{"id":51004,"date":"2016-12-30T18:34:02","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T18:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=51004"},"modified":"2016-12-30T22:18:22","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T22:18:22","slug":"leona-amosah-the-founder-of-swirl-talks-diversity-and-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=51004","title":{"rendered":"Leona Amosah, the Founder of SWIRL, Talks Diversity and Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leona Amosah, the Founder of SWIRL, Talks Diversity and Identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Study Breaks<\/a>
\n2016-12-28<\/p>\n

Molly Flynn<\/strong><\/a>
\nUniversity of North Carolina, Charlotte<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Celebrating Students with Interracial Legacies (SWIRL)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Amosah<\/a>, a high-achieving senior at UNC Chapel Hill, created the organization to provide a community for students with multiracial and mixed-race identities.<\/em><\/p>\n

While many college students occupy their time with binge-watching<\/a> Netflix, binge-drinking<\/a> at parties and binge-eating at their campus diners, Leona Amosah<\/a> has chosen to indulge in things much more productive.<\/p>\n

Amosah, a senior at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill<\/a>, seems to be involved in a little bit of everything. As a double major in Russian and Global Studies, Amosah spends her time not only in the books, but also involved in a wide range of campus groups. She actively participates in organizations such as Tarheel Outreach Program, Harmonyx A Capella group, Easing Students Abroad Entry (EASE), APPLES Service-Learning Program and Buckley Public Service Scholars, just to name a few.<\/p>\n

But, her brainchild<\/em>, as she calls it, is an organization that she started in August 2015. This past week, I had the opportunity to speak directly with Amosah and learn a little but more about SWIRL<\/a>, which stands for Students with Inter-Racial Legacies.<\/p>\n

Molly Flynn: What inspired you to start SWIRL?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leona Amosah:<\/em> I came up with the idea for starting SWIRL after watching a documentary called \u201cLittle White Lie<\/a>.\u201d It told the story of a Jewish\u00a0woman [Lacey Schwartz<\/a>] who grew up with a white identity, until she discovered that her biological father was black.<\/p>\n

Throughout the film, she grapples with her mixed-race identity, discussing how she felt when she identified as white versus how she felt when she identified as black. I very much connected with the film as a person of mixed-race, and was sobbing by the end of it…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leona Amosah, the Founder of SWIRL, Talks Diversity and Identity Study Breaks 2016-12-28 Molly Flynn University of North Carolina, Charlotte Celebrating Students with Interracial Legacies (SWIRL) Amosah, a high-achieving senior at UNC Chapel Hill, created the organization to provide a community for students with multiracial and mixed-race identities. While many college students occupy their time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2895,125,8,20],"tags":[3602,25904,25905,25902,25903,5108,6787],"class_list":["post-51004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-campus-life","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-lacey-schwartz","tag-leona-amosah","tag-molly-flynn","tag-students-with-inter-racial-legacies","tag-study-breaks","tag-swirl","tag-university-of-north-carolina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51004"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51020,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51004\/revisions\/51020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}