When Byan Alajlouni came with her family to Lafayette, Indiana, from her home country of Jordan, she faced a Catch-22 challenge typical of many highly-educated individuals from other countries: she was able to work, but her lack of work experience in the United States made it difficult for her to get a job.
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Paige Davis had always promised her mother-in-law that she would follow her dreams. The Lafayette native, 24, had worked as a home health aide and really wanted to become a certified nursing assistant (CNA).
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"I made an abrupt decision on June 4, 2014 that left Indiana State Troopers in a state of befuddlement when they realized that I fled from them because I didn’t have a license”--so states Chicago-born LeWayne Patterson, 27, in an essay he wrote after he became a student in the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy (LARA) program at the Tippecanoe County Jail in Lafayette, Indiana.
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