Celestin rocks his six-month-old baby, who is resting on his left shoulder, while shaking a toy rattle with his right hand. The flat screen television in his two-bedroom apartment in north Bronx is muted, showing a match between Liverpool and Eindhoven, two European soccer clubs.

Celestin used to be a journalist on the sports desk of a Cameroonian newspaper. He is now without status in the United States and labors at a recycling company in Brooklyn.

“The job is killing me. But when you don’t have appropriate papers, you can do nothing,” he says.

Stranded

Celestin, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, is one of more than 650,000 immigrants in New York who are undocumented, according to research by Jeffrey Passel at the Pew Research Center.

Many of them, like Celestin, held skilled professions in their native countries. But in the United States they are often stranded with unskilled jobs and burgeoning responsibilities.

Celestin came to the United States to aid his ailing sister in October 2001.

“With my position as a journalist, it was easy to get a visa,” he says.

But family in Cameroon wanted him to stay in New York and send back money.

So every week he transfers money through Western Union to his mother, sisters, and two daughters. In addition, he supports his family in New York — a wife, son, and three stepchildren.

“Sometimes you have to forget yourself,” he says. “It is hard, but at the same time, it’s like an adventure, where anything can happen, good or bad.”

He wakes up at 4 a.m. to reach his workplace, where he helps pick up paper from around the city on one of the recycling trucks.

Painful separation

Family preferences also forced Sadick to overstay and go out of status after his visit to the United States to take part in a car design competition in 2005.

Sadick, who also requested anonymity, is a mechanical engineering graduate and founder of the Society of Automotive Engineers chapter in Ghana, but worked as a security guard in New York. He is now a member of the United African Congress, and is getting legal representation for his case.

“I want to contribute to both societies,” he says. “Here, I represent the African youth in the [United States]. Back home, I laid the foundation to get the automotive industry in college.”

Similarly, through their community work, other immigrants, like D., who also agreed to be interviewed on the condition of remaining anonymous, have become local leaders fighting for immigration reform, in spite of their own undocumented status.

“I have a son and a daughter, 12 years and 10 years old,” says D., a member of a nonprofit organization that offers services to African immigrants in his neighborhood. “They are living in [Africa], with my mom. I don’t get to see them at all.”

After his visa expired in 2000, D. acquired a taxpayer identification number and opened a store selling traditional African dresses. “My tax I.D. is doing everything for me,” says D. He had to shut his store down in 2006 after being attacked and robbed. He wishes to open a shop again, but can’t get credit without legal papers. Ten percent of the approximate 3,000 Africa-origin individuals living in the local Bronx community are undocumented, estimates Imam Mousa at Masjid Denuye, a mosque that serves the needs of this neighborhood’s Muslims.

Much of this community remains invisible to the city, says Sidique Wai, president of the United African Congress and community relations specialist at the New York Police Department.

“We don’t sell papers. Our issues are very serious, but only we are affected by them,” he says. “The community becomes expendable. We want to build meaningful relationships to get a seat at the decision making table.”

Without the plea of family reunification, however, undocumented single Africans have it even harder.

“You see African faces on the D train in the Bronx and you don’t see happiness,” says D. “They can’t go back to visit their families back home. And they don’t have status.”
   
The blessing of work

Celestin prefers to not seek asylum.

“As a writer, it is better to go to your country from time to time to get a feel of the spirit,” he says.

Cameroon has been under President Paul Biya’s quasi-dictatorship since 1982. Celestin recalls that Mongo Beti, the Cameroonian writer who returned to his homeland in 1991, was distanced from his community after his 32-year self-imposed exile.

“He was disconnected,” he says. “I don’t want to be like him.”

But he knows he is in a bind. He cannot afford legal representation to obtain status, and Cameroon does not offer dual citizenship. According to the U.S. State Department website, 3,659 Cameroonians have registered for the Green Card Lottery, for a chance to enter the United States in fiscal year 2009 with permanent residency.

He hopes his work will help.

“Journalism allows doors to be opened; it is the beginning of a journey,” remarks Celestin.

He writes poems on an online French poetry portal and recently published a book of poems. Celestin is also working on a novel about Cameroonian politics.

“People don’t respect their roots enough,” he says, adding that he still writes for some Cameroonian newspapers. He has a strong interest in U.S. and African politics, and is a supporter of Barack Obama. The president has vouched to make immigration a top priority and work on legalizing the 12 million undocumented residents in the United States.

Wai, who tries to bridge the gap between the African community and the city, feels it is important for the community to be accepted as part of society.

“Don’t forget us,” summarizes Wai. “We are all in this country now, in this strange land we all call home.”

In The Fray Contributor