Mawi II: Feeling Invisible in America

However, when Mawi he arrived in Wheaton, Ill. as a six-years-old refugee, he felt invisible in the American society.

“Imagine everybody around you excited to see each other, but you were not part of it? That’s how I felt when I came to this country,” said Mawi. One of the greatest moments in his life was when out of the 30 kids in his class; one invited him to his birthday party. “That’s the greatest thing I experienced: people who had unconditional love for me no matter how I looked.”

He encourages kids to reach out to those who may look different from them, who may have a different accent or smell differently because of the food they eat.

Thirteen-year-old Jernome Smith plans to follow Mawi’s advice.

“I learned that we shouldn’t mistreat people of other cultures because of how they talk,” said Smith, who is a 7th grader at Chute Middle School in Evanston. “We should open doors of our lifetime to meet new people and their culture.”