Imanuel was born in 1975 in Rwanda. He worked as a mechanic in Kigali, Rwanda for 4 years. He came to the United States with his wife in December 2002. His native language is Kinyarwanda (also known as Rwandan, a language in the Niger-Congo language family). He also speaks French, the language used in schools in Rwanda and the language used in his in-home interviews with us. He has 12 years of education which include 4 years of technical school to train as an auto mechanic.

Imanuel had two main reasons for immigrating: to find safety and also to be close to his siblings already in the United States.