'Lost Boys' celebrate success

By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret Morning News
Published: Friday, Sept. 17, 2004 10:44 p.m. MDT
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Their stories are still hard to fathom: the trek across hostile terrain, the young boys who died en route, the refugee years spent without parents. But many of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan who have resettled in the Salt Lake area are finding their way now — and are attending college in record numbers.

The Salt Lake area has the largest population of Lost Boys enrolled in higher education in the United States, says Abraham Gai, president of the Sudanese Student Association of Salt Lake Community College. Currently there are about 90 Lost Boys, and a few Lost Girls, attending local colleges and universities, he says.

The association is presenting "Lost Boys Overcoming Trauma: Reflections on and Celebration of Success in the USA" this evening at the Salt Lake Community College Student Event Center, 4600 S. Redwood Road.

It's success tempered by an ongoing struggle, say the speakers slated to take part in the event.

The Lost Boys are "very, very resilient," says Amadou Niang, a University of Utah Ph.D. candidate from Mali who is researching the integration of Sudanese refugees into Salt Lake society. "A lot of them are making it. But that should not overshadow the fact that many are also struggling," says Niang.

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Although they have achieved a level of fame — they are arguably the most publicized of Utah's immigrant groups — some of the young men he interviewed report having trouble getting jobs at their skill level, Niang says. And some say they have been the object of racial profiling, even if they "didn't have the right term to name it," he adds.

Successful integration is most difficult at the high school level, he says, where Sudanese students — and black African students in general — are the object of curiosity at first but then are often ignored.

"By the same token they are not accepted by the African-Americans at the high school level particularly. The only ones they can identify with are the African-Americans, but there is a sense of being rejected, a sense of unwelcoming."

African students generally live in apartment complexes inhabited mostly by minorities, he adds, so "the chance for them to be in an environment that is white is not very high." The result is a feeling of isolation, he says.

On the other hand, because most of the Sudanese are Christian, "it makes the transition easier" than for groups like Somali refugees, who are largely Muslim, Niang says. "The ones who go to the LDS Church or the Catholic Church have a better chance of developing a social network."

The Lost Boys who get at least a high school education do the best but, in California at least, they often don't get the chance because they need to work to survive, says Lako Tongun, who escaped Sudan in the early 1960s and now teaches at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. Tongun will deliver the keynote address at this evening's event.

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Abraham Gai leads the Sudanese Student Association of Salt Lake Community College. (Laura Seitz, Deseret Morning News)
Laura Seitz, Deseret Morning News
Abraham Gai leads the Sudanese Student Association of Salt Lake Community College.