Student Spotlight: Chrissy Oyelowo A new club is paving the way for conversations about diversity at AUP. BY KATERINA MCGRATH PHOTOGRAPHED BY SOPHIA FOERSTER
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he American University of Paris is home to students from all over the world, representing 108 nationalities and speaking 65 languages. With such a diverse crowd, education is not only academic but cultural, social and psychological. Many students are taking steps to involve themselves in bettering the experience of others by encouraging expression of self and finding a sense of power in the university setting. As a student pushing for student empowerment, Christina Oyelowo is in the spotlight for Peacock magazine’s Spring 2018 issue. Christina Oyelowo is a 20-year-old from Minneapolis, Minnesota. As part of an incredibly diverse student body, many assume that issues of discrimination have been left in the past, but Oyelowo stands up for those who still find themselves experiencing harassment due to their race, gender or sexual orientation in this modern world. In the summer of 2017, a student reached out to her about “miscommunications; essentially people were talking about race and ethnicity and kept misidentifying her and she was having a really hard time with it.” Initially, the student (who prefers to remain anonymous) reached out to the founder of Woke Week from the year prior, who referred her to Oyelowo. She “was a bit shocked that [she] was a resource for someone,” but jumped into the role quickly. Thus the Diversity Club was born. Oyelowo’s personal experiences of identity confusion gave her inspiration for the club. She is half-Nigerian, half-American, which leaves her with a triple identity: “I identify as black, I identify as white, and I identify as African.” Although she is part of each of those groups, she never has felt quite “enough” for each one, and her identity struggle has followed her for most of her life. Her experiences of discrimination started in Minneapolis. Growing up there was a positive experience up until the election of Donald Trump, when “people started becoming more
