Profile Text: Nathaniel Hieber Audio and Interview Contributor: Hunter Vasey Photographs provided by Nyajuok Deng
Nyajuok Deng was born in migration. Her family, which came from South Sudan, was forced to leave the country due to its second civil war. Lasting almost twenty-two years, the war only officially ended in 2005. Estimates for the number of casualties from this war run into the millions, most of them civilians. Her parents managed to escape from this backdrop of struggle and violence. Together, they began a quest to obtain a better life for themselves and for their children. This exodus was the beginning of Deng’s journey to the United States, and she had yet to be born.
Deng arrived to a world of migration. Born in Ethiopia, her family continued to a refugee camp in Nairobi, Kenya. In the early 1990s, her family was sponsored to come to the United States. In pursuit of work, they moved to several different places across the country: to Minneapolis, to San Diego, and then back to the Twin Cities’ suburbs, and then to Rosemount, Minnesota. In 2004, Deng’s family moved to a small town in Iowa—Storm Lake—due to the available meatpacking jobs.
Listen to Deng recount how her family came to the United States, and her views on living in Storm Lake as a young teenager:
Deng was in the seventh grade when she arrived, and her experiences with more urban environments caused her to question her new hometown and its more rural environment. “I will tell you, when we moved to Storm Lake, I was not happy about it,” she said. “I’d never lived anywhere where there was corn in the backyard and just, like, farms and stuff like that. I didn’t think that was real except for when we used to drive and … pass all that stuff.” The area felt like it was moving in slow motion compared to the more vibrant urban and suburban lifestyles she had experienced to date. Iowa itself felt slow. For this girl, whose life had been shaped by international migration, the change from places like Minneapolis to Storm Lake was jarring. Saying that it was a bit of a culture shock would not be too far removed from what she felt, something Deng freely admitted.
I think sometimes I still have a hard time trying to, like, wrap my head around the Storm Lake experience, because it was almost like Storm Lake was this weird little bubble surrounded by what Iowa is.
The town itself mystified her in many ways. “I think sometimes I still have a hard time trying to, like, wrap my head around the Storm Lake experience,” she said, “because it was almost like Storm Lake was this weird little bubble surrounded by what Iowa is.” “[W]hat Iowa is,” is a majority white, Christian, and rural state that has not always been accepting of other demographics. Even though this contrasts with Storm Lake’s image as a multicultural hub, the realities of its rural location still impacted Deng’s life. She remembers the overt racism from other schools whenever she traveled to participate in sports. Even some of the teachers within the Storm Lake school system at times expressed outdated attitudes towards non-white students, this despite Storm Lake’s openness to others. “I guess there’s a narrative that comes out of Storm Lake, that it is almost like this utopia of different races living together in harmony. But I don’t think it was quite as great as it’s discussed sometimes.”
However, Deng took advantage of many opportunities in town that she believes could not have come from other urban school systems. “I think when you’re at a larger school district, you’ve got to pick and choose what you want to do,” she said. “But because Storm Lake was such a smaller school system and smaller district, I was able to kind of do everything.” This included student council, playing in sports, and even being a member of the 2008 Obama Campaign as a sophomore in high school. While these opportunities might have existed in other areas, taking advantage of all of them would not have been as possible for Deng, who was an inquisitive youth and wished to experience as many varied activities as possible when the opportunities presented themselves.
Interacting with many different cultures–during her time traveling with her family, and then later in Storm Lake–would help her in later stages of her life. This first occurred at Iowa State University, where she worked for the Obama Campaign again in 2012. She was able to have a more active role in those efforts due to her previous campaign experience. It became just as useful when she became enrolled in Howard Law School, the oldest Historically Black College/University (HBCU) law school in the United States. Deng found ways to bring her experience from her earlier urban life, her time in the multicultural bubble of Storm Lake, and the more rural conservative culture around the small town to form connections with a wide range of individuals of all backgrounds.
I saw the law as a way to maybe, you know, put my little stamp on making the world more just.
Currently, Deng is a lawyer working in the Minneapolis area, providing legal counsel to clients in the tech industry. She claims that the two reasons she pursued law as a career were her family’s experience as refugees, and her academic disposition in general. “I saw the law as a way to maybe, you know, put my little stamp on making the world more just,” she said. Deng’s mother made sure to impress upon her the importance of education, community, and helping those within it. Part of this may have stemmed from their history as refugees, but it is also a part of South Sudanese culture. “A lot of times in our community we would have weddings,” she said. “Or we would have, like, fundraisers if somebody’s having a hard time, they [her parents] would have fundraisers for that family. Or, you know, if there was a funeral, there would be fundraisers.” Deng took to heart those ideals in her life. This desire to use the law based on her academic and cultural experiences connected to another desire: to help others and to make a more just world for everyone.
Other inspirations include all of the connections and interactions she has had with others both in Storm Lake and outside of it. Deng recalls, “In high school I was a part of a group called Women of Courage, where a group of black women from Buena Vista came to the high school once a week and just did a circle with us. There was one woman I connected with and I was like, ‘I want to be like her.’” She elaborated, “You meet people along the way that you really, really admire, and then you just say, ‘Okay, how did you get to where you are, because I really want to be like you.’” Such interactions with other people helped to mold her into who she is today and made it clearer to her what she wanted to do with her life.
[A]lthough the achievement [for] me myself has been ‘Okay, I got my degree, I’m licensed, I’m working in the field I want to work in,’ it’s a big deal for a lot of younger women in my community because somebody that looks like them has done this thing that seemed impossible.
These positive interactions with others have become a constant in Deng’s life. Now living in the Twin Cities, Deng believes that she is one of the first South Sudanese-American with a law degree in the United States. That in turn has served as a big symbol of achievement for other young girls and young women in her community. This has enabled her to connect with a lot of young girls “because although the achievement [for] me myself has been, ‘Okay, I got my degree, I’m licensed, I’m working in the field I want to work in,’ it’s a big deal for a lot of younger women in my community because somebody that looks like them has done this thing that seemed impossible.” When she was attempting to become a lawyer, she felt a lack of role models for her to emulate. There were not many people that looked like she did. Deng now finds it within her power to help these young women by sending them emails and information about how to best succeed academically and make the best use of resources to get a good education. Even though it is not overly taxing for her to do so, it can make a big difference in the lives of these young women. “I think that’s the biggest thing that I’m most proud of, is now I’m able to help people navigate something that seemed impossible before.”
