Asylum: A Memoir & Manifesto by Edafe Okporo

Author:Edafe Okporo [Okporo, Edafe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

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If the internet was one of the first tools I had in glimpsing the life I wanted in America, it was also one that helped get me on my feet once here. After the gala, at the public library, I connected with a friend, Cristina, through Facebook. Cristina came to Nigeria in 2016 from John Hopkins University to do her PhD dissertation on stigma and its effect on HIV rates among gay men. While she was in Nigeria we bonded, I introduced her around, to help her connect with potential research participants in Abuja, and through this we became friends.

When I chatted with her on Facebook, she told me she had moved from Baltimore to Queens and was working with the department of health. No question asked, she offered me to stay with her rent-free for three months—so long as I wasn’t allergic to dogs.

As I packed up what little I had, I said farewell to Ariside and gave him my phone number.

“Let’s stay in touch,” I offered. I needed a friend here, and so did he. I took the New Jersey PATH train into Manhattan, which deposited me into the belly of Times Square.

My first time in New York City was only in the belly of the Times Square subway station. People buzzed around, trying to make connections in its rusty tunnels, the scent of rodents and sweat wafting about me. I felt breathless to be around so many people in such a tight space. I finally found the 7 train and rode it toward Queens. Cristina was waiting for me at the station to guide me to her apartment, where she had arranged for a blow-up mattress, internet, and occasionally free leftover food from her fridge. What I thought might be a temporary arrangement would last for three months. It’s no exaggeration to say she saved my life.

Now to get things off the ground.

I searched on the internet and found a resettlement agency in New York, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) located in Midtown Manhattan. The next morning, I took the 7 train from my friend Cristina’s place in Sunnyside, Queens, back to Times Square. I was wearing khaki shorts and a too-big winter coat I had gotten at the YMCA, which swallowed me up because I was skinny from months in the detention center.

The agency appointed me a case manager, Jessica, a blond, blue-eyed, tall lady. She registered me in the system, explained the benefits program, which offered me two hundred dollars for two months to pay for things like transportation. My first task was to get a job. If I got a job by the end of the second month and kept it for three months, with proof of my pay stubs, I would be given another two hundred dollars. Jessica handed me over to the employment officer, who was tasked with prepping my résumé and helping me find a job. But the jobs the officer showed me were all entry-level service gigs: washing dishes in kitchens, cleaning beds in hotels, arranging stuff in warehouses.

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