Many of D.C.'s Ethiopian cab drivers left behind professional careers in their home country. (Photo: A D.C. cab gives someone a ride / Flickr)
This story was produced as part of Latitudes, an occasional hour-long radio program from WAMU 88.5 that takes listeners into the everyday lives of people around the world.
The ranks of D.C.’s taxi drivers are filled with Ethiopian immigrants. Many of them were professionals in their former lives, and when it comes to learning the rules of the game in the U.S., it can be a challenge.
Negede Abebe and Mechal Chame sit in Abebe’s cab in Georgetown, talking about how they came to the U.S., what they did before and how they became cabbies. Abebe received asylum, and Chame won a Visa lottery to get to America.
Abebe was an economist in Ethiopia, working on trade and business issues for the government and for an international organization. So when he got to the U.S., the first thing he did was look for jobs in his field.
“I tried a lot and couldn’t find any,” he says, adding that it was incredibly frustrating. Because he couldn’t get hired, he decided to go back to school. In 2008, he graduated with his MBA from Trinity University in Northeast D.C.
“I started driving a cab because … after I graduated in 2008 with an MBA I couldn’t find a job,” he says. “I’m still paying my student loan driving a cab.”
Chame can relate. He was a civil engineer in Ethiopia, and he couldn’t even get an in person interview in the U.S., in spite of his qualifications. He remembers once he tried to get a job as a real estate appraiser.
“It was a telephone interview, so I was talking to a lady on the other end. She told me I have a heavy accent,” Chame says. “I said, ‘What? What does my accent have to do with anything? I’m not going to be your customer service representative or your marketer. The only thing you need from me is just go out, take a physical observation of property and give you a report.’ She said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t do that.’”
In the end, he worked as a store clerk and a security guard before Becoming a cab driver.
Mohamed Ly came to the U.S. from Mauritania and started out doing odd jobs. Now, he connects immigrants with companies looking for bilingual staff. But these companies sometimes balk at hiring someone with an accent, he says. Abebe’s and Chame’s stories sound familiar, he adds
Read more and listen to the program at wamu.org.
