Student Excels After Overcoming Hardships
Richard McKinley
Posted on: 6/11/09 Section: Lancer Life
"Dear James Nganga it is with great pleasure we that we inform you…" was all that James had to read in his acceptance letter to UC Berkeley. Standing at 5'7 with dark earth tone Nganga looks like the average youth enslaved by the hip-hop culture.
Yet James Kamau Nganga is different. Although his accent has faded and his ignorance of American culture has dissolved, he is an immigrant born December 3, 1984 in Nakuru, Kenya. Immigrating to America just after the Rodney King Riots in 1993 when he was just eight-years-old, his father had nothing but the best in mind for his family when they arrived.
Nganga's father, David Kamau, was a professional boxer. Fighting all over the world, David was the IBC, NABO, and NABF champion and was ranked number one in California for three years straight.
"My father was a boxer. He was street smart, he wasn't book smart, so he wanted us to get an American education," Nganga said. Fearing the gang life for his son, his father enrolled him into Christ the King Catholic school on Melrose.
"I couldn't speak English very well, what I learned I learned from T.V. and books. Honestly, I never played like the other kids. When I got out of school I went to the library. Books were my toys," said Nganga.
Growing up in a Catholic school and being one of only three African American children attending there, Nganga got straight A's. Although he could not speak English very well, he could read and understand it quite efficiently.
From elementary he went on to middle school and then L.A. Marshall High picking up lingo and watching his accent fade, Nganga was beginning to fit in.
"I was the first in my family to graduate high school in 2003." Nganga's mother, Esther Nganga, was a housekeeper in Kenya and she and her husband never went beyond an eighth grade education.
"It wasn't until we came to America that she went back to school and became a nurse," said Nganga.
Graduating with a scholarship from Careers through Culinary Arts Program himself, Nganga attended Trade Tech to become a chef. But Nganga never finished. When he graduated from high school, his mother and father decided to get a divorce.
Yet James Kamau Nganga is different. Although his accent has faded and his ignorance of American culture has dissolved, he is an immigrant born December 3, 1984 in Nakuru, Kenya. Immigrating to America just after the Rodney King Riots in 1993 when he was just eight-years-old, his father had nothing but the best in mind for his family when they arrived.
Nganga's father, David Kamau, was a professional boxer. Fighting all over the world, David was the IBC, NABO, and NABF champion and was ranked number one in California for three years straight.
"My father was a boxer. He was street smart, he wasn't book smart, so he wanted us to get an American education," Nganga said. Fearing the gang life for his son, his father enrolled him into Christ the King Catholic school on Melrose.
"I couldn't speak English very well, what I learned I learned from T.V. and books. Honestly, I never played like the other kids. When I got out of school I went to the library. Books were my toys," said Nganga.
Growing up in a Catholic school and being one of only three African American children attending there, Nganga got straight A's. Although he could not speak English very well, he could read and understand it quite efficiently.
From elementary he went on to middle school and then L.A. Marshall High picking up lingo and watching his accent fade, Nganga was beginning to fit in.
"I was the first in my family to graduate high school in 2003." Nganga's mother, Esther Nganga, was a housekeeper in Kenya and she and her husband never went beyond an eighth grade education.
"It wasn't until we came to America that she went back to school and became a nurse," said Nganga.
Graduating with a scholarship from Careers through Culinary Arts Program himself, Nganga attended Trade Tech to become a chef. But Nganga never finished. When he graduated from high school, his mother and father decided to get a divorce.
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