An African immigrant

[nicho12]

Let me begin by introducing my selfi, I immigrated to the United States at the age of 18 as a freshman in college. What a mistake I made. I went to a small liberal arts college in a small town called Greenville in western Pennsylvania. I came all the way from Uganda in easy Africa thinking that I was going to have the best life in the world, boy was I wrong. I still regret that decision until this day.

One thing that shocked me was the social isolation I noticed in the first two months when I set foot on US soil, so being in a small town, I thought the reason was because I was in a small town, so I transferred to a university of Miami, boy it was even worse in Miami, I realized that the small town had more social interaction than the big cities, so I moved back to my small college town. I was so depressed that I thought about killing myself at one point but thought about my family back home. Then two of my cousins came to America in the following fall semester, they were given 100% scholarships to Stanford university in California, they also regretted their decisions. After college, both my cousins were offered greencards and 90,000 dollars by IBM since they were very good engineers and were very good in assembly language programming( which is very Rare in the IT world because you program in zeros and ones) but they turned down the offer and went back to third world Uganda. Stanford also offered them a free masters program and 3000 a month to become teaching assistants but they refused. Everyone was surprised but I wasn't, they both told me that, what's the point of making a lot of money but then lose your soul, they both gave up the comfortable life to go back to Uganda. One makes 700 dollars a month in Uganda, and the other one got a job offer in South African and makes 2000 dollars a month and they're both infinitely very happy compared to when they were in the USA.

As for me, I graduated in may 2011 with a computer science degree and make 84000 a year but am much unhappier than my friends back in Uganda who make less than 6000 dollars a year. Am still stuck here because am paying off my student loans but thank God am only left with 20000 to pay off and I will be out of this social and man hating hell hole. At 24, I feel lucky that I have the wisdom and experience that most 20 something's don't

I have traveled around the world but I have never been to a country that is so socially disconnected than the USA, before I cam to the USA, I had been to all the 27 member countries of the EU, Russia, Ukraine, Sweden, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Thailand,Philippines, South Africa , Kenya, and Ethiopia. And let me tell you, everyone of these countries have better social lives, dating lives and better women than the USA. Even in the poorest country in the world, people are still intimately happier than Americans.

One thing I noticed about the USA, there's a lot of racial tensions that are caused by the media, I used to think that Russia and the Scandinavian countries would be more racist or prejudice towards people of color, but I was surprised that they're actually more open than the USA. And remember the USA has a black president

Anyways that's my little rant

[Mr.Darcy]

Having dark skin here is social stigma due to our countrie's past and how a lot of blacks in american think it is cool to act like feral apes. I stayed in a hostel last week and all the european tourists were shocked by how savagely the blacks acted here. They were not as familiar with race either, so it was kind of hard explaining to them about the problem. Even the black euros had a problem with them here.

[zboy1]

Can you tell us a little about Uganda, nicho12? I'm interested in visiting Africa and Uganda one of these days...

You are right about the social dysfunction, cliquishness, and genuine unfriendliness of most Americans in general. Also, the race situation is not very good either;

that's why you see so much racial-infighting on this forum: because people need an outlet to vent their racial animus here, free from political correctness.

[nicho12]

Having dark skin here is social stigma due to our countrie's past and how a lot of blacks in american think it is cool to act like feral apes. I stayed in a hostel last week and all the european tourists were shocked by how savagely the blacks acted here. They were not as familiar with race either, so it was kind of hard explaining to them about the problem. Even the black euros had a problem with them here.

Of course we dark skinned people are considered to be the lowest of all human species, that is a cruel fact that can't be denied. The media even makes it worse for us by producing this black gangsta rap, so sometimes I don't blame members of other races for having such prejudices against blacks because of the way we portray ourselves in the media, just go on YouTube and type "Black Woman in McDonalds". You even see 11 year old black girls shaking their asses on camera. if I had the power to do so, I would nuke Hollywood out of existence, they've done a lot of damage to society

[Jester]

Welcome, Nicho.

Stunning to hear of Ugandans disgusted with U.S, A real indictment. I am reminded of Honors Calculus, at age 13 at University of Georgia, when my only competition for "head of the class" was a jet-black FOB Nigerian.

African ability was news to me. But American indolence, sloth, and degeneracy was the real news. I never forgot it.

[Jeremy]

Welcome.

It’s always interesting to get an outsider’s perspective on western culture. Having lived in Canada my whole life, this social isolation you speak of is all I’ve ever known.

You’re definitely not alone. I had a bunch of immigrant friends in university, and they all felt the same way you do. They came here thinking life would be as it's portrayed in Hollywood movies - one big party, where the girls are friendly and easy and everyone's included. Instead, they found it was the complete opposite.

North American girls are the definitely the most looks and status bigoted females on the planet. If you don’t fit that Hollywood mold, they see you as lower than vermin.

[kai1275]

Welcome to HA! That was an interesting story. Hope you like it here on the forums. If you can try to ignore some of the racist bigots there is alot of good information on all of the subforums and any information related to travel and women you can share would be much appreciated as well.

[HouseMD]

Welcome to HA!

It seems you've run into the issue that many immigrants in America seem to- American culture is devoid of substance and connectedness, and they want no part of it. Many Americans complain of enclaves of Chinese, Polish, etc, wondering why they won't just integrate, speak the local language and be like everyone else. The answer is simple, these people grew up with a far more friendly and community-oriented way of life, and if they were to integrate into American culture they'd basically lose the best parts of themselves along the way.

So what is your plan from here?

[RedMenace]

I am sorry but this story seems kind of bs. A lot of people from Africa die trying to make it to Europe or America. Your friend turning down a green card and 90k offered by IBM seems far fetched. Also knowing assembly as an engineer is not rare. It's in fact common. Even I a 19 year old soon to be university student knows assembly and many other languages. Assembly does not use binary except if you wish to store a binary data. Assembly uses mnemonic such as mov, lea, cmp e.t.c to represent commands to the processor. You don't code in 0 and 1 because that is absurd in this day and age. It's more detrimental than it is useful for anything other than a hello world dos. Even that would take months or years to do. Anyhow given the offer you claim your friend was given any African would accept it in a heart beat. Why would anyone not accept it. It's not like you will be chained in America never to leave. You are free to travel and do what you want so who cares if the town you stay at is depressing. Lol in fact most Africans would sell their souls just to get to America or Europe. They literally do to witch doctors as part of some bullsh*t ritual to stop the person from running away without paying the traffickers.

[HouseMD]

I am sorry but this story seems kind of bs. A lot of people from Africa die trying to make it to Europe and America. Your friend turning down a green card and 90k offered by IBM seems far fetched. Also knowing assembly as an engineer is not rare. It's in fact common. Even I a 19 year old soon to be university student know assembly and many other languages. Assembly does not use binary except if you wish to store a binary data. Assembly uses mnemonic such as mov, lea, cmp e.t.c to represent commands to the processor. You don't code in 0 and 1 because that is absurd in this day and age. It's more detrimental than it is useful for anything other than a hello world dos. Even that would take months or years to do. Anyhow given the offer you claim your friend was given any African would accept it in a heart beat. Why would anyone not accept it. It's not like you will be chained in America never to leave. You are free to travel and do what you want so who cares if the town you stay at is depressing. Lol in fact most Africans would sell their souls just to get to America or Europe. They literally do to witch doctors as part of some bullsh*t ritual to stop the person from running away without paying the traffickers.

It really depends on the socioeconomic status of the person in question. If you can make $90,000 a year in the USA or $700 a month in Uganda, where many people live on less than $50 a month and you would be in the higher class of society and not have to deal with the societal barriers present in America to both foreigners and blacks, I'd say it wouldn't be a bad trade. You can buy a residential plot of land in a decent area in Uganda for around $2,000, one one hundredth the cost of land in many places in the USA. Hell, there are probably a few people on this forum that would gladly leave the USA and live in some of the poorer countries in the world off of a monthly income of $700 a month if they could. The people willing to sell their souls to come here are generally in the lowest tiers of society, where obtaining any job at all is virtually impossible. Even a horrible life in America beats living off of $1.25 a day.

[Robert77]

black americans are day and night with actual africans.... I spent some time in Kenya and women are not only feminine, slim, cook, clean, like being wives but also feel horrified at the sight of the ghetto american black bitch from hell!!!

the whole gross obese obnoxious loud black woman thing is as American as apple pie, in Africa you DO NOT meet people like that!!!

Africans are much more talented, entrepreneurial and all across decent than black american folks I'VE SEEN IT WITH MY OWN EYES!

As far as racial tensions, YES.... America has a lot of racial tension and is promoted by the media, I've been to countries with sizable black minorities like France, Colombia, Brazil and they don't have the same racial issues America has.

[Contrarian Expatriate]

I've been saying for years that the USA is the best country in the world for a black man in so far as PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITY and WEALTH ACCUMULATION, but it is the worst for social connectedness and social opportunity. You clearly get that fact.

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

Let me begin by introducing my self, my name is Nicholas Wamaani, I immigrated to the United States at the age of 18 as a freshman in college. What a mistake I made. I went to a small liberal arts college in a small town called Greenville in western Pennsylvania. I came all the way from Uganda in easy Africa thinking that I was going to have the best life in the world, boy was I wrong. I still regret that decision until this day.

One thing that shocked me was the social isolation I noticed in the first two months when I set foot on US soil, so being in a small town, I thought the reason was because I was in a small town, so I transferred to a university of Miami, boy it was even worse in Miami, I realized that the small town had more social interaction than the big cities, so I moved back to my small college town. I was so depressed that I thought about killing myself at one point but thought about my family back home. Then two of my cousins came to America in the following fall semester, they were given 100% scholarships to Stanford university in California, they also regretted their decisions. After college, both my cousins were offered greencards and 90,000 dollars by IBM since they were very good engineers and were very good in assembly language programming( which is very Rare in the IT world because you program in zeros and ones) but they turned down the offer and went back to third world Uganda. Stanford also offered them a free masters program and 3000 a month to become teaching assistants but they refused. Everyone was surprised but I wasn't, they both told me that, what's the point of making a lot of money but then lose your soul, they both gave up the comfortable life to go back to Uganda. One makes 700 dollars a month in Uganda, and the other one got a job offer in South African and makes 2000 dollars a month and they're both infinitely very happy compared to when they were in the USA.

As for me, I graduated in may 2011 with a computer science degree and make 84000 a year but am much unhappier than my friends back in Uganda who make less than 6000 dollars a year. Am still stuck here because am paying off my student loans but thank God am only left with 20000 to pay off and I will be out of this social and man hating hell hole. At 24, I feel lucky that I have the wisdom and experience that most 20 something's don't

I have traveled around the world but I have never been to a country that is so socially disconnected than the USA, before I cam to the USA, I had been to all the 27 member countries of the EU, Russia, Ukraine, Sweden, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Thailand,Philippines, South Africa , Kenya, and Ethiopia. And let me tell you, everyone of these countries have better social lives, dating lives and better women than the USA. Even in the poorest country in the world, people are still intimately happier than Americans.

One thing I noticed about the USA, there's a lot of racial tensions that are caused by the media, I used to think that Russia and the Scandinavian countries would be more racist or prejudice towards people of color, but I was surprised that they're actually more open than the USA. And remember the USA has a black president

Anyways that's my little rant

Hey, Cornfed, although you were very amicable towards me (sounding empathetic actually) when it comes to my temporary homeless situation, please understand that Africans DO FAIR BETTER THAN Black Americans in IQ-aptitude and drive, sir. This is concrete evidence that Africans are not peons nor serfs, and that WASPs actually respect African immigrants better than they respect Black Americans in the business-corporate world. I digress.

To Nicho12 (the OP), all programming languages are based on 0/1 binaries, but assembly language focuses on data manipulation in at the memory address level. I take it you know that and then some already (due to your exceptional meritocracy). Furthermore, you're right; people don't program at such a 1GL language anymore. Everything is 4GL (e.g. VB (Visual Basic 4-6 32-bit), J2EE, PHP) or 5GL (e.g. MATLAB, C#.NET Framework 4.5). Thank you for your outstanding report. We (I hope I can speak for everyone here) here at HA hope that you stay with us regardless of what good and/or bad things come to pass from hereon out in your life. It sounds like we can learn a lot from you.

Where's aozora13 and C.J.? They'd be ecstatic to see this thread. They should chime in.

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

Having dark skin here is social stigma due to our countrie's past and how a lot of blacks in american think it is cool to act like feral apes. I stayed in a hostel last week and all the european tourists were shocked by how savagely the blacks acted here. They were not as familiar with race either, so it was kind of hard explaining to them about the problem. Even the black euros had a problem with them here.

That's f.ucked up. In a recession, across seas sambos are still going ham so! See, this is why I got that "yo yo yo" business from people when I was abroad. I'm glad that Contrarian Expatriate straightened me up "cordially" reminding me that I need to dress as an upstanding ultra-man in suits (even in hot-a.ss weather) My abroad experiences would have been better if I had done that in the first place!!

The stereotype is real, and I was guilty of exacerbating it when I was across seas (by dress, not by actions).

No wonder one is hated or loved across seas: the brother-lover phenomenon is real across seas!

[Renata]

Hi, welcome

A Nigerian friend taught me to cook african food & my favorite dish is joloff rice & there's a cassava pudding that's done into a ball I really like that one too, I think Uganda has similar cuisine, anyway nice to meet you.