Out of Africa: The New Immigrants Part IV

A member of an immigrant group new to Seattle, a Somalian father works to help his compatriots

Abdullahi Jama has been a lawyer, a diplomat, a grocer and a political organizer. Originally from Somalia, he’s now a U.S. resident (after some time spent in Canada). His is the face of an immigrant group almost unknown to the region 10 years ago, but thanks to the war and political instability that has rocked East Africa, countless Somalians have been forced from their ancestral homelands.

A father of six children, Jama says Seattle is now his home, though perhaps not the permanent home of his children. (Although they attended several elementary schools in South Seattle, they are currently spending two years studying in Egypt with his wife, so they can add French and Arabic to their Somali and English.) Graying slightly, with wire-rimmed glasses and a direct gaze, he looks like the law school teacher he was in Africa. 

“I grew up in Mogadishu,” Jama says. “It was great. I was really happy. I used to spend most of my time playing basketball and soccer.” He went to school run by Italians, and soon was multilingual, speaking Somali, Italian, Arabic and English. He became a lawyer, rose through the government ranks, eventually finding himself overseeing international treaties for his government. It was a heady time, with diplomatic trips to New York, Vienna, Geneva. “It was exciting work, it was great work. You were helping human beings,” Jama recalls. “You had personal fulfillment.”

But political conditions, especially regarding human rights, began to deteriorate in Somalia by 1988, he says, and life began to grow more precarious. “At the time, I was teaching law school, and the government didn’t like my opinions…I was disillusioned and desperate. The government was killing civilians.”

And so Jama found himself immigrating to Canada, along with his first wife. “I began in Toronto,” he says. He liked the country, its cosmopolitan cities, its diverse population. Eventually, he moved to Vancouver. After a divorce, he met his current wife, a Seattle resident. They tussled over which city to live in. “Finally I gave up and came here,” he says. He and his family put down roots in the growing East African community here, and he felt life was progressing nicely. “America is a great nation of diversity that respects the rule of law,” he says.

Then came a seminal event in his life, one that changed its direction yet again: In 2004, a cab-driver friend in Seattle was murdered, Jama says. “He was a community leader, a father of three, a Seattle Public Schools aide. He was a mentor, helping children in the Somali community. He was a true hero in my community."