“Make me proud.”
Emmanuella Jesumurewa’s mother told her this before the then 13-year-old left Nigeria for the United States with her father, brother and stepfamily.
Photography by Kathy Tran
Four years later, Emmanuella is now a senior at Bryan Adams High School Leadership Academy, and her mother’s parting message has meant everything to her while navigating her education abroad.
“Those three words kind of shaped every single thing I’ve done since I’ve come here because she did raise us as a single mother before my dad came back to get us,” Emmanuella says. “She is the definition of resilience and love and care and compassion.”
What has Emmanuella done in high school? The better question is, what hasn’t she done? Senior class and student council president. Expected valedictorian who plans to graduate high school with her associate’s degree. Singer in worship group Hallmark Music outside of school. She used to play basketball and volleyball and run track. Emmanuella has also worked while in school, mostly in retail and food service jobs but also by tutoring children in math and English at Charles A. Gill Elementary, northeast of Casa View.
“My mom has always taught me to just be the best you can be, leave everywhere better than you met it, and make an impact,” she says. “Not to be cocky; I’ve just been the top-achieving student. I’ve aimed to be the first in everything that I do, just because why not?”
As the adage goes, Emmanuella and her family came to the U.S. looking for a better life. She described limited resources in her home country, like not always having enough food to eat and running out of money to pay for school.
On the plus side, Emmanuella already knew English, which is used in parts of Nigeria. (She can also speak the language Yoruba, which is used in parts of Nigeria as well as neighboring countries Benin and Togo.) But she became depressed during the transition. Not only did she have to get used to a new country, but she also had a “new” family.
“I never lived with my stepmom or grew up with my dad,” she says. “I didn’t know anybody here at all, and so I just had to get out of my comfort zone and use those three words, ‘Make me proud,’ to just do what I can (with) what has been invested in me because my mom didn’t go through all that for nothing.”
Getting involved and finding her people was crucial. To that end, she was president of the now-defunct Bible club at school, and she joined a religious fellowship group. The former Pathways in Technology Early College High School workplace learning coordinator at Bryan Adams made Emmanuella aware of multiple chances to take advantage of.
“Every single opportunity — public speaking-wise, internship-wise, volunteering-wise — she placed it at my feet, and when no one signed up for it, I signed up for it,” she says. “Like the summer programs because last year I went to University of Chicago for a week by myself. It was so exciting. I got to meet new people, take courses at UChicago.”
Last year, Emmanuella took an internship with Parkland Health that had her and others create a curriculum for educating young students on breast health. She wants her minor to be health care related when she attends college. Again, her mother served as the inspiration.
One night years ago, her mom did not come home until midnight. When she finally returned, she had a cut on her head after being involved in a bus crash.
“She didn’t even know she was bleeding so much,” Emmanuella says. “She was helping other people get out of the bus.”
Her mother first went to a hospital but was turned away because she couldn’t afford treatment. The next facility she went to stitched up her cut but without anesthesia.
“I could hear her screams from the hallway as a 10-year-old kid,” she says. “And that just stuck with me.”
Emmanuella is passionate about health care and wants to prevent other families from dealing with similar experiences and help to increase equity. She plans to major in applied math and data science and wants to find a way to combine her ambitions in health care with math.
“I’m in AP Calculus right now, and it’s beautiful. It’s my favorite class right now,” Emmanuella says. “My whole life is kind of structured around resilience and perseverance to the end, and mathematics gives me that perseverance and confidence that can solve real-world problems.”
Here’s one such real-world problem that she has observed — people trying to find their sense of purpose in life. Math can reveal solid advice.
“You will find your answer, the solution to your problem in math, but there’s a million ways to solve that problem, and so your ‘why’ should not be tied to just one thing,” she says.
Emmanuella also has multiple interests to explore in her future. She wants to model. She loves to sing. Establishing a nonprofit to give back to her community in Nigeria is also on the list.
Though she tries to talk to her mother on a daily basis, Emmanuella hasn’t been able to go back to Nigeria to visit her. Fortunately, she has found mentors who have served as mom-like figures in her life.
One of them is Roslyn Baker, former P-TECH workplace learning coordinator at Bryan Adams. Emmanuella credited Baker with connecting her with opportunities and helping her feel seen and appreciated at school.
“I really hope people do find people like her in their lives to provide them those opportunities and hold them dear like daughters and sons,” Emmanuella says.
