African immigrant seeks alliance with Chicago's Mexicans

This African immigrant has discovered how similar the stories are between African and Mexican immigrants and is trying to get the two groups to work together for reform. - - Donna Poisl

Immigration issues bond two cultures

By Oscar Avila, Tribune reporter

A few months after arriving from Sierra Leone, Alie Kabba learned the dynamics of Chicago immigrant life when he found a pickup soccer game near his Rogers Park apartment. All of the players were Mexicans.

"I didn't have enough for my own team," he recalled. "They had the numbers."

Now head of the United African Organization, Kabba is pursuing an intriguing and complicated experiment: to see whether Africans can forge a political alliance with the Mexicans, who make up the largest share of immigrants in Chicago.
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