NEWARK, NJ — Angel Plaza wasn’t asking for a handout. He wasn’t pleading for a donation. And he had no intention of starting a GoFundMe.
All he wanted was a chance.
Dressed for success and holding a sign that read “Engineering Student Looking For A Job,” Plaza – a junior at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark – hit the streets in his search for employment. He picked a spot near exit 14 on I-280… right on MLK Boulevard. And for hours, he handed out his resume to anyone who passed by, skipping meals and bathroom breaks in the hopes he’d make a connection that would lead to a career.
A heartfelt social media post accompanied his effort:
“As a first-generation and millennial college student, I’ve inherited the harsh challenges of financing my education. Unfortunately, even with scholarships, grants, and even loans it doesn’t cover everything. Confronted with this challenge I’ve been secretly teaching myself in-demand skills such as coding in hopes of obtaining a job in tech, so I will be able to continue to self-fund my education and hopefully graduate.”
Plaza had tried to get a job the traditional way. But after an internship with Panasonic ended and his new gig let him go after a month, he was forced to start taking classes at night and look for work during the day, NJ.com reported.
Finally, facing eviction and with no money coming in, Plaza hit a wall.
“Like any other struggling college student, I got bills to pay,” Plaza later wrote on Instagram. “It’s unfortunate, but times are really rough some times. And when times get rough, you have to either step up or step down.”
“I decided to step up,” he added.
Now – several months later – the industrious student’s efforts have paid off.
Last week, Plaza, who lived in Montclair before moving to the Brick City, reported that he’s scored a job with the City of Newark’s Office of Information Technology. The fortuitous match was partly due to a social media post he created about his day of job hunting on I-280, he said.
“Thankfully, my post went viral, and with some luck and the support of my friends, my message reached the ears of [Newark Mayor Ras Baraka],” Plaza recalled. “From there, my life changed twinfold and would turn the gears into me landing a job.”
While Plaza’s eye-catching effort ended up successfully, he pointed out that others in his community are still struggling to find work.
“It’s a bit of irony that I started work at OIT the same week of Juneteenth,” he stated last week. “The ancestors and almighty energy in the universe definitely did something there.”
Plaza wrote:
“In this life, nothing is guaranteed, and as a person of color I know [this] to be true. When it comes to opportunity for us, we have to fight for it. We have to do something extraordinary for us just to prove our worth when our hands have literally built this country. And now, you tell me that I have to prove myself again!? Even till today we are still fighting for social and economic freedom. Even till today we are still fighting/building generational wealth for ourselves and our families. The fight is never over till we are not only equal, but given our fair share of due payment that we are owed. Maybe it'll happen, maybe not. But what I'm most grateful for is the network of friends and family who love me, who appreciate me, and who supported me in my job hunt. I’m forever grateful.”
Below: Plaza speaks in 2017 about his candidacy for presidency of the NJIT NSBE.
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