In his backyard on north 85th Street in Milwaukee, Chigozie Okonkwo is on what some may call a fool’s mission.
He’s trying to grow Nigerian pumpkins in his backyard.
The green, fluted vegetables are different from the bulbous orange things that Americans carve into jack-o-lanterns. Chigozie used to grow the African pumpkin in his garden in Lagos, Nigeria, where the temperature rarely drops below 65 degrees.
In Milwaukee, the pumpkins aren’t doing so well.
“It got so cold," he explains. "I wasn’t sure what that was doing, so that’s the challenge. Here you need to spend so much time watering your garden, unlike Nigeria. When you farm (there), you depend on rain.”
There’s an obvious metaphor here: Chigozie has tried to bring a piece of Nigeria to Milwaukee. Even though the soil and the temperature aren't quite right, he’s determined to make it work.
Chigozie and his wife, Chioma Mba, have been teaching in Milwaukee Public Schools since 2023. They used H-1B visas sponsored by the school district to move to the U.S. from Nigeria.
Now, the whole H-1B process is uncertain.
This fall, the Trump administration attached a $100,000 fee to new visa applications, forcing the school district to pause hiring of new international teachers.
Chigozie and Chioma can renew their visas without that fee, but they have decide what to do next.
Milwaukee Public Schools relies on 200+ international teachers to fill vacancies
A little bit about H-1B visas: They are temporary, three-year work visas. Congress allows 85,000 to be issued through a lottery each year.
Applications for certain jobs like researchers and teachers don’t need enter the lottery at all. While these types of visas are processed faster, applicants are still not in control of the process. Their employers are.
Want to know where these international workers are needed? Look no further than your child’s classroom.
Milwaukee's public school district is one of many that have struggled to find enough teachers. The district started this school year with nearly 100 teacher vacancies.
To help fill that gap some districts turn to international teachers. MPS has more than 240 of them.
Chigozie says that international teachers can engage with students differently.
“The students who have come in contact with us have found a different perspective of life," he says. "(They) have also been able to have educators who are caring, who are genuinely interested in their progress. Who reach out to them. Who treat them like siblings. Who treat them like children.”
One couple's path to Milwaukee
Chigozie and Chioma are a prime example of opposites attract. Her default is a wide-toothed smile and a hearty laugh, while he is far more reserved. It’s easy to see how Chigozie's presence calms the students he works with.
The couple's journey to Milwaukee began back in 2022.
At the time, Chigozie was a lecturer at the University of Nigeria. He was finishing his PhD in political science, while Chioma was taking classes in education. The couple was about to get married.
Chioma first learned about Milwaukee’s teaching program from a friend who was also a teacher. She was immediately interested. We asked her what she knew about Milwaukee.
"Nothing, actually," she says, laughing. "I had a friend who was in Texas at that time and I reached out to him, I’m like 'What do you know about Milwaukee?' And he was like ‘Eh, it’s just like every other city.'"
Despite that less than stellar sales pitch, she excitedly filled out an application. Chioma was graduating with her bachelor’s degree in education, and she loved the idea of seeing the world.
Chigozie wasn’t quite so eager.
“I was working at the college in the University of Nigeria… I felt I had a comfortable life. I had a future. And then I was reluctant leaving Nigeria," he says.
Was moving to the U.S. worth giving up everything he’d worked for in Nigeria?
MPS paid for visa applications, travel expenses for international teachers
Ultimately, Chigozie's decision came down to his future wife. He felt he needed to trust Chioma and support her desire for adventure.
"She was interested in moving. And I had to go with her," he says.
Chioma chimes in: "I knew he was going to come with me. And I also knew along the line that he was a little bit shaky. But I knew he was going to come with me.”
At first, Chigozie applied for a spousal H4 visa that would have allowed him to accompany his wife to the U.S. and then apply for work authorization.
But as his wife began the H-1B process, Chigozie realized he could apply for that same visa and continue his passion for teaching in a new country.
H-1B is different because the employer is the one vouching for their workers, so there were no high-stakes, high pressure interviews with immigration officials. The entire process took 11 months.
“There was no kind of agency in between. It was just MPS, the attorney and us. So it was pretty easy and clear," Chioma says. "Submit your credentials, go through the interview ... You hear from the attorney and she walks you through the steps and how to start proceeding through the immigration status.”
So, how much did it cost the couple to come here?
"The petition was free. MPS handled everything," Chioma says. "And when we came here, MPS gave us some kind of relocation allowance.”
The legal and paperwork side of hiring foreign teachers can cost between $2,500 to $10,000. But if employers really need people — like MPS does — they’ll pay.
Had Milwaukee Public Schools not taken care of all of their costs, like travel, visa fees, and relocation expenses, Chigozie and Chioma say they wouldn't have been able to come to Milwaukee.
Culture shock: What's the difference between students in Milwaukee and Nigeria?
Chioma stepped foot in the U.S. for the first time just two weeks before the start of the spring semester in 2023. Five months later, her husband finished his PhD and moved to Milwaukee. He began teaching in the fall.
Chioma teaches math at James Madison Academic Campus. Chigozie teaches special education at Barack Obama School of Career and Technical Education.
Pretty quickly, both teachers realized that students in the U.S. behave very differently from students in Nigeria.
“The students back in Nigeria are more interested. More interested in learning activities in and out the school," Chioma says. "But here, I feel like there’s a lot going on with the kids. There’s a lot of distractions. They are willing to learn — some of them — but there’s just a lot of things going on.”
She's right. Students in Milwaukee face a lot of challenges. Both Chigozie and Chioma were placed at high-poverty, low performing schools where more than 85% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch. A lead paint remediation process has displaced students at several campuses to different schools while theirs were cleaned.
Chigozie was navigating an even bigger personal difference — he went from being a college lecturer to teaching high school kids.
“The students in Nigeria were more motivated and then the teacher in Nigeria would do more of the talking and conceptual understanding… more than what you do here. And I had to figure in my head how I fit into that space," he says. "The students here are more passive, where the students back home are more active. So that was what I needed to figure out how to go about it.”
To connect with their roots, Nigerian family turns to sewing and church community
The couple is learning a lot at home, too. Their daughter, Sochi, was born in April 2024. She’s a dual Nigerian and American citizen.
Sochi is shy around strangers and has the same smile as her mother. When we were at their house, Sochi was so interested in our microphones that we gave her an extra one to hold throughout the interview.
Chigozie and Chioma haven’t seen their extended family for three years. They’ve been busy with their jobs and with Sochi, and the rapid changes in immigration enforcement make them nervous to travel back home — or try to bring their families from Nigeria here.
That makes it all the more important that they connect with their past lives and introduce Sochi to her Nigerian heritage. At their house, Chioma has turned their basement into a sewing space.
Bright, patterned Ankara fabric is spread all throughout the clean basement floor, along with mismatching scraps and boxes of pins. Chioma orders the fabric from Nigeria to create beautiful folded dresses and head pieces. She’s even hand made garments for friends in Milwaukee.
In Nigeria, Chigozie was an active member of his church. When he came to Milwaukee, finding a Presbyterian church here was non-negotiable. They found their home at West Granville Presbyterian.
”We met a very, I’d say, an amazing pastor. He was so welcoming, he was caring," he says of Pastor Dee Anderson. "Once we met him for the first time, he records your name for next time and then made good effort and we felt that, and that was it. It wasn’t awkward, it was like a home."
Chigozie, Chioma and Sochi aren't the only African transplants in their church. West Granville helps settle new people coming to work in the U.S. So far, they have welcomed five families.
There, Chigozie and Chioma have a community that understands some of what they went through to leave their lives in Nigeria and establish new ones here.
Asked what he wishes people knew about the immigration process, Chigozie says, “They should understand that people who have come to this country have made a lot of sacrifice. People have left their former life and now they are here.”
$100K fee for new H-1Bs leave U.S. employers in a lurch
In September, the Trump administration overhauled the program that helped bring Chigozie and Chioma to Milwaukee. They attached a $100,000 fee to all new visa applications.
Trump said that the H-1B program has been “deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
The reality is that H1Bs are for skilled workers in jobs like tech, medicine and education.
As a result of this change, fewer people will make the journey to work in the U.S.
Chigozie says they have to depend on MPS for updates.
“Everything is in a state of flux. You never know what to expect," he says. "But overall the school, the MPS board has been quite supportive (in) trying to share information and reassure us.”
What's next?
If Chigozie and Chioma want to stay longer, they might be able to renew their visas once to add another three years. The new $100,000 fee doesn’t apply to renewals. They could also apply for green cards, which grant permanent residency.
But moving from an H-1B to a green card isn’t a seamless process. It can take more than two years.
And as they enter the final year of their three-year visas, they don’t agree about whether to stay here long-term.
Chigozie really misses his family and the life he had in Nigeria, and changes to the visa system and increased scrutiny of immigrants weigh on him.
“So for us, being on H-1B, it poses some challenges," he says. "What happens next? How long do you have? How do you plan your life? What do you look forward to?"
But Chioma says she’d stay here forever if MPS would have her. Her family is here, with her husband and daughter.
And her job is fulfilling, helping students fall in love with math like she did.
“We learn a lot. I do learn a lot from those kids. They are smart, even if they don’t think they are. But they are really, really really super intelligent. But they don’t just believe in themselves," Chioma says. "I love them. I love my kids.”
While they have a lot they’re grateful for, Chigozie and Chioma are facing the reality that their future is not fully in their hands.
Nevertheless, they continue to put down roots. And wait to see what the next seasons will bring.
