[excerpted]
(metrotimes.com) “For many Detroiters, the most common images of African immigrants here are the dark-skinned men selling shea butter and oils during street festivals in Hart Plaza and women braiding hair in salons throughout the city. But many Africans who arrive in Detroit are here for school or are already professionals, and they find a prosperous niche within the economically challenged city.
Dr. Salewa Ola, 47, a Nigerian who founded the Detroit-based United African Community Organization (UACO), says Detroiters need to realize that most African immigrants who arrive in the United States are not just rank-and-file citizens back home. Having migrated to Michigan to study medicine on a scholarship, Ola knows first-hand how competitive it is for African-born students to win the opportunity of studying in the United States.
“Detroit people need to realize that when they see Africans here in the city, they are seeing the absolute best African men and women from our individual countries  we are not just average,” he says. “For us to even be here, we have to be the brightest and the best just to come.” (continue reading “The new African-Americans“)
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