Interview Citation: Interview with Terence Cooke, Immigration: New Places, New Faces, Same Culture, Hist 150 Spring 2025, Conducted by Oliver Tarr, March 2, 2025.
Overview to Interview:
The Liberian Civil War in the 1980s was a pivotal conflict that reshaped the country’s political and social landscape. It began with a coup in April 1980, led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe, who overthrew the long-standing Americo-Liberian elite government of President William Tolbert. Doe, an ethnic Krahn from the rural south, sought to end the political dominance of the Americo-Liberian settlers, but his regime quickly became marked by authoritarianism, corruption, and human rights abuses. Doe’s government faced growing opposition from various ethnic groups and political factions, notably the discontented Krahns, Mandingoes, and Gio ethnic groups. Tensions escalated in the late 1980s, when Charles Taylor, a former official in Doe’s government, launched an armed rebellion in 1989 under the banner of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). The war spread across the country as multiple armed factions, including ethnic militias, engaged in brutal fighting.
The conflict was marked by extreme violence, including massacres, forced conscriptions, and widespread human rights violations. Despite international peace efforts, the war devastated Liberia, leading to the eventual overthrow and death of Doe in 1990. The civil war would continue into the 1990s, causing immense suffering and displacing hundreds of thousands of Liberians. Terence Cooke was a just a child while all this was happening in his hometown, the capital, Monrovia. In this interview he talks about having to move back and forth from the US due to the repeated escalations in the civil war. To keep their children safe, they decided to move to the US whenever it was too dangerous for them to stay in Monrovia. He provides a first-hand experience which helps us better understand immigration and hopefully end prejudice towards immigrants in the US and everywhere.
Biography:
He was born in September 1969 in the US. He was the oldest of 4 children and he moved around nonstop throughout his childhood until he went to boarding school (high school 1983-86). When his family would move, they went back and forth from Liberia to different big eastern cities. He lived outside of Chicago, New York, and in a small town in Michigan in the US. After going through the US education system through middle school, he decided it would be best for his future to attend boarding school at Phillips Academy-Andover in Massachusetts. He would then further his education at the University of Virginia and study law at Fordham University. This would lead him to his job as lawyer at the Blank Rome law firm where he’s been working ever since.
Transcript:
OT: All right. So, what’s the earliest memory you have of living in the US?
TERENCE COOKE: Well, I think to answer that question first, you probably need context for it. So, I don’t know how much you remember. You should know this by now, but so I was my family’s Liberian. My mom and dad are Liberian citizens and nationals, or at least they were originally. My mom naturalized, so she’s now a US citizen. They came over to the US for school. So, my both went to the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana. My dad to get his PhD in economics. My mom got a master’s at that time. I think it was in education, and that’s where I was born. And I don’t know if you remember, but I was born a twin, so I was my twin brother and I were born in Champaign. We lived in Champaign. I’m not really sure, I think until, I don’t know, until sometime, I think I did kindergarten back in Liberia, and then we came to the US. My dad worked at the United Nations. So, for first grade and second grade, I was in in Westchester County in Mount Vernon. Lived in Mount Vernon and then went back to Liberia for third grade through eighth grade. Except for sixth grade, there was a coup in Liberia. And I don’t know if you know what a coup is, but basically, the president at the time was killed and the military took over. So, for that sixth my sixth-grade year, my mom and sister, the family my mom’s sister, brother, B. So, A (sister), B (Brother), myself, with my mom, came to the US. A and mom lived in Baltimore for that year, and B and I lived with a missionary family that we knew in Michigan, across Lake Michigan from Chicago, a small town called Stevensville. And so, after that school year, we went back to Liberia, and for seventh and eighth grade, I, you know, finished the school that I had been attending in Liberia was which was a small sort of missionary school that taught in English, etc. And then ninth grade through 12th grade, I went to boarding school at Phillips Academy in Andover Massachusetts, and then stayed through college, went to University of Virginia, ultimately moved to New York, worked for a while, but then started law school at Florida. My so I don’t you know my memories, my first memories of the US, unfortunately, probably related to sort of bad incidents, because that’s what I sort of remember most. So I remember first grade I went to the public the local public school in Mount Vernon, and I had I struggled because my teacher, maybe because I was African American, or whatever sort of prejudice she had, like, didn’t grade me well, and So I had average grades, even though I did well and knew the material, so there was a constant struggle with grading. So, as a result, my parents put me in a Lutheran, a school called the Emmanuel Lutheran for second grade, where I didn’t have to deal with that, and so that’s where I went to second grade. I remember in sixth grade being in Michigan, and, you know, coming over and all these, you know, people were like, Oh, you’re from Africa. Like, what happens over there? Do you guys swing from trees, you know? Like, you know, this sort of Tarzan mythology that ignorant people sort of had, there was their impression of Africa. So, I remember that. I remember, I remember being with my mom in Baltimore, and she was living in an apartment complex, and I remember her neighbor. Were below her, like calling me the N word when I was out in the hallway. Those are my, really, my first memories of the US, unfortunately.
OT: Okay, and you mentioned being in multiple different schools. Were there any like different ways of learning here in the US, or even in each different school that you were in, compared to when you were in the Liberian school?
TERENCE COOKE: Somewhat to the school that again, so first grade and second grade. I was in US schools. I was in public school in Mount Vernon, and then I was at Emmanuel Lutheran. I don’t think, you know, outside of the difficulty with my teacher in public school sort of treating me differently, I don’t think it would be any different, you know, educationally than other people would have had in in a US school, the school that I went to in Liberia. So, we, and I don’t know how much you know of this, right? So, Grandma and my dad were separately. Both raised well, had a lot of exposure my mom was raised, but my dad sort of had a lot of exposure to missionaries. So, when they were born in like, the late 40s in Liberia, both of them came from they didn’t grow up in the big city in Monrovia, named after James Monroe, is the capital of Liberia. And so, they didn’t grow up in Monrovia. They grew up in my mom in a place called Nimba County, my dad in a place called Grand Basset County, but in the interior of Liberia, where, you know, English wasn’t their first language. And they, you know, so at the end of the day, they learned from missionary. They learned English from the missionaries who, you know, sort of came to Liberia, to Monrovia, and then went out into the countryside to teach the gospel to residents. And so, both of them sort of benefited from that, my mom more so than my dad. And ultimately, they went to college in Liberia, different colleges, but they went to college in Liberia, um I’m not even sure where I was going with this story. I sort of forgotten. But what was the question again?
OT: Differences in education over there?
TERENCE COOKE: Yeah, so, so my third grade through eighth grade, again, with the exception of the year I was in Michigan, in public school, middle school, I was taught by missionaries, so classroom settings were really small. I probably had I’m trying to remember, I think my senior class in eighth grade, when we graduated from middle school, probably had like six or seven kids, so it was tiny, and learning the Bible was part of my daily sort of curriculum. But other than that, we learned, yeah, I was taught us stuff. So as opposed to being in a Liberian school where I would have learned Liberian history, I was learning, you know, us, history and the like, from third grade through eighth grade. So, it was similar to, you know, your time here in third through eighth grade, except for that there was a biblical or, you know, sort of, you know, the religion overlay to all of that.
OT: So, were there any/what were the reactions of like people whenever you told them in the US that you were from Africa or Liberia, and then what were the reactions from people in my in the Liberian missionary school, when you told them, Oh, I was in the US the year prior, or, yeah.
TERENCE COOKE: I mean, I don’t think you know, Liberians were very familiar with the US. So, Liberia was settled by freed American slaves. As I said, the capital is named after, you know, the US president, James Monroe at the time. So, it was resettled by Liberia. Was resettled by freed American slaves. There are a lot of indigenous people, and then they were the American Liberians. And the reason for the coup was that, ultimately, sort of like the US there was, there wasn’t representation of the indigenous. People the same way. You know, Americans rose up against the British because they didn’t have proper representation. Same in Liberia. And so, the coup was a product of 120 years of American the resettled slaves, sort of taking control of resources and all sorts of stuff, and to the detriment of the indigenous people there. So that was the reason for the conflict. And your your question, your question again, was, why…
OT: The reactions of students.
TERENCE COOKE: Right, so I, you know, so Liberia was very much American, unlike the countries around so most of Africa, a lot of Africa, in terms of the colonial era, was settled by the British or the French, and then certain countries by the Portuguese. And so, the countries around Liberia were either French colonies or British colonies, and Liberia had a unique history with its tie to the slaves, and so the freed slaves, and so it was very American. America used Liberia as a base to broadcast, you know, democracy themes through the rest of Africa. So, you know, we got American movies, you know, all sorts of stuff. It was American culturally. So I would say to you that the only reaction that Liberians had were either one where there were other sort of kids my age that were familiar with the US because they traveled to the US as frequently and had family, you know, any service members, any you know, they were Americans, or, you know, sort of American adjacent and or they were indigenous Liberians that, you know, recognize the privilege that I was afforded. And so maybe they would have been like, oh, how was the US, or what have you, because they weren’t able to afford the travel. But they very much knew about America. Contrast that with Americans knew nothing about Liberians and typically, which is a pet peeve, Americans would refer to, they just refer to Africa. It didn’t matter whether you’re from North Africa, West Africa, which is where Liberia is, or South Africa, they assumed all of Africa was the same. And so there just wasn’t a lot of exposure to the difference in African countries Liberia, specifically over time there were because, you know, there are certain people you run into that have more familiarity, but for the most part, the reaction was like, Oh, you’re from Africa. And again, it was sort of that like, oh, you’re from the jungle, you know, and from old movies, you know, with Tarzan. That’s what the impression was, yeah.
OT: Like, kind of like you go out and you go ride a lion to go find your
TERENCE COOKE: Yeah, they’re, yeah. You’re dealing with the animals like that out in the wild. Barely have clothes on, maybe shoes, you know, yeah.
OT: And then you mentioned the coup going on in sixth grade, so you had to come back, where, where, what town did you guys live in, in Liberia, that you guys had to go back to the US, like, how relatively close was it to?
TERENCE COOKE: Well? So, I yeah, all of my schooling, all of my time in Liberia was in Monrovia was in the capital. And so, yeah, and so that’s where, you know, the President was, that got killed. That’s where the troops were that were taking over all of that was around me in Monrovia.
OT: Okay, so you’re very much in the line of fire
TERENCE COOKE: Yeah. Um, yeah. You know, it’s probably a story for another time. But so, my dad came over to study at the University of Illinois, because he was basically given a grant. So, the Liberian government would send kids over to study in the US, you know, to get their graduate degrees or whatever, and then they would go back to Liberia and work in government. And so that’s why my dad didn’t so my dad worked, after he got his PhD, he worked in Liberia. And what would be the Treasury, the Department of Treasury here, it was called the finance ministry back there. Um. Yeah, so.
OT: And then, what was it like moving around so often? Like, was there any physical exhaustion or mental exhaustion from going back and forth between two different countries or even states when you are in the US?
TERENCE COOKE: No, I mean, I think that’s all personality driven, like you and [your mom] would have a hard time moving back and forth because you’re, you know, maybe not as outgoing. But for me, it was just, you know, I don’t know. I didn’t, I didn’t struggle with that. I met people new, people everywhere, and to me, that’s, that’s sort of how I’ve always gotten along. So, one of the things I do frequently, you know, like you’re, when we moved to from New York to, you know, Pennsylvania as an example, right? You have to go out and meet people, and it’s a lot of it was around your sporting events and other things that we did in the community. But what I’ve found is that having lived in so many different places, with so many different experiences, I have a lot of experiences and exposure. I, you know, even older, I travel. I’ve traveled a lot through the US, etc., and so I’ve always been able to relate to people by knowing, you know, I frequently ask, like, oh, where’d you grow up? And like, where specifically and so relate to people. Because, you know, having lived in the Midwest or traveled out west or whatever, I can find some commonality. And usually when you find that commonality with people, it’s easier to, you know, you can find whatever it is that you get along on and, you know, so that’s, that’s, I developed an ability to relate to people and make friends easily, okay?
OT: And then, after the primary education, you said you went to boarding school at Andover, yeah. What made you? What made you decide to go to boarding school, specifically at Andover, but also just in the US?
TERENCE COOKE: Yeah, so Liberian schools didn’t offer that level of education, I always tested really well, and so I was ahead of grade level by several grades. And so, you know, I remember back in like seventh grade, if you remember Aunt and her husband, Unc. Unc was an American that came over Liberia, and he taught math in Liberia for a number of years, which is where he met and faith and they got married, etc. But he was a math professor, and so I remember taking, like, SAT test that he gave me, and scoring really high even as a seventh grader. And then there were sort of school entrance exams for the Liberian schools, and I was testing way out of those, so like above even 12th grade level in like seventh grade. And so the challenge for me was to find a school where, you know, it’s in a lot of ways, it’s no different than you know, you or [H] being identified for, and I forget what the letters are, but you know, for what is it? He in middle school, like he [H] had Mr. Nelms for it.
OT: Oh, I know you’re talking about, like the academically advanced
TERENCE COOKE: That, yeah. So, yeah, yeah. And so, the challenge with the gifted program, right? Or the equivalent is that you’re always searching for how to challenge kids and whatever they do well, and not everyone does well across the board. It might be math; it might be something other. And so early on, my dad having exposure to people in the US in particular, I always knew that for high school I would head to the US, I would head to, you know, one of those elite boarding schools that, you know, that smart kids went to. So, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t travel to school. So, look at it. I mean, you know, part of the reason we took you around and look at colleges before you ended up at JMU was to acquaint you with those things big you know, city schools, not city schools, schools out west, schools in North Carolina, schools, Middlebury, Vermont, that type of stuff. And I didn’t have the benefit of that. So, all I had were. Were schools that we knew to be, quote, unquote good schools based on, you know, sort of business contacts that my dad had in the US. And so, I applied to a bunch of elite schools. I didn’t really appreciate how elite they were, and I ended up at Andover. So, and all I saw were brochures pictures. Knew no one, although my dad had one of his business acquaintances, had a son at Andover. So for that reason, it stuck out, and that’s really how I ended up at Andover, because I didn’t have any basis to distinguish it from Exeter or from Groton, or from any of the schools I didn’t apply to, Hotchkiss, but any of the schools that I applied to, I I, I didn’t have any idea what the differences were.
Research:
The article “1900 to 1997” on the Library of Congress website outlines noteworthy events in Liberia’s history during the 20th century. Key moments include Liberia’s involvement in international agreements like the League of Nations, the extension of voting rights to indigenous peoples, and political upheavals such as the military coup in 1980 led by Samuel K. Doe, which ended the nation’s first republic. The period also saw a devastating civil war, with various factions vying for control, and ended with the election of Charles Taylor as president in 1997, marking the beginning of Liberia’s third republic. The source is reliable because it’s the government’s library website.
The article “Why Your Child Should Attend Boarding School” discusses the advantages of sending children to boarding schools, such as fostering independence, discipline, and strong academic and extracurricular opportunities. It highlights how boarding schools offer a structured environment that encourages students to take responsibility for their learning and personal development. Additionally, it emphasizes the powerful sense of community and lifelong connections students form in these settings. This is a reliable source because Forbes has a good reputation for factual content, and the text is up to date and on topic. It also tends to speak to elites, so it’s also important to note that there is a small sense of social class bias.
The Liberia Immigration Service (LIS) outlines the process for naturalization in Liberia. Applicants must submit a variety of documents, including a letter of application, a resident permit, a passport, or other travel documents, and four letters of recommendation from prominent Liberians. Additionally, they must provide police clearance, a marriage certificate if applicable, a health certificate, and an autobiography. This process is designed to ensure that individuals meet the necessary legal and personal criteria to become naturalized citizens of Liberia. This a reliable source of information because it’s straight from the Liberian government and it helps me understand more about being Liberian. This article is important to understanding how easy it is to be a Liberian citizen. It can also help shed insight into why his parents were more concerned about the interviewee being an American citizen than being born in Liberia and being a Liberian citizen.
Bibliography:
Naturalization. Liberia Immigration Service | Liberia. (n.d.). https://lis.gov.lr/naturalization
Pros, N. (2021, June 30). Why your child should attend boarding school. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/noodleeducation/2017/04/12/why-your-child-should-attend-boarding-school/
1900 to 1997: History of Liberia: A timeline: Articles and essays: Maps of Liberia, 1830-1870: Digital Collections: Library of Congress. The Library of Congress. (n.d.). https://www.loc.gov/collections/maps-of-liberia-1830-to-1870/articles-and-essays/history-of-liberia/1900-to-1997/
Featured Photo:
I chose two pictures that I took in New York, because that was a place that’s relevant to the interviewee’s story/life. The first is a photo of Manhattan (one of interviewee’s hometowns), the other is of Fordham (the interviewee’s law school).
Interview and Technology Process:
I set up the interview through a personal zoom meeting link that I texted the interviewee. I felt as though it went really smoothly and was easy to access the audio and video files.
Transcription Process:
I thought the transcription process was relatively easy because my interviewee explained a lot of the back story to his stories. Therefore, I didn’t need to add any extra information for things to make sense. The only changes I really had to make was changing the names in the story to just the first letter of their name or just “Aunt” or “Unc”.