“I Started Living When I Came Here”: A Senegalese Refugee Finds Freedom in Boston

Pride, For the First Time

In the summer of 2024, Ousmane participated in his first-ever Pride Parade. Wearing a t-shirt with a rainbow-colored flame, he marched through Boston’s streets shoulder-to-shoulder with a boisterous group of IINE staff, volunteers, and clients waving mini-rainbow flags. Throngs of revelers lined their route and greeted them with cheers and smiles.

This was a very new experience for Ousmane. In 2015, he had been forced to flee his native Senegal as a refugee. “Anyone who knows Senegal knows that homosexuality isn’t allowed,” he explains. “It led to a very difficult moment with my family. Also with the population.”

A Difficult Moment

After escaping Senegal, Ousmane spent many years in a refugee camp in Mauritania. There he met another challenge. The country only abolished slavery in 1980, and Black Mauritanians and immigrants continue to experience racial discrimination and marginalization. Facing dual prejudices, Ousmane found he “couldn’t go out at certain times. I was not able to work some jobs. I struggled.”

Life got easier when Ousmane met Yaya.  

“Yaya is a great person. The thing is, I love him, and he loves me. I encountered a lot of pain there, but I could deal with that pain because of the love I had from him.” 

The bond they forged felt lifesaving. It also made the news for which Ousmane had been longing for years –that he had been approved to resettle in the U.S. as a refugee—feel bittersweet. 
 
“The separation was not easy. Yaya thought that when I left for the U.S., I was going to leave him, so it was a very difficult moment. But I couldn’t stay, because that time was too difficult for me.” 

Ousmane believed in his heart that their separation was temporary. He would work hard, establish himself, send Yaya money when he could, and wait for his partner to join him. So, he traveled to Boston alone; fortunately, he was not alone when he arrived.

First Days

“Coming into a place where you don’t understand the language and everything, that is not easy. But I had the [IINE] office that was also helping me.” 

IINE’s team was waiting for Ousmane when he arrived at Logan Airport and drove him to an apartment that had been furnished with donations from volunteers. As soon as he could, he enrolled in IINE English classes and began workforce orientation. Between classes and appointments, he remembers sitting on a bench in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood and marveling at the variety of people he would see bustling around on their way to work or school.  

“That was my first impression, and even now, when I have time, I just sit there and do the same thing, remembering my first days.” 

Finding Work

As he set out to join the workforce himself, he had a strong advocate in Sara, his IINE Employment Case Specialist.  

“IINE helped me a lot, and Sara helped me in so many ways. Anything I need, she will talk with me and help me. There were times I couldn’t find a job, but she went with me everywhere, trying to get one. She’s a good person and I thank her.”

For her part, Sara says she has been inspired by Ousmane’s incredible drive and persistence. 
 
“Ousmane may have the most strength of character of anyone I’ve ever met,” she says. “He came to Boston with a laser-sharp vision of the life he wanted, and it’s been absolutely incredible watching him go after that life despite the innumerable obstacles that lay in his way. He wasn’t able to safely live with the person he loved, so he found a way to move across the world. His first employer didn’t allow him the day off to attend his first Pride parade, so he found a new employer and teammates who love and respect him.” 

The new employer, a Mediterranean restaurant in Boston, was also impressed enough with Ousmane to go to great lengths to help him succeed.  
 
“He never had the chance to learn to read,” Sara explains, “but his manager was so taken with his work ethic and sense of humor that she moved the entire work schedule around so he could attend nine hours of English classes with us per week. She also developed a special training system for him, and others who are just beginning in English. She decided to put him on a management track and found a more visual way for him to use the company’s management software as well.” 

Sara says that Ousmane’s success has paved the way for dozens of fellow IINE clients to join him at the restaurant in their first job in the U.S. and that he has proudly helped them with the process.  

Finding Happiness

Three years into his time in Boston, Ousmane is in a good place. “I started being happy when I came here,” he says.  

People have been welcoming to him, and he finally feels freer to be himself. Now that he has some experience in the restaurant business, he has a new goal. 
 
“I’m dreaming of having an African restaurant here for Senegalese dinners,” he says, describing a favorite rice dish with onions and fish.

Best of all, Yaya has finally joined him in Boston and found a job he loves as a dressmaker. 

“I am so happy because besides the office, it’s only Yaya I have as a family member. I’m no longer lonely. Before, when I came, I was all alone, but now I have someone to keep me company, and we have real peace.” 

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Refugees and immigrants make long, difficult journeys to escape violence and rebuild their lives in the U.S. You can give them the help they need.