I came to the US 10 years ago as a refugee. I went to college, got my citizenship and now I drive a long-haul truck.

• Suud Olat came to the US in 2012 from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.
• After getting his bachelor's degree, he decided to get into trucking to buy a house for his mother.

This as-told-to essay is based on two conversations with Suud Olat, a former refugee from Somalia based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and recipient of the Minnesota Department of Human Services' Young Leader and Outstanding Refugee Award. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I came to America in June 2012, straight from the Dadaab refugee camp.

Dadaab is a camp in northern Kenya, where mainly Somali refugees live. I had been in that refugee camp for 20 years — my family got there when I was a baby — when UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the US government gave me resettlement. I was in my early 20s.

I was the first of my family to come to the US. I was resettled in Nashville, Tennessee. I was by myself then, because when they make a resettlement, they take the family to the US separately. You decide who'll go first, so I was the first of my family to go. My parents came in December 2016.

I started working at a warehouse in Nashville, where I was making around $9 per hour. Then I became an American permanent resident, I moved to Minnesota, and I got my citizenship in 2018.

'I'm an American now, what am I going to do?'

In 2019, I got my bachelor's degree in international relations and political science at St. Cloud State University, in Minnesota. Then, I ran for city council in Minneapolis in 2020. It was a hard time to run, because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd, especially for me, a refugee, and running for office for the first time. I lost, but it was a great experience.

In the meantime, I volunteered and did some advocacy work for organizations like ONE Campaign, a non-profit that fights extreme poverty founded by Bono, the singer for U2.

Then I said, "You know what, Suud, mom and dad, they're both almost 70 years old, and they're here in Minnesota. You need to buy a house for your family."

So I went to trucking school, and that's how I got my commercial driving license in Salt Lake City. I went to Salt Lake City to get my license because it was faster and less expensive than doing it in Minnesota. It cost me around $5,000 for the whole process.

Then, after school, I found work for an independent trucking company through friends who were already in the business.

I got into trucking because my mother said "You've been doing a lot of good work for the community, it's time for you to work for yourself. When are we going to buy a house?"

So that's my dream, buying a house for her.

'America is a country of work'

You can make some good money by trucking, while you travel all over America. And it gives you some sort of flexibility. I've been to 48 states, which I think is really nice, and I make about $1,000 a week before taxes, working as an independent contractor for a company owned by a family.

It's a hard job. You may drive 600, 700, 800, sometimes 1000 miles a day, but I love it because I came here to work and you can be independent, and work as much as you want, and make good money. I have a degree, but it's hard to find a high-paying job as a refugee.

And despite the fact that they say that America is racist from rural places to big towns, I haven't had anyone disrespect me yet. The job can be stressful, and when you're a new driver sometimes you panic, but everyone I met was willing to go the extra mile to help.

I haul everything except for hazardous materials because that would require an additional license, and I haul in almost every state. I've driven from Washington State to Dallas, Texas, and from Jersey City, New Jersey to Miami, for example. Usually, I'm on the road for one or two months, and then I go home for 10 days.

There's something very American about the hard work of being a truck driver. America is a country of work. And you get your truck, your license, and live the American dream, because you're making good money, and you achieve your dream. Some people come into trucking to buy a house, some people come into trucking to buy another truck.

Freedom is one of the things I didn't have. I have a degree, I'm an American citizen. I can drive the truck wherever I want. This kind of freedom is just something that I could never get anywhere else in the world.