STATEMENTS BY PAST FELLOWS
Lana Rajkumar

Also read Lana's reflection and press release.

My name is Lana Rajkumar. I was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad but have lived in the Washington, D.C. area since the age of ten. I am now 22 years old. In December of 2002, I will graduate from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN with degrees in Spanish and Latin American Studies. To further develop my classroom knowledge in these fields, while at college I have been fortunate enough to study in Cuba and to participate in community service programs in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. I later returned to the Dominican Republic to work as a literacy instructor with the organization Educacion Para Todos. My most recent travel has been to Nicaragua as part of a delegation visit to my sister church community.

I have devoted my time to a variety of campus organizations including AIDSO and ASTHA, which teach HIV and AIDS education awareness to children; JUNTOS, which tutors Spanish-speaking immigrants in English; and Alternative Spring Break, which gives students the opportunity to spend their breaks doing community service. I feel that I have contributed most to the Caribbean Students Association, however. I have served on this organization's board as Public Relations Officer, Vice-President and President. During my time as an officer, I organized Vanderbilt’s first ever Caribbean Heritage Week, featuring keynote speakers Dr. Midge Wilson and Kathy Russell, authors of the groundbreaking work, The Color Complex. Their lecture focused on the topic of colorism and gave minority groups on campus an important opportunity to display their solidarity. I also had an instrumental role in making community service an integral part of the organization's mission. One example of this is our reading of Caribbean folktales to disadvantaged children at their local library. In the future, my plans include social justice work with minority and immigrant rights groups.

Being a Daniels and Younge Fellow this summer has been a unique and radical experience. Each day brought new and practical lessons in writing action alerts, editing journal articles, organizing press conferences, and conducting meetings with Congressional representatives. In order to carry out these tasks effectively, we expanded our analytical and critical thinking skills and challenged our views of the world. We gained a sense of, and appreciation for, the histories and struggles that came before us. We opened ourselves to each other and came to understand that seeing we are part of a common struggle is essential to any type of social justice work. We developed the confidence to fully exercise our rights and learned the value of taking risks in life. We began to see that we could reach our highest selves.

As the summer comes to a close, it pains me to think of letting go of all of this. But the point is precisely that we carry these lessons with us wherever we go and humbly share them with others so that they too can carry on their social justice struggles. In this way, we will be equipped to boldly and joyfully answer the call to lead a hopeful and courageous life of social justice in which we believe that nothing is impossible!