The Cultural Engagement Internships program kicked off last summer and hit full steam this past spring. Nearly a dozen cultural institutions have officially signed on to partner with FCLC and FCRH. Participating partners include the Bronx Book Festival, New York Hall of Science, and Elmhurst / Corona Recovery Initiative.

“When I first got to Fordham I realized that, although we had some ties to the neighborhood, there were more opportunities to pursue in terms of our cultural connections,’” said Auricchio. “Our initial goal was to find ways to create equitable partnerships with institutions around the city, though we didn’t quite know what that would look like. So, I started literally going door to door.”

Alumni Step Up

Auricchio said that she started introducing herself like a new neighbor, though she’s a life-long New Yorker. Both deans said they didn’t want the cultural partners “to have to jump through hoops” of paperwork and raise capital for students to get paid. They identified several alumni donors willing to fund student pay and to grow the program.

“Several alumni have stepped up to provide funding for the expansion of the program and they have also helped to connect us to new organizations,” said Mast.

Navigating a New Normal

When they began pitching the program to institutions, the pandemic had yet to hit. After lockdown, Auricchio noted that partner institutions were justifiably hesitant, as few were familiar with virtual work. Mast said that they helped partners navigate the new normal, but they also held tight to the initial academic goals of the program.

“For the virtual internships, we told our partners that we didn’t want our students doing the digital equivalent of making photocopies and coffee; we wanted them to have a robust experience, and it’s worked,” said Mast. “Our students have taken the lead on significant, complicated projects.  They have learned in the process, which is such a transformative experience for them.”

An Authentic Museum Experience

Last summer, current rising senior Macarena Leon worked virtually as a curatorial assistant for the Museum of Art and Design (MAD), when the program was just getting started.  A double major in English and new media and digital design, Leon helped conduct research for an upcoming exhibition, compiled artist biographies, and helped create a bibliographic archive for an exhibition. In a letter to Auricchio, Leon said that the internship provided her an authentic museum experience.

“I truly learned so much about art and got to discover so many new artists that I would have never known about otherwise,” she said. “I even found a whole new art movement to obsess over!”

Incorporating Racial Justice

As the program developed so too did social justice movements like Black Lives Matter, with protests taking place on the streets across the nation. Auricchio and Mast began to home in on institutions that incorporate racial justice as part of their programming. They partnered with Interfaith Center of New York for three internships, one of which focuses on racial justice issues. Another internship at Brooklyn Museum will host a student that will help prepare for the exhibition, “Andy Warhol: Revelations.” Auricchio credited the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and Career Services and with helping identify and coordinate with partners.

Grappling with the Past at a Historic House

At the Dyckman Farmhouse, in the Inwood section of northern Manhattan, the historic house museum had been grappling with its past association with slavery for several years. This past spring, current rising junior Arden Wang’s virtual internship explored not just slavery, but contemporary social justice issues like food insecurity for the largely underserved community that lives near the museum. Wang is also a double major in English and new media and digital design. Her virtual internship focused on preparing monthly newsletters and helping develop social media strategies.

“I was helping with community engagement, but I was also learning about the history which was helpful for me as someone from New York who had no knowledge about the history of slavery in the city. It was eye-opening,” she said. “What emotionally stuck the most for me was the lack of acknowledgment of slavery in the neighborhood, but the museum is doing a lot of work to make people more aware of what used to be here.”

In a letter to the deans, Dyckman Farmhouse Alliance board chair Don Rice said the internship program has helped the museum serve its mission to “expand our reach within our community while helping students get hands-on experience.”

Bringing New York Back

Students have told Auricchio that the internships have helped develop an understanding of how their studies can be applied in the real world, a synergy she had hoped for from the start. She said that nearly all of the internships are project-based and offer a solid educational experience tied to Fordham’s mission, not the least of which was helping the city get back on its feet again amidst the pandemic.

“Now, in fact, we feel the initiative actually helped the city come back, because we were contributing to the revitalization of New York—and I just know there’s going to be a renaissance after the plague,” she said.

At a Nov. 11 virtual event sponsored by Fordham and The Bronx Is Reading, which puts on the annual Bronx Book Festival, Rankine spoke about her new book Just Us: An American Conversation with Laurie Lambert, Ph.D., Fordham associate professor of African and African American Studies. 

Through Just Us, Rankine narrates her personal experiences related to race and racism with white friends and acquaintances—and, in some cases, their own rebuttal to her stories.

“The book’s intention was to slow down these interactions so that we could live in them and see that we are just in fact interacting with another person, and that there are ways to maneuver these moments and to take them apart—to stand up for ourselves, to understand the dynamic as a repeating dynamic for many Black people, white people, Latinx people, and Asian people,” said Rankine, a Jamaica native who grew up in the Bronx. 

Rankine has authored several books, plays, and anthologies, including Citizen: An American Lyric, which won the 2016 Rebekah Johnson National Prize for Poetry. Her other awards and honors include the 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, 2014 Jackson Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts. She currently serves as a chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and a professor at Yale University. 

A Portal to Reflect on Your Own Life

At the evening event, Rankine said she wants her readers to use her as a portal to reflect on their own experiences and assess them, rather than simply live them. Reading Rankine’s stories can also serve as a restorative experience for some readers, particularly Black women, said Lambert. 

“As a reader, I felt like I was being guided through these situations by a narrator I could trust—a narrator who understood a lot of my experiences as a Black person,” Lambert said to Rankine.

Naming ‘Whiteness’

The acknowledgement of a person’s “whiteness” can be perceived as threatening because it sounds similar to white nationalism and the violence associated with it, said Rankine. But “whiteness” is a necessary term when talking about race. 

“The kind of clever thing that was done by white culture is the naming of white people as people. They are allowed to hide behind the generality of that statement. They are people and we are African Americans, Caribbean Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans,” Rankine said. “That’s how white people have negotiated their lives: We are just neutral people living our lives, and you all are people of color.” 

This centralization of whiteness still stands in many places today, Rankine said. She cited the example of students and other people telling her they have received recruitment calls from white people who say they have perfect jobs for them, but they’re being “forced” to hire Black people to diversify their departments. This strategy to create equity is being falsely framed as something that takes something away from white people, said Rankine, who spoke at Fordham in 2016. 

‘It Gives Me Hope’

Rankine acknowledged that it’s hard to confront covert racism. She’s had to train herself not to let things go—to stop saying she’s tired, that it will stop the conversation, that somebody else in the room should say something instead of her. It’s essential, she said, to hold people accountable because they make critical decisions with long-term effects on places like juries, boardrooms, tenure committees, and dissertation evaluation committees. 

“We have been socialized so much towards silence and stability and not speaking up. And that’s what’s so amazing about the young people now—this new generation of high school students and college students,” Rankine said. “They are speaking up before things even get said. It gives me hope.”

Listen to the full conversation here. 

“I often like to refer to the justice as the other Sonia from the Bronx,“ began Manzano, getting a laugh from the crowd sitting in the sunshine on the Walsh Family Library lawn. Manzano, an actress and writer, is most noted for playing Maria on Sesame Street. She is the author of Becoming Maria and A Miracle on 133rd St, among other books.

Sotomayor has penned a few books of her own since being appointed to the nation’s highest court in 2009. She is the author of My Beloved World (2013) and a children’s book called Turning Pages (2018). She is also expected to release Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You in September.

Sotomayor said she wrote My Beloved World to remind herself, and everyone, that none of us succeed alone.

“Nobody can do it by themselves. No matter what you do in life, people help you do it. My book was for me to remember that always. All of those people and experiences that started here in the Bronx, that made me— that’s what I wanted to write about.”

The Bronx Book Festival, just in its second year, included a full line-up of author-led panels. The Bronx Book Festival is organized by The Bronx is Reading, founded by Bronx native and book publicist Saracia Fennell. This year the event was co-sponsored by Fordham University. Panels were held on both the Fordham’s Rose Hill campus and Fordham Plaza. Bronxites and folks from all over NYC lined up at 8:30 a.m. in front of the University to attend the Bronx Book Festival and listen to Sonia Sotomayor speak.

At their in-conversation style event, Sotomayor told Manzano how much she admired her work on Sesame Street.

“You reached out to a community of Latinos that were ignored in mainstream television at the time,” she said.

Manzano and Sotomayor met on the set of Sesame Street for the episode The Justice Hears a Case. Over a cafecito, Sotomayor explained the role of supreme court judge to the show’s characters.

Just as they did on Sesame Street, at the Bronx Book Festival they both spoke in a way that was accessible to the many young children in the audience.

Sotomayor asked the organizers to place a row of child lawn chairs at the very front. “I put all the kids in the front because I remember being a kid and having to sit in the back, and I couldn’t see anything, and I hated it,” said Sotomayor.

At times, the justice spoke directly to the kids. She told them about her library and why it was important to her.  

“One of my favorite places was and still is the library. It was one of the places I escaped to after my dad died. My house was very, very sad when my dad passed away. So, I would go to the library and get lost in books. I traveled around the world when I read books,” she said as she pointed to a picture of her library card in her book Turning Pages.

“Does every child in the audience have a library card?” she asked, encouraging those that didn’t to “ask your mommy or daddy to get you one.”

Sotomayor told the crowd that Lord of the Flies was the book that inspired her to become a lawyer. “I learned something very important,” she said of reading the 1954 William Golding novel, in which a group of boys are marooned on an island and attempt to govern themselves—with tragic results.

”Laws help us figure out how to treat each other better,” she said, “and how to share things in this world together.”

She also cited the importance of her mother purchasing the Encyclopedia Britannica for her while they lived in the projects in the Soundview section of the Bronx, now named the Justice Sonia Sotomayor Houses. The volumes helped her learn about the world beyond her home borough.

“You cannot dream about becoming something you don’t know about,” she said.

In the middle of the conversation with Manzano, Sotomayor got up and said she was “going to go for a walk so that the people in the back can see me.”

“I give out hugs freely,”  she added as she walked down to the audience members in the lawn.

Panelists Share their Stories

Like many of the authors on the festival lineup, Lilliam Rivera, a keynote speaker and young adult author of Dealing in Dreams and The Education of Margot Sanchez, was in the audience for Sotomayor’s and Manzano’s session. In her own talk, Rivera discussed the significance of the festival itself.

“I write about my home, and those connections,”  said Rivera, who set all of her books in the Bronx. She held her book launch for Dealing in Dreams last spring at the Bronx’s only independent bookstore, The Lit. Bar, founded by Noelle Santos.

Growing up near Fordham Plaza, she said, “If you wanted to buy a book you had to go to the city.”

Like Sotomayor, Rivera and her family got their books from the New York Public Library.

Rivera was inspired by her father to become a writer. “Growing up, my father used to recite poetry at events. He still does. My parents are very proud of my career. They are always making me sign books for their doctors or neighbors.”

Readers young and old said that the festival inspired them.

Jasmine Cordero of Soundview said that coming to the festival last year sparked her interest in reading.

“I bought two books last year, and I read them in a month. I didn’t know that I could read that fast. Now, I’m always looking for Latinx or African-American writers. I look for writers that look like me and writers that write about the community that I live in.”

The Bronx is both home and a source of inspiration for many of the panelists. For Josue Caceres, poet and brand manager of Bronx Native, the Bronx is more than a place.

“The Bronx is its own character in my writing. It’s important to be here and share the space with both kids and adults and show them that people in the Bronx read and write, and that it’s part of our culture.“

The day will start with the Bronx’s own Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Supreme Court justice and author of My Beloved World (2013). Sotomayor will be in conversation with award-winning actress and author Sonia Manzano, most noted for her work on Sesame Street, at 10 a.m. on the Walsh Family Library lawn.

The all-day literary event is co-sponsored by Fordham and organized by The Bronx Is Reading, which was founded by book publicist and South Bronx native Saraciea Fennell.

“The Bronx Book Festival is more than just a festival, it’s a community event and all are invited. Even if you don’t read, come to Fordham Plaza and Fordham University to enjoy the entertainment!” said Fennell.

Last year, when the festival was in its first year, Fordham stepped in as a last-minute co-sponsor, thanks to alumnus Miles Doyle, FCRH ’01, a senior editor at HarperOne, and Rafael Zapata, special adviser to the president for diversity, chief diversity officer, and associate vice president for Academic Affairs.

This year, the event will be held on both Fordham Plaza and Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. Leading up to the Bronx Book Festival on June 7, The Bronx is Reading will also host author visits at Title I schools across the Bronx to foster a love of reading in children and teens.

“Hosting Bronx children, youth, and their families for a community event promoting literacy, engagement, and stories that are deeply resonant of the everyday experiences of Bronxites—especially those of immigrants and communities of color—is absolutely consistent with our mission as the Jesuit University of New York City,” said Zapata, “as is supporting the talented artists whose creativity and hard work beautifully and authentically convey those experiences in all their complexity.”

The festival boasts many notable writers, including Lilliam Rivera, author of Dealing with Dreams and The Education of Margot Sanchez, who will be a keynote speaker; Darnell Moore, Sulma Arzu-Brown, and many others. There will also be panels going on throughout the day, such as Reclaiming Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Imagining New Worlds and Seeds & Roots: Community (re)Building in Fiction.

This is a free event that requires all attendees to register in advance. Register here.

The all-day literary event, organized by book publicist and South Bronx native Saraciea Fennell, brought writers, illustrators, and industry professionals to the community, as well as a vendor to sell books on site. (Learn more about Fennell’s inspiration for this festival in this interview at Shondaland.)

Fordham stepped in as a last-minute cosponsor of the Bronx Book Festival, thanks to alumnus Miles Doyle, FCRH ’01, a senior editor at HarperOne, and Rafael Zapata, special adviser to the president for diversity, chief diversity officer, and associate vice president for Academic Affairs, who helped coordinate the University’s participation.

“I’m thankful that my colleague, Associate Dean and Professor of English Anne Fernald, learned of this unique opportunity to support Saraceia Fennell’s simple yet powerful vision: promoting literacy, creativity, and sharing of stories of the Bronx, by and for Bronx residents in public space. It’s profoundly democratic and empowering, and consistent with our mission as the Jesuit university of New York City,” Zapata said.

Doyle, who in his role at HarperOne specializes in religion, spirituality, and health and wellness, with particular interest in alternative self-help, said the book festival brought together what he loves most about books and the Bronx.

“Nothing brings me more satisfaction than engaging new readers with great books and everything they promise in their pages. At the same time, the Bronx has meant so much to me—first as an undergraduate at Rose Hill, where I started to take up these promises in earnest, and more recently as a resident of the Bronx and northern Manhattan, where I continue to enjoy and benefit from the area’s diverse and vibrant communities, as well as its local artists and businesses that continue to make this part of New York one of the city’s best,” he said.

The New York Times covered the event, asking residents of the borough to give their thoughts on its first book fair:

“We need a festival like this. Representation definitely matters, so to have all of these panels and to hear all of this, it matters,” 22-year-old Megan Pedragon told the newspaper. Read more here.

Related:

How to Break Into Publishing: Advice from Editors, Agents, and Bestselling Author Mary Bly

A Conversation with Rafael Zapata, Fordham’s First Chief Diversity Officer