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The difference between our family and other poor families was that my mother actively chose to be poor. She was highly literate, and she had a college degree, but after my father left, she took the first secretarial job she could find and never looked for other employment again.

My parents grew up working class, but in that way that working class families do, they spent a fortune on education to better me.

I watched my parents go from having very basic jobs to educating themselves, to buying a house. They set a really good bar for what they wanted their kids to achieve.

My mum and dad had worked incredibly hard to afford me an education.

My father was a teacher and my mother also worked in the school, so the family has a background in education.

To the Kenyan families, school doesn't really matter because none of them are going on to college. Almost all of drop out of school and so, they're spending their time learning things that are important to them.

I was born to a Nigerian dad and a Kenyan mom, and coming to the States was really academic.

I grew up in a household that was a labor household. My dad was a Teamster and a milk truck driver. My mother was a secretary. Neither of them got through high school. But they worked hard and they gave me very, very important opportunities to go to school, get a good education.

Being a part of a large family is just like a little society: those who fight to the top of the heap. We relied on each other and still do. They never discouraged me or told me to get a proper job.

Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father's folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn't do this and offer me this background, I wouldn't be here.