Because @AbuBility and @LBility make @akbar_offishio Possible. Ubuntu, All The Way

In 2008, because I signed up for a course on Oral History Methodologies in a Ph.D program, I met Abu and Lossine Bility. They were in advanced ESL classes and, to be honest, they changed my life: they made me a better man, they introduced me to global realities, they shared their life stories, and they became central to my world.

Fast forward to 2017 - a graduate course on teaching writing, where the last chapters of our academic reading were centered on English Language Learners. Tonight, I presented the posters graduate students and I created 10 years ago, when we interviewed relocated youth and used their stories to create visual narratives that could be used to teach others about global literacies and colonial stories.

This year, too, I've asked juniors and seniors in high school - kids who immigrated and relocated to the United States, to co-teach with me in my graduate courses. They, as experts of their own lives, are instructors for pre-service teachers entering the field.

Many of the kids who co-teach with me are youth who have attended Young Adult Literacy Labs, including Ubuntu Academy. For the first three years, Abu and Lossine were central to making our literacy initiatives - the Young Adult Literacy Labs - possible. They were teachers. They were role models. They were college achieving students. They are a demonstration of the complicated, but possible journey ahead.

I'm forever grateful to them both.

Last night, I pulled out the posters from 10 years ago to model one project that promoted the literacies of similar youth and, with kids co-teaching in my classroom, made the case of global histories, the importance of building relationships, and the historical nature of everything we do, including the current ostracizing of young people who arrive from other lands (an immigrant tradition that has made the United States magical).

I am forever grateful to Abu and Lossine, as well as the others, for all they have provided to make my work possible. Because of them, I'm able to offer hope, possibility, instruction, and guidance to an entire new generation of beautiful young people trying to live the American Dream. This is what I believe in.

We all touch the lives of others when we share our stories.

I believe in diversity, inclusion, togetherness and love. I stand against bigotry, exclusion, and prejudice. We are much stronger together, and we need to invest in the possibility of the United States, not limit the dreams of so many.