Kamaru Usman Tells Joe Why Nigerians Are the Most Successful Immigrants

But like first of all, what is it about Nigerians that do so well in this country? That's one of the thing if you look at like Nigerian immigrants like successful ratios of of different immigration groups Nigerians in particular are extraordinarily successful upon immigrating to America Yeah, I think it's a family family thing It's like when when our families decide and we get the opportunity to move to a better place The thing is that the whole persona is we're gonna be able to sustain this forever So my kids are not gonna just play around in sports because that's not guaranteed Right what is guaranteed is the fact that you're gonna go to school and you're gonna become a doctor because you're gonna get a job Anywhere in the world that you want. That's why Majority of them are doctors, right? Majority of doctors engineers because these are jobs that high demand jobs You're always going to get a job anywhere Yeah, and so that's all that's all we push you're gonna be a doctor or you're gonna be a Night an engineer none of them are saying you're gonna be a professional athlete My parents hell no they didn't care for that Like I lied to them the first couple years that I was wrestling. I didn't tell them that You know, my brother is a doctor in pharmacy in Dallas My little brother, you know could have gotten an NFL who was a stellar football player played a University Houston University, Arizona You know my sister now is in college She's in nursing school in college like that's just what we push We want you to get a job that you can provide for your family forever. Yeah, they remind me of Koreans in a lot of ways absolutely, yeah, super hard-working and Appreciate once they've gotten to a place like America where there really is no ceiling on the possibility You could do anything you want once you get here if you work hard. Absolutely and then this is That's another thing that's dear to my heart is when you're Nigeria like when you're in a situation that we were sad My mom was a teacher. My mom owned a store To a little convenience store there and we did little jobs on the side We told certain things on the side and on top of it raising three boys rowdy boys like That that's what we and in the school we didn't it wasn't like all this the card The bus is gonna pick you up at 3 7 a.m. To go to school. No, the school was two miles away three miles away You walk in you better get going Don't be late because if you got if he was late you was gonna get a whooping before school started That's how it was and especially the education system is so high because you miss You miss a couple answers on the test You had to go out and get a switch and you were gonna get whipped in school for the answers that you missed Would be you in school. Yeah Absolutely the teacher the teacher the teacher was on first of all, it's not teacher It's uncle and aunt. That's your uncle and your aunt in school. They knew your parents to your family They were gonna whip you in school if you decided to mess up and that's how it was So that's why there's a lot of these smart Nigerians they get out and if there's no freaking job We got to somehow make money. It's so fucked up because I don't want people to be kids But goddamn when you put kids under that kind of pressure my parents put me in Catholic school for one year and I got excellent grades and Afterwards, I was fucking terrible Terrible man, and I remember my stepfather said something me said your grades were only good when you were in Catholic school I was like, it's fucking terrified. Yeah, I'm like it ain't a good move I mean, it's like they were threatening me all the time They wanted to beat me and make me sit on a nail in the closet