♪ KEVIN DUTREMBLE: Took me like ten minutes, just sitting in my car outside of the apartment, but nothing could have prepared me for what was waiting inside.

♪ U-MELENI MHLABA-ADEBO: At night, we would sleep in concentration camps.

I was told it was to keep us safe.

♪ We took road trips in that green station wagon, and we saw how America was made.

♪ THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Suitcase Stories."

♪ I, myself, am not an immigrant, but I am the child of two immigrants.

Both of my parents moved to the United States to pursue a college education.

"Suitcase Stories" is about the stories and the experiences of refugees and immigrants.

I encourage you to try and find little pieces of yourself within their stories.

♪ OKOKON: U-Meleni, it's great to meet you.

Can you tell me just a little bit about yourself?

MHLABA-ADEBO: So, I'm a poet, I am also an educator, I'm a marathoner, I'm a mom.

Was it difficult for you shifting gears from poetry to storytelling?

So, shifting gears from poetry to storytelling was very interesting for me, because I live, primarily, in the poetry world, like, everything-- when I move around the world, I just see poems all over the place.

So I really had to stretch as a writer to really fill in the gaps and in the spaces that I didn't have to do as a poet.

So I was trying to figure out, how do I do that in a story format?

How do I weave the story with the beautiful imagery, but with the specific details that people are listening for.

That's great.

And tonight's theme is "Suitcase Stories"-- they're stories of refugee and immigrant experiences.

What's the message that you want to send?

The message I want to send, as it relates to, sort of, the African experience in America, is that we have many stories.

You know, to quote Chimamanda Adichie, is that there are many dimensions and there are many different interpretations and realities of what being African is, and in particular being an African woman.

There are so many things that we need to see.

And we need storytelling, we need music, we need different avenues to show those stories, to make them visible.

Otherwise, you have one narrative of what an African woman should look like.

♪ MHLABA-ADEBO: My mother has a green thumb.

Perhaps it's because she grew up on a farm in Chipinge, in Zimbabwe.

Or perhaps she just has this gift of giving life to everything that she touches.

When we go on long drives in Murambi, in Zimbabwe, always in the back of her car is a little shovel and a small box.

And anytime we drive and she sees a small plant or a flower, she will stop the car and go out like a ballerina, and with the gentle, surgeon's precision, lift that beautiful plant or flower and take it back home.

She tasked me with watering the flowers.

Not too much water, not too little, but always with love.

She tells me that plants have feelings, and flowers, too.

And I can tell from the sprawling paradise of her home that they love her right back.

They are the lucky ones.

I, too, am lucky.

Like them, I grew in the seed that was my mother's body.

I'm told that my mother was a few days overdue when she had me.

Apparently, there were still some things I needed to do.

So, my father said, in his native tongue, he's Ndebele, "What are we waiting for?

U-Meleni."

And thus, I have my given name.

And so my life-long mission has been to figure out how to answer that much loaded question.

I was born in a small village in a small town called Leominster, Massachusetts.

(laughter) I don't know much about it at all.

All the things that I'm told are apparently I was really obsessed with "Sesame Street," my first words were, "Juice, Mommy, juice," and I've seen pictures of myself in a pink snowsuit.

I was four years old when we moved back to Rhodesia.

Right in time to be on the frontlines of a revolution.

I was too young to know, but young enough to feel the fear.

The fear of gunshots in the night, the sound of gum boots and soldiers running through my grandmother's farm.

And at night, we would sleep in concentration camps.

I was told it was to keep us safe.

But, we gained independence in 1980, and I grew in the new Zimbabwe, post-independence.

I was lucky enough to go to private schools, and I loved school, particularly English, and drama, and music.

And my teachers nourished that creative longing in my soul.

And I also went to school in South Africa, and it was there I have one of my fondest memories of my high school teacher who coerced me into singing at a school variety show.

I admit, I was a little nervous.

I used to sing with a choir, in the safety of the cocoon of the choir, but this time, she wanted me to do a solo.

So I thought about, what would I sing?

And Tracy Chapman songs came in my mind.

So I wanted to sing "Last Night."

Oh, I remember that moment when I sang it on stage.

Everyone was quiet.

And in that moment, oh, my goodness, a star was born in my mind!

And I remember dreaming of Mariah Carey songs and En Vogue, and I'd be on stage, and people would be screaming.

And my brother, he'd be there, I'd bind his restless legs and he would listen to my genius.

I had really grand visions then.

But isn't that what good teachers are supposed to inspire?

You see, I was the seed.

School was my soil, and my teachers, they were the water.

But the thing is, the arts weren't really... the arts weren't really a thing then.

I needed to concentrate on more important things like math and physics and think about what I would do and be in the future.

But I wanted something different.

I wondered what would happen if I went into a new place, new soil.

What kind of flower would I bloom?

So I decided that I would do something different.

I decided to come back to America on my own.

I remember that long flight.

I remember it like yesterday.

I remember that time because I wasn't talking to my mom, although I did manage to coerce her to braid my hair in cornrows because I wanted to make doubly sure that people knew that I was African when I landed.

Yes, I did.

I remember the biting cold.

It was so cold, right down to my bones.

And my biological father picked me up that day, and I remember, as we were driving to Newton, he was telling me all the things I would expect in college, but all I could think of is, "I miss the sun."

I miss the sun!

I missed the sun like the soil must miss the rain, I miss the echo of my language.

I even missed my baby brother.

And he would unravel my cassette tapes.

I even missed that.

But this was new soil.

This was a new place for me to be.

You see, I wanted to carve out my own destiny.

You see, most people immigrate because they're running away from something, and in my case, I was running away from the oppressive regime that was my parents.

(laughter) They were stern, and strong, and brilliant, but I wanted to be somewhere different.

So I came to Boston and this became my new soil, my new land, where I could just be.

But I have to admit, that when I was in college, I was really annoyed at a couple of things.

First is, people would always question what kind of African I was.

Why did I speak English so well?

Who taught it to me?

Did I have a pet lion?

Things like that.

(laughter) And then they'd also want to touch my hair without permission, change my name to suit their palate.

I really didn't appreciate that, but, honestly, there were other times I really enjoyed myself.

I took part in jazz band, I learned a lot about music, and interestingly enough, it is only in America, when I came back, I was able to reclaim my name.

You see, no one in my family calls me U-Meleni.

My parents all call me Melanie or Mel or different variations, depending on their mood.

And it is only when I came to America, and I started performing, that I realized I need a stage name.

So I started thinking of all these interesting names, and then I took a step back and realized, wait a minute-- I have an interesting name.

U-Meleni.

"What are we waiting for?"

It's funny that it took me coming back to America to reclaim my name, but it makes sense, because this was my beginning, right?

This is the place of my birth.

You see, in Boston, I've been able to live out the dreams I had as a kid, the dreams of being a writer, of performing on stages.

And, yes, I didn't quite get to the whole Mariah Carey status or En Vogue but I've had the privilege and pleasure of performing on many stages, and being warmly loved and received and acknowledged as an artist, here in Boston, in this soil.

You see, the seeds were planted in Africa, but the flower bloomed and continues to bloom here in Boston.

Boston has been the place of many firsts.

My first love, I met him here, I married him.

My child was born here.

My first job, so many things.

You see, I am a seed.

I am an immigrant.

I am Zimbabwean, I am American.

We are all seeds, aren't we?

Seeds that scatter, seeds that fall, seeds that are yearning to bloom, to grow, to evolve.

My mother tells me that plants have feelings, and flowers, too.

And that really, we are all seeds, just yearning to grow.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ DUTREMBLE: I'm a Massachusetts native, I went to school in Boston, and then I worked in medical devices for a while.

Then I went to the military.

OKOKON: So I understand that right now, you work as a case management specialist with the International Institute of New England?

Correct.

So, I initially got interested in working with refugees because I actually was really interested in international conflict.

And, ultimately, I decided I wanted to work with and help people who are displaced or at-risk because of those conflicts.

Is this your first time telling a story on stage?

Yes.

OKOKON: Whoa.

(laughing): I have no experience at all.

What have you learned about yourself in this experience?

It's actually been a really valuable exercise in reflecting.

And, you know, not everyone has the opportunity to be a case manager with refugees.

Not everyone has the opportunity to even meet a refugee.

So if I can share some of that experience or knowledge about it, I think that's-that's a service that I need to provide.

♪ In 2016, 2,399 refugees were resettled in Massachusetts.

I resettled 75 of them, specifically single males.

Now, in Boston, because of the cost of housing, we only take single males, because they have to be employable and they have to have roommates.

So if you take that number, that means on average, we're looking at a new two-bedroom apartment every two-and-a-half weeks, in Boston.

It has to be accessible and affordable.

On top of that, the landlords have to agree to take clients they have never met, who don't have social security cards, or credit histories, or savings, or any employment yet.

So, it's almost a constant effort just to look for housing before they even arrive.

So with housing, logistics is just part of it.

The other part is figuring out who is going to live with who.

So I actually developed a big spreadsheet of where all of our people live and information about them.

So where they're from, what languages they speak, what's their religion, dietary restrictions.

Just so that when someone arrives, they can be comfortable and have the best chances at success in the beginning stages of their life in America.

So it's August 2016.

We just got through a crazy month scrambling for apartments, and I'm looking to see who is coming next.

I've got three arrivals over the next three weeks, and I check my list, and I've actually got three spots, so that's great.

Then I start to look and see who they are.

I quickly realize that, in this apartment, two bedrooms, I'm going to have four men from different countries-- different languages, different cultures, different religions, different educations, different backgrounds, different jobs.

Nothing in common on this sheet.

As a case manager, this makes me a little bit nervous, because I've had apartments with six guys from the same country, even the same village, and they can't live together, just because of personalities.

But it's all we have, and we're going to make it work.

So I'll tell you a little bit about the four guys.

The one who is already there is from Ethiopia, and he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

Always had a positive attitude.

Even coming home from working all night in a refrigerated packing facility, he was in a good mood.

The next to arrive was a client from Afghanistan.

He showed up with this camouflage baseball cap, and a tactical wristwatch, and his English was great.

I found out that it's because he worked as an interpreter with U.S. Army Special Forces for three years in Afghanistan.

He was actually wounded in combat three times during that time period.

Awesome guy.

The next to arrive was a 20-year-old kid from Iraq.

And is not what you'd think.

He showed up with Chuck Taylors and skinny jeans and a t-shirt with skulls on it, and like a leather wristband with metal studs on it.

Not what you'd expect.

And all he was concerned about was music, he was... and he listened to everything, from Mariah Carey to Metallica.

And he was just a good kid.

Finally, there was an older gentleman from Somalia.

Very well-dressed, very dapper.

Zero English.

And when Somali didn't work, he tried to speak to me in Italian, which also didn't really work.

So these four guys are sharing a small two-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts.

Now that everyone's there, we do a home visit, and we basically have a house meeting with all the roommates, and we lay the ground rules, we talk about respecting each other's space, and other things where people who haven't lived with other adults from other cultures, you have to do this just to make it work.

So the morning I'm going to do this home visit, I'm just expecting it to be very difficult.

A lot of things lost in translation, a lot of different personalities, a lot of expectation management.

And I'm dreading it.

Took me like ten minutes, just sitting in my car outside of the apartment, just giving myself a pep talk.

And I go in, but nothing-- in all of the cases and all of the clients and all of the apartments-- could have prepared me for what was waiting inside.

Everything's clean, everything's organized, it was cleaner than the way I left it before they arrived.

And everyone was in a good mood.

And they had just finished breakfast, and they had already done the dishes.

They're sharing tea.

Even on the fridge, there's a chart with the chores for the week in four different languages and scripts.

(laughter) And they had done all of this before I even sat them all down together.

And I was amazed, and it was awesome, and I felt a little foolish for expecting the worst and literally getting the best.

And this wasn't a fluke, it wasn't a honeymoon, and they kept this atmosphere, like a family, the entire time they lived together.

They would study together, they'd take the train together, they helped each other make bank accounts.

But it wasn't perfect.

There was one day, about two months after that first visit.

I'm visiting new arrival in the apartment next door.

And as I'm going in, their apartment has the door open, and I hear a commotion inside.

I go through the open door and I see the four roommates, and then a bunch of other people-- neighbors, friends supposedly interpreting.

No idea what's going on, but it's an argument.

They don't even notice me come in.

I try to get them to calm down, and through the open door behind me comes the landlord.

And I think, "This is the last thing I need.

I'm going to lose this landlord and these apartments."

But before I can say anything, the landlord takes control of the room and tells everyone to be quiet and sit down.

And mind you, he's about this tall, he's 70 years old and he's from Cambodia, and he, himself, left a conflict in his own country.

He sat them down, and he said, "We've all seen enough conflict.

"We don't need this.

"We need to respect each other, we need to support each other.

We need to love each other, we need to be brothers."

And they got it.

Regardless of what language they spoke, they got it.

And it was done.

They made up, they made tea, and they carried on.

I later found out they were arguing about what temperature they should keep the apartment.

(laughter) So I realize that all of my expectations were built on data-- who they are, where they're from, what language they speak.

That's not really who they are.

Their core values were much stronger than all of those things.

They were all kind, they were all patient, they were all hard-working, and they all wanted to make the world better in their own way.

In a few weeks, I'll be going back to the military, and I'm going to take my experience here as a case manager working with refugees to remember the human element.

When I make decisions that can affect policy, hopefully make less refugees.

And I think I can do that, as long as I remember to remember the people and not just the data.

(cheers and applause) ♪ TALUSAN: I am an immigrant from the Philippines.

I came here when I was three years old, and so I was really interested in the theme for tonight because it was about immigrant stories.

Why is this an important night for you to tell a story?

Well, the story that I'm going to tell is about the fact that we were undocumented, and even when I think about talking about that in front of an audience, I'm frankly like a little nervous.

It's a story that has something to do with my father, and he'll be in the audience, and so that'll be, you know... it's a little odd, or a little strange to be telling a story with him there.

And... but it's important to me, I'm trying to feel...

I'm trying to get braver, and be in front of people.

♪ My father was the first to arrive in the United States.

His plan was to come here and further his medical education, and then go back to the Philippines so that he could set himself up well.

So, he knew he would be gone for a few years, so he sent for my mother, my older sister, and I.

We always planned to go back to the Philippines, so my mother started collecting gifts to bring back home.

She collected bed sheets and towels, and even toilet paper, because she thought it was just so much softer here than it was back home.

But as happens sometimes, you go someplace and that place changes you.

So my father started to dream, and he started to wonder: what would it be like to stay here?

What would our lives look like?

What would the lives of his children be like?

And so he took a risk, and he took the exam for foreign medical graduates, and he passed.

And all of a sudden, this whole new world and future opened up for him and our family.

He opened his own medical practice, hired a staff, bought a house in the suburbs, and bought his first new car, which was a Chevy Caprice Classic station wagon, turtle green interior and exterior.

(laughter) And his idea is that cars are meant to be pragmatic.

They should get you from A to B, safely.

And so one of the first things we did with that car is we drove to visit his brother and sister in Toronto.

Family is really important in the Philippines, and we didn't have family in Boston, so that was one of the first things we did.

So we all piled into the station wagon, we drove to the Canadian border, and the Border Patrol took one look at our station wagon, which was piled up with suitcases, and our passports, which were just about to expire, and he sent us back.

And he...

I didn't know at that time, but soon after that, we... our status became... we became undocumented.

Our status became-- we had over-stayed our visas.

And my parents hired a lawyer to regulate our papers, but the lawyer didn't help, and took their money, but it took maybe 15 more years until we were able to fix our status.

But I didn't care.

I didn't know any of this stuff.

I was a kid, I was an American, as all my friends were, I rode in that station wagon to school, to my activities, to band practice, to soccer, and I had no clue that this was all going on.

The only difference was that we didn't leave the country.

So if there was ever a school vacation, we didn't find us in the Swiss Alps skiing, or in Cancun swimming in the winter.

We took road trips in that green station wagon.

We drove to Florida, we drove to the Midwest, we went all over the South, and we saw how America was made.

We looked at the monuments and the battlefields, we went to the White House, we saw what America wanted to remember, what they wanted to memorialize.

And we visited all those places in that car.

Now, my parents didn't want to spend money on fast food, so my mother would bring a rice cooker along on our trips, and chicken adobo, and we would have that at the rest stops.

And I would look really jealously at the other families who were unwrapping peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and potato chips, and I just thought that was so exotic.

(laughter) They also didn't like to stop very often, and one time, I saw them switch drivers without ever stopping the car on the highway.

(laughter) My father kept his foot on the gas, and he kind of inched his way over to the passenger side, and my mother held on really tightly to the steering wheel, and like looked straight ahead until she was able to inch the rest of her body over and then put her foot on the gas.

And we all cheered when they did that, it was great.

(laughter) So we visited monuments and battlefields, but my father's favorite thing was to go on a factory tour.

First of all, it was usually free admission, and, secondly, you would walk away with a parting gift.

So we went to the Kellogg's factory, and it smelled so good.

The air smelled like corn syrup, and there were these big, hot vats of cereal, and I just wanted to put my arm in and take some and eat it.

But it was boiling hot, so good thing I didn't do it.

We went to the Chevy assembly plant, which was full of metal and really boring.

And we went to the U.S. Mint, which we watched money get made, and we dreamed of what we could do with all of that money.

The one place I remember is the cigarette factory in Richmond, Virginia.

And we watched all this messy brown tobacco get packed neatly into white cylinders, and then get packed into boxes.

And that day, every single one of my family members walked away with a free parting gift.

I had got my first carton of cigarettes at age nine.

(laughter) So we finally got our documentation regulated, and my father-- this is about 15 years in-- and my father was still driving that green station wagon.

And my mother felt kind of embarrassed, because he was a doctor by now, and he would park in the doctors' parking lot at the hospital amidst all the Audis and Mercedes and BMWs, and he had this ramshackle green station wagon in there.

So, eventually, he decided it was time to let it go.

He thought it had tremendous value, it brought a lot of value to my family, and so he parked it in the front lawn, put a cardboard sign up, and put a price on there.

But, every week, his heart would be broken.

No one wanted it.

So every week he crossed out that number put a lower number on.

Week after week this happened, until eventually, he had to pay somebody $200 to come and tow it away.

(laughter) So that green station wagon did more than just bring us all over the United States, and bring us to school and work, it was the place where we became American, we learned what it was to become American, and we became that in that car.

And it brought us safely from "new immigrant" to "citizen," from "alien" to "belonging," from A to B.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) It was really special for me to have my father in the audience watching, but I just couldn't look at him, because I would have cried.

But it helped me do better.

It actually helped me remember who I was telling the story to.

Which was, you know of course, everybody there, but also to him, so he could see his story performed back and reflected back to him.

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