Upper Arlington mayor talks 'immigrant grit,' leadership, affordable housing and more
When Ukeme Awakessien Jeter arrived at the University of Maine as a Nigerian international student in 2000, she had no grand plan to settle permanently in the U.S., let alone become a citizen and hold elected office.
But a little over two decades later, in 2022, she became Upper Arlington’s first Black mayor and city council president.
Awakessien Jeter told The Dispatch that like many immigrants, her life has been full of unexpected twists and turns.
She grew up in Muscat, Oman and in Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil capital, where her father, a biochemist, works for Shell. After college in Maine, she worked as a pulp and paper engineer for Georgia Pacific in Arizona before earning degrees in law and business administration.
Today, she lives with her two children in Upper Arlington and is a partner at Taft Law’s Intellectual Property Transactions group in downtown Columbus.
Awakessien Jeter said that when she moved to Upper Arlington — which is about 1% Black and 92% native-born — in 2018, she witnessed her daughter struggle to adapt in a predominantly white community. Her concerns about local inequities grew with George Floyd Jr.’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.
After serving on several city committees and task forces, she decided to run for city council in November 2021. Having lived locally for only three years, she said it was a “brazen idea” to run, and the victory came as a shock.
In what free time she has, Awakessien Jeter has penned a book, “Immigrit: How Immigrant Leadership Drives Business Success,” which comes out next month. Interspersing her own experiences with academic research and bits of American immigration history, she writes that immigrants have unique — though undervalued — leadership qualities that help them succeed in the workplace.
Awakessien Jeter’s position as mayor is nonpartisan and part-time; day-to-day city affairs are handled by the city manager, whom she and the other council members appoint.
In an interview that has been edited for length and clarity, she made the case for immigrant grit, or “immigrit,” and also discussed her stance on affordable housing and procurement reform.
In your book, you talk about flipping the script about immigrants from “the immigrant struggle” to “immigrant leadership.” Why is that important?
When you hear (about) immigrants, there's two classic narratives. One is, ‘They are a drain on our economy — they're taking all our social services,’ yada yada, yada. And then you have the other narrative, which is, ‘They're illegal, they’re taking our jobs — they’re villains.’ … There's hardly a narrative as to what immigrants actually add or bring. …
Immigrants are not a monolithic group by any means — we all come from different countries, we have different socioeconomic backgrounds, different reasons for coming here. (But) we're tied by the same skill set. (That is,) we have to adapt — and sometimes adapt very quickly — to new cultures.
Every immigrant has a story of being resourceful. Mine happened to be ending up here with one of my two suitcases and having to figure out how to live life with half my things. …
People always think about (the immigrant or refugee experience) as being trauma-filled. That’s true to some extent, but the things (we) go through … build resilience.
And then there is grit. …
Executive recruiters recruiting for C-suite leadership positions are looking for the same things: they need someone that's adaptable, who can pivot quickly, who has resourcefulness, who can work with limited budgets. They're looking for these skill sets that immigrants — innately, from their experience — develop.
Greater Columbus is seeing many first- and second-generation immigrants elected to office. Do you think the leadership skills you talk about apply to politics, too?
Absolutely.
You need to be resourceful in politics — we’re always squeezed for budgets. How do we use human resources differently? You absolutely need to be resilient. …
(When it comes to federal leaders), immigration policies are often crafted (by) people that don't have the lived experience of it. … So I do love to see first-generation immigrants in the arena doing the work.
Franklin County is facing an affordable housing shortage. The City of Columbus recently proposed major zoning code changes to promote development. How can Upper Arlington help solve the shortage?
We have a unique set of challenges. We're a landlocked, fully developed community within nine square miles. Almost every square inch of Upper Arlington has something on it already, so for us to contribute to the solution takes redevelopment — tearing things down and building again. …
Redevelopment also means increasing density. We will have to deal with “not in my backyard” attitudes. ... We have to do studies, have intense community engagement, all those kind of things — and that process is expensive. I think we'll probably have to double (the speed at which we’ve been doing these things). We’ve slowly done it with Lane Avenue, which has had some redevelopment, and Kingsdale (Mixed Use Project) is going through redevelopment right now. … The council just commissioned a study, called Envision Henderson (for redevelopment along Henderson Road) — that's our next frontier. …
“Affordability” is a tough term to unpack. Affordable to whom? Affordability is going to look different in a UA community versus a Columbus community, but … we're working on it.
I’m fully supportive of … legislation (to prevent source-of-income discrimination) that we will be voting on soon. This is a fascinating piece of legislation because it was citizen-driven. … Nowadays, people have varying sources of income — whether it's veterans, or child support, or disability (insurance), or … (from) working for Uber. …How people cobble up to pay for their housing shouldn't be the reason that they're denied.
Council recently reformed Upper Arlington’s procurement processes. Why was that necessary?
When I was running for council I started asking questions about how we bid for contracts. … I truly believe if we are going to do this work of access and opportunities, it starts with economics. Minority-owned businesses, veteran-owned businesses and women-owned businesses should have access … to bid for contracts, especially city contracts. … We have a $55 million operating budget — everything from the janitors that clean up our parks, to resurfacing our roads. …
We just approved code changes … (for) things like eliminating the location preference (for contractors to be based in Upper Arlington), increasing some of the limits of what my city manager can approve, … and (enhanced) the competitive contract process. … The next step is to educate staff on this new procurement code.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Awakessien Jeter is Upper Arlington's first female mayor. In fact, Upper Arlington has already had several female mayors.
Peter Gill covers immigration, New American communities and religion for the Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Upper Arlington first Black mayor makes case for immigrant leadership
