(All blog posts had to be pre-approved for submission by my LiA advisor.)

Hi everyone!

I am super excited to share that this summer, I will be an intern for Mariame Kaba and Sojourners for Justice Press as my Leadership in Action summer in New York City. I feel very grateful for the opportunity to be working in my new home city of New York City as I begin to think about my upcoming senior year and what life post-graduation looks like for me. 

The opportunity to intern for Mariame and her publishing imprint, Sojourners for Justice, was a truly kismet outcome. I spent my Junior spring semester in Oaxaca studying migration and Mexican/U.S. policy and applying to migration and immigrant rights non-profits and organizations in New York for my LiA, but I was getting no responses from those organizations. I began to feel super discouraged and anxious about the possibility of losing this opportunity because I couldn't find an internship. I had a very thoughtful conversation with my boss at the Barnard Zine Library (the job I work during the school year), Jenna Friedman, and she offered to reach out to colleagues in the zine/artist space in the city to see if they were looking for interns over the summer. Before I knew it, I was talking to Mariame Kaba, a renowned Black Feminist abolitionist, zine maker, writer and incredible person. I have read her work in my classes and personal time as a Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies major and her work has been crucial to my political and personal viewpoints. 

This experience over the last semester has taught me to not be discouraged if something does not work out exactly how I imagined or planned it to. I am the kind of person who loves to have a plan to follow and while it is a nice skill to have, it's just as important to remain open to the surprising possibilities that may reveal themselves. I won't lie, I was a complete and anxious wreck after the first few denials and it really deflated my ego and discouraged me as someone who rarely gets rejections from things I put myself out for. But these rejections were just as necessary for me as they not only taught me what that feels like, but they left the door open for me to have the incredible and exciting experience I am preparing to have as an intern this summer.