Specials DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS MAGAZINE Spring 2011 - Anniversary Commemorative Issue

Winning Over Racism: The Story of Asuko Edo

by Obi Akwani, MGV Editor

I first met Mr. Asuko Edo about 14 years ago in 1989 at an African gathering in Ottawa. It was hard not to notice him, not because of any special he did; people were simply drawn to him. I too was curious and seeing some familiar faces in satellite around him, I decided to join them. They were seated around a table. I drew up a chair and sat in. The topic was mundane -- general discussions about current issues and a reminiscences about the past and perhaps little bit about African politics.

Such is the usual fair when immigrants gather for social celebrations. Newer immigrants are eager to learn from those who had been around longer about how to "make it" in the new society. Mr. Edo as it happened was the oldest immigrant among those gathered. He had come from Nigeria in the early 1970s as a scholarship student. There was an obvious air of success about him. I think this is what attracted the others and made them curious and eager to hear Asuko Edo talk. Younger immigrants still having a hard time adjusting wanted to learn from one who had "made it". Only he did not say much, but laughed a lot and was very sympathetic with everybody.

He was the owner of a successful small business locally. He ran a company that provided training for needed skills for living and finding jobs in Canada to new immigrants. Through one of the other newer immigrants I would later get to know him better and find out that Mr. Edo was actually trained as an engineer. This made me even more curious to find out why a man with his educational background would end up in the career path he seemed to have chosen. I wanted to know if it was his choice to go this way. And if it wasn't, I wanted to know how it was that he was drawn away from his engineering training.

It took a long time to convince Asuko to tell his story. He kept evading my overtures for an interview with the retort that one must not dwell on the past. "Life must go on," he said. Still I wanted him to tell his story.

Eventually, through persistent requests, he finally did begin to talk me, and when he did, it became obvious why he was so reluctant to open up in the first place. There was still a lot of pain there, and recalling the events brought them back to the fore again. Along with the pain, there was also anger -- suppressed anger. It later dawned on me that what finally persuaded him was my own display of intimate understanding of the stuff he had gone through. He saw that I was able to share in the anger he felt. I understood it, and when he realized this, he began to talk to me.

Racism is not really the kind of experience you go through and put behind you for ever. The marks of it remain with you no matter how you choose to deal with it. The effects go deeper than most people are willing to admit. It contours your life, shapes your choices and touches on the very essence of the human-being. And there-in lies the crust of the pain and anger that is such a part of many of those who have gone through it.

Asuko Edo is a very dark-skinned African who emigrated to Canada in the early 1970s. Like many other émigrés before him, he was full of unbounded hopes and optimism, but unlike many others, he was unaffected by poverty or any other restrictions to his aspirations in the old country. He came to Canada on a scholarship from Nigeria to study engineering. Not long after he arrived to this country, he met and married a Canadian girl, while still a student, took on Canadian citizenship and began to raise a family. Eventually he moved his family to the United States where he was to continue his engineering studies at Michigan Technological University in Houghton from where he graduated as a meteorological engineer in 1979.

One of the highlights of that graduation was a letter Asuko received from a Canadian mining company inviting him for an interview, all expenses paid, to a location in Windsor, Canada just across the border from Detroit, USA. He had never met anybody from Stelco before then, but the company was scoring Canadian and American universities looking for young Canadian graduates to hire. They wanted Asuko as a meteorological engineer and invited him to Windsor for a job interview.

Both he and his wife, who is white, were overjoyed at this invitation for an interview. If successful -- and they had no reason to seriously believe it might be otherwise -- it would mean the end of years of hardship and scrimping to get bye on a student's scholarship and the little a mother with three small children and working part-time could bring in.

Full of hope and optimism, Asuko journeyed to Windsor, armed with the letter he'd received, to meet with Stelco officials. Asuko came away from that meeting without the same optimism that he went in with. As soon as the interviewer set eyes on him, out of nowhere, he told Asuko that they were not interviewing for meteorological engineers and neither was Stelco hiring for that position at the time. Even after Asuko showed the interviewer the letter inviting him to be interviewed for the meteorological engineering position, the man still refused to admit they were interviewing for the position. He tried to explain the situation by saying that there had to be a mistake. There was a mistake all right.

"I think they were disappointed to see a black face," is how Asuko has tried to explain it. "When they took a look at my name, they must have thought they were seeing the name of a person with a Japanese background or something. Blacks are not supposed to be good at stuff like science and engineering, especially in the '70s and beyond."

By his own admission, Asuko was a strong-willed, self-confident man, unapologetically pushy, with an arrogance that comes with knowing your own competence. For most employers, such a combination of traits would be regarded as a great asset and tapped for the benefit of the company. Such individuals are usually leaders who are either groomed or work their way into the most senior management positions in any organization where they find themselves. But being a black man in a predominantly white situation, these traits in Asuko became handicaps rather than assets.

Not being one to be so easily put off, Asuko insisted on being interviewed, but he knew from that point on that they were not going to hire him. Stelco even tried to wiggle out of covering his travel expenses, even though in the letter they sent him the company had promised to cover his airfare following the interview and before he left to return to the United States. Asuko had to fight to get them to abide by that promise.

Asuko left Windsor to return to Houghton Michigan now not quite so certain of the future. Shortly after the interview a letter came from Stelco confirming what he already knew -- the company was not going to take him on as an engineer.

He contemplated his options. This was turning out to be a very bad start for someone with so much promise and the certain prospect of a bright future. An immigrant, who hadn't yet met any obstacle he could not surmount using his own personal, family and social resources available to him, Asuko's first instinct was to go head-on against this particular obstacle. He was very angry with Stelco and wanted to sue the company, but he had a family, including three young kids, to look after. His wife did not want him to go the route of legal entanglements. And so Asuko decided to try once again to compel Stelco to hire him. He did something most people don't do, he replied to the rejection letter and literally told Stelco that they owed him a job and that he would be arriving to take up the position within days.

Sure enough, a week later he arrived at the company's headquarters in Hamilton, Ontario and they did give him a job, but not as an engineer. They hired him as a plant attendant to work on the shop floor. As a proud man, this turn of events was a terrible blow to Asuko's professional ego.

"The whole thing was racism period," Asuko said. "It was a racist conspiracy to bring me to heel, to put me in my place in the stereotypical racist scheme of things." The suppressed anger was resurfacing, but Asuko would not let it. He gathered his composure and continued. "There are some aspects of these experiences that still bring tears to my eyes when I recall them," he said. But Asuko refused to admit that being sent to the shop floor despaired him much and he would not elaborate any further, on what aspect of his experiences still made him want to cry, beyond saying that he swore from that point on that nobody was going to keep him from earning a good living.

His most important concern was that he was able to provide for his family on a steady basis. He firmly believed in himself and his skills and thought that eventually, not even Stelco would be able to ignore or resist a talent such as his. But racism has its own logic that defies normal reasoning.

With a good degree in meteorological engineering, Asuko spend two years at Stelco as a shop floor attendant. At one time there was a suitable engineering position that came open and he applied for it, again he was rejected. The person who interviewed him for that position, a man of East Indian background later told him that if it was up to him alone, Asuko would have had the job. He was better qualified than the fellow that eventually got the position, but the situation was such that Asuko could not be properly considered or hired for the position.

Following this last experience, Asuko decided he would leave Stelco altogether and start on his own. In 1981, he started a small company that provided training in life and job skills to individuals. Its been hard work, but true to his promise he has been able to provide for his family and at the same time build a small nest-egg for them. Many of his clients today (1999) are new immigrants learning the special life skills necessary for adjusting and surviving in Canadian society.