By 
Emmanuel Olawale
By Emmanuel Olawale
I remember when Deba Uwadiae started the New Americans magazine ten years ago. It began modestly, as a newsletter and a pamphlet, the kind of publication that survives only if the person behind it refuses to quit.
Deba did not quit. He courted advertisers one conversation at a time while working toward a press pass to cover the Ohio legislature and the governor’s office, and he kept showing up until the magazine had earned its place.
Even after it grew into a full hard-copy magazine, he never stepped back from the personal work that built it. He delivered copies to subscribers himself, and he stopped to talk for a few minutes at every door.
He’d come into my office, and we’d sit down to talk for sometimes fifteen or more minutes before heading to his next destination.
He was building a publication with a personal touch. He was building not just a magazine, but a community at the same time, and the people he visited knew the difference.
So, it was no surprise that at the 10th anniversary celebration, the room was packed past capacity, with people standing along the walls because every seat was taken.
The crowd was a picture of the community itself: community leaders and business owners, artists and teachers, students and guests, all proud to call themselves new Americans.
Mayor Andrew J. Ginther delivered the keynote to a room full of Central Ohio immigrant leaders and influential figures, and he spoke from his own story, acknowledging his family’s immigrant roots in Germany and his Cherokee heritage.
Columbus City Council President Shannon G. Hardin, who had once graced the magazine’s cover, closed the ceremony by speaking to the contributions new Americans have made to the growth of this city, and he presented the magazine’s awards to the honorees it had selected.
Congratulations to Deba and the New American magazine on ten years of telling this community’s story.
(Emmanuel Olawale is a trial lawyer at Olawale Law Firm, Columbus, Ohio)
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