BY JAY BODAS
Staff Writer
JAY BODAS Metuchen YMCA volunteer Mialeeka Williams takes a call while helping out at the front desk on Wednesday nights. METUCHEN — Mialeeka Williams was once a Los Angeles County gang member who switched sides to become a New Jersey attorney.
“One of my cousins was murdered when she was 25, so I honestly never believed I would live past that age,” she said.
She did. Now 28, Williams, a Staten Island, N.Y., resident, can be found at the front desk of the Metuchen YMCA every Wednesday night where she volunteers. She works as a patent lawyer for a New Jersey firm and is a single mother of a 5-year-old girl.
Life was not always so easy. She learned to count while making change for her father’s drug deals. She grew up in Compton, Calif., a town rife with gangs.
“Compton in the ’80s was like a war zone,” she said.
Even a simple thing, like going to an open concert, was out.
“Going to one would scare the heck out of me because I knew at some point a gunfight would start,” Williams said. “And whenever I went to the beach, if I ever saw guys in trench coats start to walk toward us, I knew that was the signal to run because a shooting was about to start.”
Even her own home wasn’t safe.
“Once when I was in my grandmother’s living room, a bullet went right through the window and into the wall next to me,” she said.
The young girl began to hang out with a group of friends that slowly evolved into a gang.
“When I was in a gang, I did not think of it as [being] in a gang; rather it was more about being loyal to my group of friends. The next thing you know it becomes a gang.”
But her mother, Carol Bibbs-Wortham, saw it for what it was. She steered her daughter away from the streets and toward education.
“When we were in Compton, things were getting really bad,” said Bibbs-Wortham, who raised her daughter alone. “I kept her busy and active doing anything I could. Even though we were surrounded by the gang element, I would always ask Mialeeka what college she was planning on going to. From the time she was small, we would talk about what she needed to do to succeed in this world.”
Her father was a drug addict who smoked crack during her childhood years.
“He is still alive and he is trying to get his life back together now, but he spent more than 30 years as a drug addict,” Williams said.
Williams’ drive to succeed was also fueled by those who told her she could not.
“Once when I told my chemical engineering professor that I would go to law school at nights, he said that was an ‘admirable’ goal, as if I couldn’t do it,” she said. “My high school guidance counselor said the same thing when I told her I wanted to be valedictorian.”
Williams graduated high school first in her class and was also the first in her family to go to college. She graduated from Howard University with a degree in chemical engineering.
She has entrepreneurial ambitions but has remained community-service-minded.
“In addition to working as a patent attorney, I started a small firm on the side and converted it to a nonprofit,” she said. “I charge a nominal fee to help people who have been given bad legal advice on intellectual property law. I would love to run my own company one day, and so I may have to go back to get an MBA.”
And she has advice for parents and for those who are now growing up in a similar environment.
“Growing up, I had an issue with self-esteem, and I used to always doubt myself because I thought my father chose drugs over me,” she said. “But I think people should know that their parents’ choices often have nothing to do with them and that anyone in a similar situation should know that they are worthy people, and that they are beautiful people.”
She graduated from Howard University as a chemical engineer and from George Washington University law school.
But the streets of Compton will always be with her.
“Just like anyone who has been through trauma, it is still always in the back of my mind,” she said.
And sometimes there are sad reminders of the life she escaped.
“For example, at one point I found out that my first boyfriend had been murdered,” Williams said. “Some of my former friends have since been killed. Of the ones that are successful, they had strong parents and teachers.”
Being a single mother is not easy, but Williams is grateful for the help she has received from others.
“I’m happy I did not lead a sheltered life in the sense that my daughter will never be able to pull a fast one on me,” she joked.
She considers herself an honorary Metuchen resident and enjoys her volunteer work at the Y.
“I live in Staten Island,” she said. “I was originally trying to find a house here, but did not have enough time to settle on one. If I were to move down to New Jersey, it would either be to the Shore because I love the water or to Metuchen because it is almost storybook, like a Norman Rockwell painting.”