Hi! I'm Jomaira.
If you look around this page you'll see a couple of things that really matter to me. First up is my little sister, Paola. We lost our mom at a young age and we try to fill in that void for each other. We are both very invested in social justice and in trying to make the world a better place for those of us that have been dealt bad hands. While my focus is in decolonizing higher education, my sister studies disparities in health among communities of color. We both learned to love learning from our mom.
My path has been an unlikely one. I grew up the child of poor, Dominican immigrants. Every statistic said I was likely to fail. But being in girl/women-centered spaces changed that for me. In middle school and high school, I was part of an after-school program called Girls Inc. where I taught my peers about safe sex. My work there resulted in me earning a full-tuition scholarship to Bryn Mawr College from the Posse Foundation. The cool thing about Posse is that it not only gave me money for college, but it sent me there with 9 other young women and connected us to mentors and other support systems.
Those experiences have shaped who I am today and why I do what I do. I want to help other women of color have positive experiences in higher education by pointing to the ways in which the system needs to transform. I am tired of asking our girls to assimilate, it's time the institutions learn to love us for who we are.
I identify as an immigrant, Afro-latina, that means that I see race in everything that I do. My research other interests include: how afro-latinx identity as Black, the role of women-centered spaces in girls experiences in schools, and Black feminism
If you look around this page you'll see a couple of things that really matter to me. First up is my little sister, Paola. We lost our mom at a young age and we try to fill in that void for each other. We are both very invested in social justice and in trying to make the world a better place for those of us that have been dealt bad hands. While my focus is in decolonizing higher education, my sister studies disparities in health among communities of color. We both learned to love learning from our mom.
My path has been an unlikely one. I grew up the child of poor, Dominican immigrants. Every statistic said I was likely to fail. But being in girl/women-centered spaces changed that for me. In middle school and high school, I was part of an after-school program called Girls Inc. where I taught my peers about safe sex. My work there resulted in me earning a full-tuition scholarship to Bryn Mawr College from the Posse Foundation. The cool thing about Posse is that it not only gave me money for college, but it sent me there with 9 other young women and connected us to mentors and other support systems.
Those experiences have shaped who I am today and why I do what I do. I want to help other women of color have positive experiences in higher education by pointing to the ways in which the system needs to transform. I am tired of asking our girls to assimilate, it's time the institutions learn to love us for who we are.
I identify as an immigrant, Afro-latina, that means that I see race in everything that I do. My research other interests include: how afro-latinx identity as Black, the role of women-centered spaces in girls experiences in schools, and Black feminism
Click here for my feminist icons playlist:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRif2QsXrLJmGWA8xTQJ328SDnOT8pxcs
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRif2QsXrLJmGWA8xTQJ328SDnOT8pxcs
"Those of us who believe in freedom cannot rest." |
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