Her journey home has been a long one. It began in Somalia with her parents and six siblings. She does not have many memories of that early life, but remembers life was good until civil war broke out when she was three years old. Her parents fled with their family to a refugee camp in Kenya where she lived the next two years. Life in the camp was hard, but her parents knew the eventual move to the United States of America, the land of dreams, would be their salvation.
Anisa Hagi-Mohamed’s family first landed in Tennessee and then moved to Fresno, California. In Fresno, Anisa was enrolled in first grade.
School overwhelmed her. There were too many stimuli. She didn’t know the language; she felt lost. Unable to communicate how she felt, she was still determined to find her way.
Six months after she started school, she began to pick up English and read more. One day during quiet time, she was inspired to read to the class. She stood up with her book “The Ugly Duckling” and read aloud. Everyone was shocked because she was the quiet girl who had just come from Africa.
When she looks back, she realizes that moment became her motivation to become a teacher and help others like her.
She worked her way through elementary, middle and high school in Fresno. She went on to obtain an associate degree in liberal studies and transferred to San Diego State University where she earned her bachelor’s degree in linguistics.
Anisa began teaching adult classes. Two years later, she moved to St. Cloud, Minnesota with her husband. Feeling like her education was incomplete, she attended St. Cloud State University where she completed her master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).
While working on her master’s ethnographic thesis research ( a systematic study of people and cultures), Anisa had an epiphany. She interviewed 10 participants asking questions about their home, language, identity and other topics. One participant told her that the two-hour interview with her had been very therapeutic. The statement struck Anisa. Asking for clarification, she was told by the participant there was not a place, platform or time to talk about her own journey, story, identity or conflicts. It was Anisa’s biggest takeaway from her research.
Wanting to help other diasporas (people settled far from their ancestral homeland), like herself, she created and wrote the book “My Diasporic Diary” which is a reflective writing journal with the same topics and questions that she used for her thesis — giving a place for others to share and write their own stories. It is a book she wished she’d had as a child.
Today, as an EL (English Language) teacher at Madison Elementary School, she tells her “Ugly Duckling” story to her own students.
Now, Anisa walks into her classrooms every day with the knowledge that she will impact the lives of fourth and fifth-grade students.
One of her newcomer Spanish-speaking students is one of those students. She is from Honduras and just learning the foundations of English.
Anisa smiles when she thinks of her student. The two use Google translate a lot to communicate with each other.
Anisa shares one of her favorite stories. “One day, she says to me in Spanish, ‘Teacher, I need to tell you something.'”
“She takes my laptop and tells me that she will write it down. It took her some time to put the message together. What she wrote, I’ll never forget.” I love you, teacher. You’re so pretty. I want to learn so much from you and I want to learn English just like my cousin in college.
“I think to myself, ‘What an inspiration. She has such a long journey ahead of her, but she is so motivated.'”
“It’s students like her that make me think it’s like a family [here]. I feel like I entered a big family. Everyone is so supportive. I love the kids. It’s a diverse school and I feel really at home here.”
I AM a mentor. I AM an author. I AM 742.
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