Choose Yourself - Sara C. Massei

Essay

Choose Yourself is an entirely women-of-color and youth led organization founded in Portland, Maine in 2017 that promotes the liberation of women and girls. Founder and Executive Director Judicaelle Irakoze says “Helping young women humanize their experiences is especially important for women who have grown up in societies that have routinely underestimated them and that’s how we shape more effective, just, and powerful leaders,” as to why she started Choose Yourself. Irakoze recognized the lack of resources in Portland to empower young women and immigrants, so she created a hub.  The home page of their website reads “Building a World Where Gender Equity Reigns: Let’s foster a world where women and girls are economically and socially liberated,” and all of their programs are structured to work towards this goal. It began in 2017 with the goal of helping immigrants and women of color adjust to life and assimilate to the community.  Today, Community Integration remains one of the organization’s primary programs, however the organization has expanded, now offering the additional programs of Girl Talk Spaces, Home Away From Home, and Grow With Us Fellowship. The Community Integration team says their work “exists to unpack institutionalized racism at the intersection of gender and class realities.” The Girl Talk program consists of a Conversations program and an As A Class program. The “Conversations” program happens every 3 months in Portland and “is a space for women to come together to unpack their everyday experiences in Maine and find a sisterhood community.” Girl Talk As a Class is a weekly afterschool program at two local high schools geared to be a safe space for immigrant girls “to talk about their experiences as minorities at the intersections of race and gender.” Choose Yourself as also implemented Girl Talk Spaces in Nigeria, Benin, Abidjan, Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Kenya, Zambia, and Burundi. Home Away from Home is a newer, International program of the organization’s that focuses on aiding women refugees. It is a refugee integration program in Nakivale Camp in Eastern Uganda where the group has already opened a library and is currently raising funds to build a school. Finally, the Grow With Us Fellowship is a program founded in 2018 that “equip(s) you African girls on their journey as social entrepreneurs.” In the nearly four years since their humble beginnings in Portland, the Choose Yourself organization has served over 10,000 women in over 10 countries with these programs. This growth was made possible by inspiring leadership and community volunteers; right below the aforementioned quote on the home page is a “Join Us” button. Further down, the group notes that they “Thrive on community organizing,” and lists their priorities: “Community Integration, Feminist Movement and Leadership, Leaving No One Behind, and Economic Justice.” The group has thousands of followers on Twitter and Instagram and has been featured in many online articles for their humanitarian work. The dearth of resources in the US for immigrant women that existed in 2017 still exists now and Choose Yourself’s work is far from over. However, they continue with the momentum of knowing that they have already made a difference, and that they will continue to grow and do so.

The Choose Yourself organization is a form of resistance against every institution that attempts to limit the success of women and immigrants. Founder Judicaelle Irakoze quotes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s renowned poem: “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful.” She notes how patriarchal society continuously “chooses” the man, how it teaches the woman to check herself. She says she was not raised to choose herself as a woman, and this is the impetus for her founding “Choose Yourself.” She describes the power that comes with a woman reclaiming her agency despite underestimation, and she wishes to incite this in young women. Choose Yourself prides itself in being led by the youth, and every member of its Executive Board is a successful young woman of color.

One of the organizations most successful programs is Girl Talk. Girl Talk Spaces function as community discussions in schools and community centers in Maine, and in many countries throughout Africa. The Girl Talk team says “We realize that through socialization, women operating in patriarchy internalize their oppression. It is, therefore, important for women to be aware of this socialization, talk about their issues, unlearn the internalized sexism, and speak about how they envision themselves locating and using their power.” The whole reason this program exists is to teach women the things that society teaches men from the very beginning: that they are meant to succeed, that they deserve respect and equity, and that they have agency over themselves. The creation of Girl Talk Spaces by the Choose Yourself women is an act of resistance in and of itself, as it teaches women to go against the societal limitations that are relentlessly imposed upon them. Beyond this, it is important to note that Girl Talk Spaces have expanded to include Nigeria, Benin, Abidjan, Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Kenya, Zambia, and Burundi, all nations that have few alternative resources for women. Their Home Away From Home program is also an amazing form of resistance, for it brings resources to refugee women, fostering empowerment in places that otherwise lack it. The Home Away from Home team notes that in communities with armed conflict, women are the first to lose their rights, and all too often must face “poverty, limited access to opportunities but mostly hopelessness and despair… Plus unwanted pregnancies, earlier or forced marriages.” The Home Away from Home team works towards gender equality at a camp in East Uganda. Here, they have opened a library with literacy programs for the community, fundraise to send girls to school, and are even raising money to open a whole new school. Choose Yourself and their ever-growing number of volunteers operates as a feminist organization with the mission “to build a world where race and gender equity reigns through the liberation of women.” By existing as an organization that continuously empowers women, Choose Yourself resists the ever-persistent pressure of the patriarchy to work towards a world where gender equity is a reality.

Fiction

A Thousand Splendid Suns
Extended Ending

            It is February of 2005 when Laila and Tariq decide to move with their children, Aziza, Zalmai, and Mariam, to the United States. While the whole family is excited about what their futures in America will hold, parting with their beloved Afghanistan is no easy task. Laila and Tariq have been taking nostalgic strolls through Kabul, the city where they had met, where they had fallen in love, and where they had built a life full of that love for their family. Laila often reminisces about the giant golden Buddhas that she had climbed with Tariq and her father as a child, where she had felt such incredible peace watching Tariq nod off by the stream. The children hold some sweet memories of growing up in Kabul, however Aziza, the eldest, has contrasting feelings about it.

At 11 years old, she can still remember a time when Tariq did not exist to her, in which her father figure, Rasheed, would constantly berate and abuse both her Mother, Laila, and practically her Aunt, Mariam. Aziza remembers when her mother had to put her in an orphanage, where she lived for quite a while. She remembered feeling so isolated and alone but having to put on a brave face; she knew her mother was doing her best. She risked severe beatings walking alone to see her nearly every day. Aziza remembers all of this, and although she loves her family and the life they have, she is looking forward to leaving these bittersweet reminders of a past life behind.

With the money that Mariam’s father left behind, Laila renovated and majorly improved the very same orphanage in which Aziza used to live. Tariq and the children, especially Aziza, are very proud of and impressed by Laila’s dedication to the orphanage. She tells Aziza all the time that she is her inspiration, her muse, the light of her life. Although she poured her heart into the orphanage over the past few years, Laila and Tariq had decided it was time to fulfill a different dream.

Laila has been thinking a lot lately about her Babi’s unachieved goal of moving to America and running a family Afghan restaurant near the beach. She remembers giggling with him, fantasizing about it, and mourning it. Up until now, she believed that dream had died with him. However, when she brought it up to Tariq in passing, his eyes lit up. Apparently one of Tariq’s good friends from his time in Pakistan, Mahmoud, had successfully immigrated to America in 2000. He moved in with his recently widowed Aunt in Portland, Maine, who had raised three children in that home who now have children of their own. Tariq and Mahmoud had kept in touch through letters, but Tariq never brought up America to Laila; he thought she would want to stay in Kabul, to keep working at the orphanage.

So, when Laila brought up the idea, Tariq’s head swirled. His words spilled out of his mouth like water as he told Laila about Mahmoud, about the nearly empty house, about the open invitation, about Maine. Mahmoud had offered them his home, told them about local employment opportunities that could get them on track for their restaurant, and stressed the quality of the public schools in the town. Laila and Tariq had this conversation in February of 2005, and by the next January the family had successfully obtained their visas, flown to the United States, and began settling in with Mahmoud and his Aunt.

Aziza

Aziza has many mixed emotions about America. On the one hand, she is beyond excited to be in a new place, one clear of painful memories. She has been watching American movies, reading American comics, following American fashion trends for years. It feels surreal to actually live in the place that, to this point, has only existed in her mind. On the other hand, Aziza did not anticipate the intense feeling of difference that she would feel at school, in public.

Aziza wears a hijab, and in the two weeks since they arrived, she had seen one other hijabi, and she was at the airport. In her first week of classes at her new junior high, she felt all the girls and boys – who she felt looked like each other – staring at her, analyzing her difference. Aziza did not realize the burden that wearing a hijab would carry, the ironic stereotype that would surround her because of it.

Although she was only 8 years old when it happened, Aziza remembers September 11, 2001, like it was yesterday. She remembers seeing that film of one tower falling, then another, on every television set for months and months. She remembers her parents telling her that the same people who did that were the ones who had been waging war on innocents, including their own parents, throughout their entire lifetime. She remembers, distinctly, being told that the people who did that were her worst enemies as well.

So, when the name calling began and Aziza was lumped in with the terrorists by her classmates, she felt intensely angry, misunderstood, and alone. How could they be so ignorant, how could they not know what she did? How could they not know that those same people had terrorized her own family? What had seemed like a fresh start to Aziza began to feel like a damnation. 

Life went on like this for over a month. Aziza had once loved school, felt at home in a learning environment, but here she feels scared, on guard, and judged. It is such a large school that she feels like she can hardly recognize anyone. She struggles to make friends, and she constantly fears discrimination or prejudiced remarks. She desperately wants to talk to someone who will not judge her for who she is, but she does not know how to find people like this.

One day, Aziza’s homeroom teacher makes an announcement that a weekly after school program called “Girl Talk” will be starting at their school the next afternoon, and that it is specifically a program for immigrant girls. For the first time in weeks, Aziza’s eyes light up and she imagines being with people who understand her, feeling heard, and being able to let her guard down.

That night at dinner, she eagerly tells her parents and younger siblings about the new program. They all chuckle and bare genuine smiles, as they have not seen Aziza so animated since they left Kabul. Zalmai and Mariam, her younger siblings, have not had quite the same trouble making friends as Aziza has, seeing as they are much younger and have not been subject to quite the same overt discrimination as she. The prospect of such a program truly seems like a light at the end of the tunnel for Aziza, and her family was excited to see her resembling herself more.

The next day in school, Aziza watches the clock anxiously, counting down the seconds until the program. She marvels at the idea that there are other immigrant girls at her school and wonders how she did not know up until now. As soon as the final bell rings, Aziza speed walks to the classroom for the meeting. She arrives first, shuffles in and sits at one of the desks making up a circle around the room. For ten seconds she holds her breath, nervous that she got the wrong room, that the meeting was not today, that no one else would show up.

She hears footsteps and joyful voices approaching, and suddenly the room begins to fill. Almost immediately a couple of girls are sitting on either side of Aziza.  They cheerfully exchange their names and begin and begin talking about what they think this “Girl Talk” will be. After a couple of minutes, the chatter dies down and everyone looks at the three women in the front of the room. They stand tall and proud, exuding confidence and warmth as they smile at the girls. They introduce themselves as Judicaelle Irakoze, the Founder and Executive Director of Choose Yourself, Lydia Kanyambo, its Chief Operating Officer, and Carla Irakoze, the Girl Talk Maine Director. They describe Choose Yourself as an organization they started to empower women, and Girl Talk as a safe space for girls like them to talk about their experience as minorities at the intersection of race and gender. Then, they sit down in the circle with the girls, and start the discussion by sharing their own stories. The girls then share as little or as much as they want about themselves with the group, many nodding along empathetically with each other.

As the meeting goes on, the discussions continue and each girl in attendance feels the solidarity in the room. For most of them, this is the first time they feel empowered by their immigrant woman identity, but it will certainly not be the last. Aziza and the friends she made that day will continue coming to Girl Talk, and they will leave each session feeling more confident than the last. They will lean on each other for support and will navigate challenges that only they face together. Aziza and a few others will lead Girl Talks when they are older, sharing the empowerment that the program gave them with the younger generation.