Refugee from war-torn Somalia beats odds to earn nursing degree at AC

Zeinab Ali is a December 2022 graduate of the nursing program at Amarillo College (AC) who works full time in the medical-surgical unit at Northwest Texas Hospital. She also tutors aspiring nurses part time on AC’s West Campus.

From the outside looking in, hers is yet another heartening, albeit not uncommon, success story authored by what is, according to the Aspen Institute for Community College Excellence, the finest community college in the land.

A closer look, though, reveals far more – a bittersweet odyssey that swept Zeinab from war-torn Somalia to a land of opportunity whose doors she pried open despite lacking a formal education or the least grasp of the English language.

“I think the American dream is real,” said Zeinab, who along with her husband received authorization from the United Nations in 2008 to resettle in Amarillo.

Amarillo – where Zeinab spent long days wielding a knife at a slaughterhouse 60 miles north of the city, then spent evenings attending AC’s English as a Second Language (ESL) classes; and AC – where she obtained a high school equivalency credential (GED); waded through rudimentary healthcare coursework to painstakingly qualify for – and conquer – the highly selective associate degree nursing program; and where she ultimately passed the rigorous national nursing licensure exam, the NCLEX, on her very first try.

“She moved from trying to be functional in English language skills to passing the NCLEX on her first try,” Dr. Tamara Clunis, vice president of academic affairs, said. “If that’s not an inspiration for anyone who looks to us and wonders if Amarillo College really can make a difference in their lives, I don’t know what is.

“Because the answer is yes, it can make a difference. Zeinab really is a special person, and I’m very proud of her,” Clunis said. “But she is the poster child for taking advantage of all the help our College’s culture of caring has to offer. She epitomizes the fact that you can come to AC no matter your circumstances and, with the right supports and personal drive, you can accomplish anything.”

When civil war swept through their country in the early 1990s, a legion of Somalis fled their rural homes to seek refuge in Mogadishu, the nation’s capital. Zeinab, the youngest of four children, was about 5 when their widowed mother took them to Mogadishu. However, combatants soon massed there too, and more than a decade of unbridled urban chaos ensued.

“Famine was everywhere, and in Mogadishu we sometimes had only lunch and then nothing again until lunch tomorrow,” Zeinab said. “But I think we were blessed because some people did not even have one meal. There was always war and shooting and hunger. We would see dead bodies. It was very bad.”

Zeinab survived her formative years in that seemingly ceaseless quagmire, finally reaching her teens. Then one day her brother was fatally gunned down on the streets of Mogadishu and her already precarious world turned upside down.

“That was it. That was so devastating that I couldn’t handle staying in Somalia any longer,” said Zeinab, who with her mother’s blessing took flight to neighboring Kenya on the back of an old truck, with a cousin and 10 others. The truck broke down twice on the grueling, weeklong journey that Zeinab describes as “the roughest trip I have ever taken.”

Zeinab eventually met her husband, Dagnaas, in a Kenyan refugee camp, and together they sought assistance from the U.N. for relocation to the United States. There were complications and delays, but late in 2008, the couple received final approval and were sent directly to Amarillo. Everything they knew about their destination had been gleaned from pamphlets provided by the U.N. – handouts that informed them about, among other things, Amarillo College.

“I was anxious about coming to a place with a new culture,” Zeinab said. “But those pamphlets were my hope. One said there was opportunity for everybody to learn, to take ESL classes and even get a GED. I believed I could have the life I wanted to lead if I could learn English and just get a GED at Amarillo College.”

It was in pursuit of those goals that Zeinab realized they could be more than end points; they also might serve as stepping stones. Her teachers and mentors, meanwhile, noted her aptitude and urged her onward. She next completed a certified nurse assistant (CNA) certificate, then took classes in nutrition and phlebotomy. Finally in 2012, she qualified through testing to take mainstream college coursework.

Still, her success was hardly achieved overnight. She and Dagnass had two children between her start and finish at AC, and Zeinab stopped out of school a couple of times. But when her classwork resumed, she tapped into every available AC resource – from childcare assistance to tutoring – and she even pestered Dr. Clunis into placing ESL services at AC’s healthcare hub on the West Campus.

“When we say we’re going to love our students to success, we really mean it,” Clunis said, “but Zeinab not only took us at our word, she held us accountable to that by pointing out some shortfalls, like in childcare opportunities and ESL, that we needed to address – that actually made our College better.

“She took advantage of every opportunity for tutoring support, she sought out mentoring, and she wasn’t passive about it at all. She didn’t mince words. If there were gaps we were not providing, she made sure we knew about it.

“Sometimes it required moving mountains, which is exactly what we did,” Clunis said. “And she wasn’t just advocating for herself; often she was advocating for all our students, like the many who have since benefited from ESL mentoring at our West Campus. Zeinab not only changed the trajectory of her own family through her success, her advocacy has helped many others change their trajectories, too.”

Zeinab and Dagnass, who have become U.S. citizens through the naturalization process, outfitted their kids in AC-blue caps and gowns and made sure they had good seats for last December’s commencement ceremony.

“I want my kids to know my story, and I wanted them to see me cross the stage,” said Zeinab, the freshly minted registered nurse.

“I love Amarillo College, and I don’t believe that if I landed in any other city when coming to the U.S. that I would be successful like I am today,” she insists. “I met exactly the right people at the right school at the right time. It’s been wonderful.”