Q: Tell me a little about yourself.
A: I am from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have a sister who is 19 — she’s a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My mom works for the Milwaukee public school district; she’s a parent information specialist. And my father works for Ford Motor Credit Company. He’s worked there ever since I was little. He’s the dealer account manager there. We were raised in a very Christian household, very strict — I guess not as strict as it could have been, but strict enough. And those values and beliefs and faith I still carry on today. We were a very close-knit family. Up until high school, every Friday was family night, so it’d either be a game and takeout, or we’d go out to a movie, or out to eat. And my dad had a hard time when that finally fizzled out in high school and wasn’t cool anymore. I love my dad and my mom and my sister. She’s definitely my best friend.

Q: So how did you end up at Vassar?
A: I came to Vassar because it was not in Wisconsin. Vassar courted me a little bit. I knew about Vassar, had heard of Vassar. By the time I was a second-semester junior in high school, I was looking at small liberal arts colleges — Macalester, Illinois Wesleyan. In the Midwest those are the big liberal arts colleges. I never really thought about the East Coast that much because I didn’t think it’d be feasible. So long story short, my mom strongly encouraged me in her very special way to apply to Vassar, despite the finances, despite the fact that it was in New York. And I did. Then I got in, and I was excited, but I didn’t think that we would have the money for it. So I was excited and thought that it would be one of those ego boosters, that I got into Vassar, but I wouldn’t really go. And I had actually applied and gotten into the School of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and had picked my roommate and put in my deposit already. And then, I got the financial aid package about a week before Vassar’s Focus Weekend, and then they invited me to Focus. So me and my mom, my sister, my dad, and my grandmother….all drove to Poughkeepsie, and I did the Focus Weekend. And actually I didn’t have that great a time, but in spite of that, I thought, this is the place I definitely want to be. So I decided to come here. I was at Vassar, in New York, and not in Wisconsin, away from my family…..

Q: Were you homesick?
A: It was a little bit easier because I have an aunt in Manhattan, and that first year I did spend a lot of time there, because I didn’t go home for October break or Thanksgiving because it’s just too short a time and too expensive. My dad suggested that I take the bus, and I was like, Daddy, that’s ridiculous. So I spent a lot of time in the City, and then I went home for Christmas and summer that year. And then, as the years have gone by, I’ve spent less time in the City and less time at home. I typically just stay on the East Coast for breaks. I guess, like most Vassar students, you find something to do, some sort of internship or fellowship program.

Q: Was it the right decision?
A: It was definitely the right decision. I don’t regret it. Vassar, in the four years that I have been here, has definitely been a bitter-sweet experience, but I imagine that every college experience is that way. I mean, some people have all positive things to say about their college experience, but I definitely don’t regret it.. And I would choose to go to Vassar again if I had to do it again.

Q: What have you gotten at Vassar that you wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
A: I definitely think I’ve had access to resources and experiences. For instance, freshman year, through the Africana Studies Program and the ALANA Center, they had tickets to Alvin Ailey, so we took a bus, went to a very nice dinner in Harlem, and then went to see Alvin Ailey, and it was like, $15. And I felt like that was an experience, right off the bat my freshman year, that I would always remember and treasure and that was extremely important to me. I had heard of Alvin Ailey, but I had never seen them live. So that total experience, to me, was a really big deal.

And then on the academic side, there’s a personal relationship that I can have with my professors that I definitely know I couldn’t have at a big school. Knowing my professors — they were the ones to actually write on our papers freshman year, yeah, you know, you really need to step it up. I think all freshmen come in with their high school writing skills — I mean, some are exceptional, and they might be confident in their writing skills, probably were the best writers in their high school. But there’s just a collegiate level that’s kind of like that wall that you hit when you come in freshman year. And not only that, but depending on what discipline you’re in, knowing how to write for that discipline. Poli sci has a very specific way of writing. I’m a political science and Africana studies double major with a correlate in Hispanic studies.

Q: Were those your interests before you came to Vassar?
A: Political science was definitely my interest before I came to Vassar, mainly because I was one of those high school students who got all caught up in the myth that if you wanted to be a lawyer, you had to be a poli sci major or you had to do pre-law. So poli sci was one of those things that I went into because I thought I had to, because I wanted to go to law school. Then I realized I didn’t have to, but I still liked the program, so I decided to stay with it. And then, my freshman writing course, Religion and the Civil Rights Movement, got me interested in the Africana Studies Program. So I was like, okay, I’ll just do both. So second semester freshman year, I declared both majors and my advisor, Tim Longman, was like…who declares a double major second semester freshman year? He said, you know, if you want to change now, you’re kind of stuck. And I said, no, I think that’s definitely what I want to do. And then sophomore year, I was like, yeah, and I want to add Hispanic studies as a correlate.

Q: I thought you were a history major. Didn’t you do work with Rebecca Edwards?
A: Yes, I was a Ford Scholar last summer and worked with Professor Rebecca Edwards, who’s the chair of the History Department, on investigating the Underground Railroad in Dutchess County from 1835 to 1865. And it was a challenge because I’m not trained in history, I’m definitely a poli-sci-trained sort of person, and our methods of research are definitely different. There was a lot more tedious work in the history research than there normally is in poli sci, and you have to be very meticulous. I spent a lot time in Special Collections looking at census records. We compared 1830, 1840, and 1860. And we created a huge database of the records of people who were either freedom seekers, which is the name I prefer for fugitive slaves, abolitionists, White and Black, and then people who were not abolitionists but who had been in some way part of the Underground Railroad or the abolitionist movement, but maybe not publicly. The census records allowed us to try to track people. For example, you might find a person in New York in 1830 who says that their birthplace was in New York or somewhere in the north, but then in 1860, the same person lists a southern state as their birthplace. So then we might speculate that this person was a fugitive slave who, in 1830, had to hide the fact that they were born in the South.

A lot of it is speculation, because you don’t have those people around to talk to anymore, and the Underground Railroad is secret, so they weren’t writing about it in the newspapers. I think we only found one newspaper clipping that used the term Underground Railroad, and I’m pretty sure it was in the Poughkeepsie Eagle in 1867. So after the end of the Civil War, we did start seeing more people putting down southern locations as their place of birth. Some people’s names changed, but we were able to figure out that they were the same person using marriage records, deed records, death certificates, or church records. So it was very interesting work, but it was very hard work because it’s literally sitting at a computer in Special Collections, looking at census records all day long. We worked with the Mid-Hudson Anti-Slavery Project, so the database is online for anyone to see.