International students forge connections during Thanksgiving

New Mexico’s Thanksgiving is becoming a global affair as international students come together to celebrate the holiday.

Two graduate students at the University of New Mexico, Elvis Attah and Jameel Damoah, are among many international students celebrating their first Thanksgiving at the university.

Both from Ghana, the two men received their bachelor’s degrees at the University of Cape Coast. While they never met during their studies in Ghana, they chose the same doctoral program in chemistry at UNM and met for the first time this year in New Mexico.

Attah is pursuing his Ph.D. in hopes of working in cancer research and going back to Ghana to find new treatment options. He says he chose UNM because of the robust opportunities he believes it will provide him with “research opportunities and funding to help African countries develop that aspect of their economies.”

Damoah is interested in using his degree to work with nanomaterials and their cutting-edge technological applications.

They are both attending a Thanksgiving celebration hosted by graduate students at UNM for all first-year Ph.D. students. Attah says he’ll have a lot of questions.

“I really want to get to know the history behind Thanksgiving,” he said.

The Global Education Office at UNM and International Students Inc. of Albuquerque are also hosting Thanksgiving events this year.

As they join the wider UNM community in Thanksgiving festivities, Attah and Damoah anticipate a growing familiarity with the tradition in the years to come and expect their experience to inform how they celebrate in the future.

Damoah said, “Next year we’ll be more used to (Thanksgiving),” with Attah adding, “we will be able to incorporate our own African culture, without disrupting the reason for Thanksgiving.”

Of the community of graduate students at UNM, “we are from different places,” Attah said, “but I feel like we are connected.”

Along with finding community among other international students, the two have found a home among the local Ghanaian population at the Pentecostal International Worship Center. On Sunday, the church is holding an international worship service, which will be joined by people from various African countries.