On April 18th, I got an email from my school faculty rep telling me I’d won the Udall Foundation Undergraduate Scholarship, a prestigious, highly competitive, scholarship program that identifies leaders in the environmental field. It is awarded to 55 students in the nation with previous years having almost 400 applicants. Of the students chosen, only 37 were chosen for the environment category--putting me within the 9% of students who won (she can do math, purr). I planned on posting this on instagram, but I just cannot bring myself to do it just yet because honestly the idea of me posting something I won is more nerve-wracking than me posting a selfie on my main feed idk. But, I wanted to talk about it here!
Writing the application was genuinely one of the hardest things for me to do in my life because it required me to compile all the love I have for environmental justice and all the work I’d done over the last four years into a 500-word word counts. I spent ALL of my winter break working on the application everyday all day--I asked my friend Nzana to help read over my essays which was a tremendous help and spent hours re-configuring sentences trying to be as concise as possible. My answers to certain questions changed completely as I took time away from the application to think about what it is that I wanted to say.
I was working on two applications at once (I also applied to the Truman scholarship, with no cigar). After I received my rejection from the Truman foundation, I honestly didn’t even want to apply to Udall anymore. Truman hated me because I was a mess who couldn't articulate what she wanted to do in ten years (or really why I wanted to go to grad school), so what hope was there for Udall?
It had been a couple of weeks since I looked at my application when I decided I’d try for Udall. I won’t lie to you and tell you I received motivation from some sign in the universe. It was really because one of my Professors finally responded to my email asking her for a letter of rec, and I didn’t wanna tell her I didn’t need it because I wasn’t applying anymore because I had previously asked her for a rec and then told her nevermind, so I didn’t want to do that again.
So, I locked in. With a clearer mind and more time spent thinking about my career aspirations, I put everything I had into writing those answers. I sat with the uncomfiness of talking about myself and really pushed myself to be specific, which is something I struggle with in writing. And after that, I released it. I submitted the application in early March and didn’t think about it again until April rolled around.
I was in class, Disaster Politics & Policies, which had been moved outside to the grass to enjoy the nice weather, when I received the email saying I’d won--I audibly screamed. The girl next to me probably thought someone died the way I was looking at my computer with my hand over my mouth, but then deciphered that this scream was for a good reason and I finally got words out to tell her I’d won a scholarship. The first thing I wanted to do was cry, but I couldn’t. Not because I was in class, but because I actually couldn’t, and I still haven’t.
I know from the way I’ve described it, it may not seem like it, but this is a really really big deal. I recently won a Social Justice Award from the Swarthmore Intercultural Center and it features art from Azsaneé Truss. The art is inspired by a line from Ocatavia’s Brood that says that Black people, especially those descended from slavery, are science fiction walking around. The environmental field is incredibly white, and all my work is geared towards helping Black and other marginalized communities.
I need you to understand (and the “you” being me too) how wild it is that a Black girl from Brooklyn, NY is getting recognized by a prestigious national foundation that honors future environmental leaders. A Black girl from Brooklyn was never supposed to concern herself with matters of the environment. A Black girl from Brooklyn was never supposed to end up on Swarthmore’s campus. None of these words are supposed to exist in the same sentence. I am science fiction walking around, and I think that’s really cool.
“And for those of us from communities with historic collective trauma, we must understand that each of us is already science fiction walking around on two legs. Our ancestors dreamed us up and then bent reality to create us.” ~ Walidah Imarisha, Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
At the same time, while that’s all well and dandy, I’m really scared! When really good things happen, when someone chooses me for something, the immediate fear is that I’m going to fuck it up. People have said, “you deserve this” or “well-deserved”, and now I’m crying because I don’t know why they think that. I don’t know who that person is, my alter-ego, that takes over and takes charge because when I’m alone I’m just that shy little Kayla who plays with her dolls all day and invents new worlds in her head. Who’d cry whenever her mom was away for too long and who stayed close to her extroverted cousins at family gatherings. I really don’t know who this girl is calling the shots right now, she’s doing a good job don’t get me wrong, but it feels like I’m getting credit for her work.
I think it’s good to have the separation of the two tho. I need to be able to return to shy little Kayla when it all gets a little overwhelming being Kmilli.
So you got the scholarship, what do you wanna do Kayla? While still doing community organizing, I want to be a journalist who covers environmental justice to make it easier for frontline communities, predominantly communities of color that experience the impacts of environmental harm in severity, to access and digest information regarding the politics of environmental policy.
Today, we are still seeing a lack of news coverage on Black communities especially as it pertains to how they are impacted by environmental disasters. According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 76% of journalists surveyed were white, and only 8% were Black. Of this, only 2% of climate journalists are Black. We are currently living in a war against information. 2022 was the deadliest year on record for journalists with nearly half of them killed in Latin America. It was also a deadly year for environmental defenders, most of whom are Indigenous women, with “177 people killed in 2022 for defending the environment.” Journalists and environmental defenders are under attack because they call out injustice and name the perpetrators. We need to keep doing this now more than ever.
I learned in my Investigative Journalism course that journalism is often called the fourth branch of government, because journalism is what holds the government accountable when it fails to act on behalf of its citizens. However, when a branch of our democracy fails to represent marginalized individuals who bear the burden of the most prevalent problems of our time, environmental destruction, then we know we have a major problem.
I envision creating a platform like Grist, an independent media organization that focuses on news about climate solutions. I would evolve the model by simultaneously using the media organization as a channel to break down dense climate policy and offer tools for grassroots organizations to disseminate information in an effective way. Most EJ communities don’t have reliable access to technology, so we need alternative ways to meet communities where they’re at in terms of receiving information, like going door-to-door.
Simultaneously, I’m conducting research on the relationship between Black women, the environment, and climate change; My research asks how the exploitation and abuse of nature reflects the exploitation and abuse of Black women in society, and in turn, how the liberation of Black women is inextricably linked to the liberation of nature.
Overall, I’m excited to get back to work! I have so much planned for senior year, with a project I’m really excited for beginning to come into fruition. I am so grateful to Zulene Mayfield and Professor Giovanna Di Chiro for teaching me to be both street smart and book smart as it pertains to environmental justice activism. I am thankful for Carr Everbach, my Udall faculty rep, who laid out a clear path for my application. And lastly, but certainly not least, I am eternally grateful to my mom, my grandmother, my older cousin Rich, and all my other family members for always believing that I would do something great before I even knew how to do my times tables (and now I’m crying). You have such sureness in me and my intelligence that has done wonders for my confidence, so thank you.
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