"If there's a book you really want to read you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."-Toni Morrison
Allow me to introduce myself, I affectionately go by Drea but my parents or rather my Father prematurely named me Andrea Camille while my mom was six months pregnant with me. My Dad came home after working the second shift at Massachusetts General Hospital and had an epiphany and was sort of peered pressure into naming his unborn fetus, "Andrea Camille". I can image the puzzled looked on my mother's face because she wears her feelings, thoughts and emotions through her facial expressions. The reason why I said prematurely named me because my parents wanted my sex kept a surprised due to having two older sons already. I just wanted to illustrate that your name is important and it is apart of your identity. Your identity means a lot.
Throughout my life, I didn't appreciate my name because people would often mispronounce my name and I quickly corrected them for 31 years. Now, I am finding myself assisting people with pronouncing my last name as well but hey that's life. Sometimes, I often wonder will I ever get a break on correcting people on my first and last name? (I guess not).
When I first went off to college at Tuskegee University, people took noticed of my identity and zoned in on my hometown. During freshmen orientation at Tuskegee, my classmates were amazed that I stated that I was from Boston. The looks and jokes they have and still have were quite amusing. The number one question everyone asked: Andrea or Miss. Boston, how many Black people live in Boston? I didn't know Black people live in Boston besides New Edition, Paul Pierce and Antwoine Walker. Now mind you, many of my classmates reside in urbanized cities such as Birmingham, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and more where being a person of color is the predominate and Whites were the marginalized population. Even at Tuskegee University a Historical Black University, I was apart of the majority population of body of students from a marginalized group in Boston, MA and the region of New England. Oh the irony, right!
The reason why I named this blog, Brown Girl From Boston is to represent my ethnicity and race along with my hometown of Boston. Being a Brown Girl From Boston represents various things such as being apart of a marginalized group. Whenever your race, ethnicity, gender, creed, sexual orientation or religion is considered marginalized in a major entity such as a city or state, we need to peel back the layers and address the social issues at hand.
Being a Brown Girl in Boston or in a predominately Eurocentric society, your presence, voice, essence and power can be invisible and oppressed. I started this blog to give a voice, address issues, and provide helpful tips to live life limitless and building a strong and effective lasting emoire and legacy. This blog will provide solace and authenticity that brown girls need and long for. Being a brown girl is such a beautiful thing because we possess uniqueness that many desire and wish they can possess. As brown girls we need to recognize and celebrate our uniqueness along with uniting with other beautiful brown girls.
Brown Girl From Boston will cover a range of topics such as life, career, and entrepreneurship for brown girls. We will also have a Brown Girl Series in which you, yes you the readers will have a chance to have any burning desire questions and have your questions answered by Brown Girl From Boston and the rest of the Brown Girls.
Thanks for Reading! Stay Brainy, Beautiful and Brown! XOXO
Email your questions to drea@browngirlfromboston.com
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