Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1995 I have many ‘Southern’ tendencies. I like my tea sweet, my sauce hot, and am prone to use ‘y’all’ instead of you all.
My Southern tendencies go back to my grandparents. My grandparents went from growing up in Utica, Mississippi in the 1930s and 40s to owning three storefronts (a barber shop, a liquor store, and a diner) in South side Chicago from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Having never lost their sense of Southern hospitality my grandparents, especially my grandmother, always put others before themselves. All the summers I can remember from my childhood were spent running around the back of the stores, helping count money, and going on road trips with my grandparents and cousins.
I am the product of a family working hard to give endless opportunities and make the lives of their loved ones easier. Business has always been a way to both help others and support our family. Putting my energy into helping others, and not worrying so much about myself, has been something my family has taught me through their words and their actions. With this background the idea that businesses can be a way to help others, yourself, and serve as a sense of pride is natural and obvious to me.
I want to continue to help others the way my family, but on a larger scale. This is not because I want recognition or I have guilt, but because I have the ability to. If I have the skills to help others, and the stability and privilege to do so why wouldn’t I? This Global Social Benefit Fellowship allows me to further explore what it means to help others on a global scale. Being born into a family who taught me to help others is not the only thing that led me to where I am today–it was the little moments along the way that directed my path.
The earliest defining moments in my path that I can remember was when I was about 10 years old. For Father’s Day I planned a whole day for my family. I got on the computer found some pretty fonts, colors, and clip art and wrote a schedule. I printed it out and handed it out on Father’s Day at breakfast. No one, including me, can remember what was on the schedule, but I still remember taking it very seriously. (In hindsight that made no sense, because my Dad is a go with the flow kind of person, and not one to stick to a schedule despite his best efforts)
At the age of 10 I didn’t realize that my planning of Father’s Day was a skill that would shape my high school and college careers. That skill grew and led me to becoming a class officer in high school. I planned dances, spirit weeks, Prom, and other school-wide events. In college, my planning and organizational skills continued to grow and expand while helping with the promotion of an open mic night and joining the staff of the Multicultural Center (MCC) my sophomore year. As a staff member of the MCC I participated in the planning of a street fair, coordinating and promoting for an end of the year awards night, photographing and participating in community dinners, and coordinating other events pertaining to inclusivity and diversity at SCU. It was through this position that I began to understand the world from a global context having attending culture shows and events for the Filipino Student Union (Barkada), Pan-African Student Union (Igwebuike), the Asian-Pacific Student Union, and many others.
Through all of those activities and personal reflection I noticed I had a talent at quickly connecting with people. This developing talent led me to fully realize another passion. I quickly got involved in social justice activities on campus as a freshman, because of the people I connected with and stories we exchanged. This ultimately led me to speaking at a Justice Matters rally on campus in response to police brutality in the United States. It was that moment that solidified my desire to use my talents and skills for empowering marginalized people who feel as if they don’t have a voice in social and environmental justice issues.
My passion for social justice in my opinion is the flower that bloomed as a result of the seeds planted in my childhood. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, I moved to New Jersey at the age of 3, moved back to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 7, moved to Bellevue, Washington at the age of 12, and came to Santa Clara, California for college at the age of 17. To add to my diverse regional influences my mother and biological father are from Chicago, Illinois, with roots in Mississippi and Louisiana respectively, and my dad (technically stepdad, but I’ve never used the word step) is from Manhattan, New York. Each new city or state influence brought new foods, new people, and new cultures. I appreciated, respected, and loved the new cultures and the nuances that came with each move and growing up (and honestly still now) don’t know how others don’t feel the same. Therefore, in my social justice work on campus I have attempted to foster the same appreciation and respect that my upbringing planted in me.
Moving around also helped shine light on a passion that I don’t think I would ever learned about in Atlanta or New Jersey. Moving to Bellevue, Washington exposed me to hiking and exploring nature. I grew not only to love my “city in a park,” but to also understand the social and economic benefits that came along with it. The more I came to understand those benefits the clearer it became that the benefits and risks from dealing with the environment were not received equally in different communities. A trip to the landfill in 11th grade added fire to this flame because the landfill we visited was located in a predominantly minority and low income area.
A year later while applying to college I only applied to colleges with an environment related major, because I wanted a better understanding of how people can better interact with the environment in an equitable way. Ultimately it was the recognition of a passion for sustainability and environmental justice this had a greater impact on my path, because it was my Environmental Studies adviser, Chris Bacon, that recommended that I look into the Global Social Benefit Fellowship my freshman year. Previous to this recommendation I didn’t know that the concepts of sustainable development that I was learning in my classes and the social justice activities I was doing outside of class could be combined in such a powerful way.
With the Global Social Benefit Fellowship in the back of my head I studied abroad in Barcelona, Spain for four months in the Fall of 2015. As quickly as I arrived I realized that American views and practices are just that—American. What I may have thought of as offensive, normal, or inappropriate were the exact opposite or didn’t even exist in Barcelona. As I traveled to Morocco and Italy that concept proved even truer. It was in Ouarzazate, Morocco after talking to locals that something finally clicked. I realized that I cannot help other voiceless and marginalized people, but rather I can help them help themselves. It was this realization that truly pushed me to apply for the Global Social Benefit Fellowship, because the focus is on how I can facilitate existing measures coming from within a community and not on imposing my own measures.
I can be a tool, a helper, a resource, a guide, but not the primary problem solver. It is with the support of my family and friends, a strong organizational, yet adaptable sense of self do I plan to go to Bana, my assigned social enterprise, to be resource for their success. Providing Bana with a set of eyes, ears, and hands that can take lessons taught in classes over topics such as strategic communication, sustainable development, marketing, and more that they can use to their advantage. Just as I will be resource to Bana, they will also be a resource to me. There are somethings that I know I will learn and other that I will only discover in the field. Regardless, with my Southern tendencies, strong sense of family, a why not attitude I am excited to see what kinds of seeds these next 9 months will plant in my vocational journey.