Wellesley Ambassador Update

Feb 25

The Caribbean cultural show was last weekend and we had what I would esti tmao be 75 to 100 students in attendance as well as soe faculty members. I was asked by one of the organizers of the event to give a short presentation about The HistoryMakers. I created a short video about my ambassadorship, what the archive is and also agave a step by step tutorial on how we can access the archive here on campus.

On Sunday, we had a 60 minutes watch party in one of the residence halls in order watch and celebrate the segment on The HistoryMakers. We were able to put it up on the big TV and allow for engagement with the history and origin story of The HistoryMakers. After the episode, we debriefed and my friends explained that they had a greater understanding of what The HistoryMakers is, how it began, and its importance. Some friends mentioned having chills or getting emotional.

In my Women’s and Gender Studies class about LGBTQ+ Lives on Screen, we began a spontaneous conversation about archives and my professor asked if any of us had experience working within archives. I began a short presentation to my class about The HistoryMakers, our focus on the oral tradition and the preservation of Black histories. Additionally, I am beginning to search the archives for stories of Queen Nzinga in order to prepare clips for a meeting with my former professor who teaches a class cross-listed in the Africana studies department called "the “Portuguese Speaking World.” I also met with an international student to help begin the process of searching to find concepts of home for her in the archives for the digital archive contest.

Ms. Richardson comes to Wellesley this week to give the MLK keynote address so that is a big event upcoming! Professor Fitzpatrick created posters for the event that have begun circulating and I have begun telling friends.

Izzy Torkornoo

Isabel (Izzy) Torkornoo (she/her/hers) from New York CIty, is a first-generation Ghanaian-American young woman who currently attends Wellesley College. At Wellesley, Izzy has continued her passion for global Black studies by majoring in Africana Studies. Her courses have created an expansive understanding of the vastness and incredible diversity of the African Diaspora across the world. She has also furthered her interests in education through becoming an Education minor and has aspirations to increase the presence and centrality of global Black studies in K-12 curricula. With a love for the spoken word and her own family’s oral traditions, Izzy brings a level of deep intentionality to the work of The HistoryMakers. Izzy is a rising senior at Wellesley and will graduate in the Spring of 2023.

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