We first became aware of Mohamed Rage, the chief Somali community organizer in Nebraska, during the Grand Island Swift Meatpacking plant prayer dispute last September. My first post on Rage, the head of the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization was on September 19th here. His threatening (a lawsuit) comments are recorded here on September 22nd. Check those out and then come back and continue reading!
Yesterday I came across this fluffy puffy AP article on Rage. How did Rage get to Nebraska?
For the Somali native, who has become the voice of Nebraska’s growing Somali population, that decision eight years ago came down to chance.
“I tossed a coin. Nebraska won,” he said.
Undeterred by the challenge of starting again in a new place, today he works to help others do the same.
It’s been five years since Rage created a nonprofit group in Omaha aimed at promoting and protecting the interests of the Somali population across the state. He estimates their number at around 5,000 — most of them here for meatpacking jobs.
The Omaha Somali-American Community Organization has gotten by with the rare donation and the help of its volunteer board. But the work of confronting problems such as language barriers and a new culture falls mostly to Rage, the group’s chairman.
It’s been a busy 2008 for Rage. Most notable was his involvement in a dispute over prayer time for Somali Muslims at a Grand Island meatpacking plant. There were mass job walkouts and firings.
At a time when Somali refugees are working toward stability and self-sufficiency, Nebraska is at a crossroads in determining whether it is open to outsiders, Rage said.
Sure I believe that! He just tossed a coin and ended up in Nebraska organizing Somalis to protest for prayer breaks at meatpacking plants! Notice he also happened to run across CAIR (see suing the mayor of Grand Island, NE, here) along the way too.
How many of you have ever set up a non-profit? It is not easy. Someone (who?) told Rage to pick a place and then they helped him set up a community organizing outfit, that’s my guess.
Then check this out, he came to the US on a student visa 28 years ago and never left! So, did he just stay? What is his immigration status now? Illegal alien? Notice the AP reporter never goes there to explain further.
Rage left Somalia in 1980 and came to the United States on a student visa. He guesses he was about 18 years old …
He must have eventually become an illegal while in Maryland (our home state). So, do our Maryland state refugee folks know Rage?
He settled first in Maryland because he knew other Somalis there.
Was his student visa for a college in Maryland? And, if he went to college for 4 years then what was he doing from 1984 until the year 2000 when he got this idea to go west? Or, did it take him 20 years to get his Strayer degree? Sure I believe this too:
In 2000, armed with a business degree from Strayer University, he headed west, searching for a lower cost of living and dreaming of returning to school for an advanced degree. He had narrowed his options to Utah and Nebraska.
Then came the coin toss.
In Omaha, home was a motel.
So he then just got the idea to start a non-profit community organizing group to help place Somali religious demands on the likes of Swift and Co., selflessly giving up his own dreams.
Through all this, he hasn’t lost sight of his own plans, which include becoming a U.S. citizen and going to graduate school.
I don’t know, if you overstay your student visa can you eventually be a US citizen? Humm! Just wondering.