tim Tebow’s #tebowing and Jeremy Lin’s #SiLinsanity would become cultural touchstones.

  Twitter’s appeal—and pitfall—was that it was unfiltered and immediate. Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall tweeted his doubts about the events of 9/11 and sympathized with Osama bin Laden, after which Champion canceled his
endorsement deal. Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson tweeted an insult about his coach, then tweeted a gay slur at a fan, and then was released.

  “Social Networking: Gift or Curse?” was the headline of a Central High Register article in April 2011. Student reporter Shaleigh Karnik wrote, “If it goes on the internet it will stay there forever. Some don’t realize that before they express some feelings and say things they would never say out loud. . . . Saying what is on your mind can lead to the possibility of not getting a job or not getting into the college you want.”

  Within a year the Register would run an editorial critical of the Twitter account @CentralProbs, which served as a dustbin for anonymous snark about the school:

  Although the account was perhaps originally created to get a boom in followers and start a few laughs, much of the content is arguably malicious, crude and could be misinterpreted as a form of cyber-bullying. “Ghetto” could be easily slapped onto a few of the tweets ranging from ones discussing procrastination problems, sleeping in class and waking up with a cockroach on your legs, or the problem you face with multiple “baby mommas” in the same class. . . . Staff members referenced are tied with sexual jokes, very personal life-rumors and accusations that should not be made public. . . . The Twitter account portrays our downtown school as a ghetto, sex-filled and undereducated with illegitimate faculty members type of learning facility, a message that no school would want to be promoted.

  Such was the context of Akoy’s first tweet, a test run, on June 29, 2011: “Checkin out twitter.” The next day his second tweet foreshadowed the barrage to come: “Saw car accident today. Brought back bad memorys! Can’t sleep.”

  Twitter became Akoy’s preferred mode of expression for a while. Over the summer he challenged himself to lay down a thousand tweets. His tweets of July and August are a virtual diary of his summer, the footprints of a hoops prodigy and film buff. As the summer wore on, his tweets evolved a new sensibility, away from faux street dialect to a tamer, mainstream prose, by turns clever, poignant, and mundane.