by Joseph Gerth, Louisville Courier Journal

Sometimes there are things about this country that seem hopeless.

Divisions that pit ‘us versus them’ — in all things from race, to ethnicity, to religion, to politics — seem to be tearing at us now like never before.

And then comes along someone like Adonisi Emmanuel to remind us about ourselves and our country — his country — and the good things about it.

 “America is really like heaven,” Emmanuel told me one recent, balmy summer night.

In a couple of weeks, the 19-year-old will become a United States citizen and he’ll have a future ahead of him like he never had in his home country of Burundi, a tiny impoverished nation in Eastern Africa.

He came to Louisville in 2008 with his mother and sister when he was 9 years old. Read more>