YOUTH NOW
Giving up on the American Dream
As a young black son of immigrants, the closer Dajourn Anuku came to affluence and success, the more vulnerable he became
On a muggy Saturday morning in August, 18-year-old Dajourn Anuku stood outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, wearing cutoff jean shorts and a baseball cap sporting the phrase “Be Humble.” A large, meaty kid, Dajourn was sweating beneath the weight of his massive backpack and a plastic shopping bag stuffed with laundry detergent, paper towels, and dryer sheets. Earlier that morning, he’d lugged all of this from a Georgetown University dorm room to his bus, where the driver requested $35 for the luggage. Dajourn had the money but wasn’t willing to part with it. He’d just finished a pre-college summer program at one of the country’s most prestigious universities, but he was still the son of Nigerian and Jamaican immigrants from blue-collar Canarsie, Brooklyn—a kid who schlepped his laundry detergent, paper towels, and dryer sheets across five states because that stuff cost money.
Luckily, Dajourn was good at persuading people. “He can talk his way out of anything,” his father, George, told me that morning as we drove to Port Authority. Sure enough, Dajourn convinced the driver to drop the luggage fee.
