It's a funny story: prior to my parents divorcing, Yemi was my name. Like at home, at school… I didn't know my name was William. Wasn't told to me, my mom just happened to slide it into the birth certificate, but it was not used. So when they divorced, my mother says, “Your name's William.” So from like seven on, I start using William because she tells me to, but prior to that I had only used Yemi.
Young Jawando, around the time his name was changed from Yemi to William.
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It was different. It was tale of two cities, which Montgomery County often is. You know, so early on, second and third grade, I go to a mostly all white school, in Chevy Chase, our Lady of Lourdes. My mom was Catholic, she– they--scraped every penny together to send me to Catholic school. And you know, that was a tough experience for me because it was very different from my neighborhood. All the kids were very wealthy, we were not. I was the only black or brown student in my class. And so I experienced a lot of discrimination, both from the teachers and from the students. And so that was a tough period.
Then starting in fourth grade, I moved to the public school in the neighborhood, with all the kids that I grew up in the neighborhood with, and different set of problems– like not being friends with everybody for years before and getting bullied and trying to fit in. Dealing with being biracial and that. Dealing with being– with having an African name. Right. You know, because one of the things that's another part of the immigration story– and we're not immune here–is that often the pressure to assimilate is immense, whether it's language, name, culture.. and so while some of the first generation of immigrants themselves or with their children, there's always that tension of-- particularly my sense of being an African immigrant, but I'm sure it's probably somewhat true for other immigrants too--it's like you, you don't want to be that. There's a pressure not to be that.