This is an edited bit of a much longer interview Olivia and I conducted with a man who came to the US as a refugee from Sudan in the early 1990s. This is part of our documentary project on political asylum in the United States.

In this piece, he talks about what it was like as a new immigrant, while he was going through the asylum process, and right after: finding a job, learning to to speak "American" English. He also talks of what it's like to be from Sudan in a post 9/11 America. Because of his name and where he's from, he's interrogated every time he leaves the US and comes back, even though he has an American passport. He tells a surprising story of crossing the Canadian border.