Nuestras Huellas: Unapologetically Black with Anyla Dior McDonald

This guided story walk is part of the Nuestras Huellas story walk series.  Anyla Dior McDonald, an 18-year-old WAHI graduate and the author of Black Joy and Black Tribulations, will lead up to 20 participants through the Walla Walla High School Campus. At stops along the path Anyla share her personal stories and the experiences that motivated her to become a writer and advocate for black youth and restorative justice in the education system. 
This event is by invitation only as we can accommodate just 20 participants. Reach out to tlpwallawalla@gmail.com to inquire and learn more.

More about Nuestras Huellas: Nuestras Huellas is an ongoing series of site-specific story walks led by community guides whose stories have been unheard or silenced in our community. Using recorded conversations as an artistic research method, each community guide works with an expert Listener from The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte to devise a personalized route for their individual walk. At sites along the route, the guide shares important stories from their lives with the walking tour participants. With support and training from the expert Listeners, guides employ tools of the theatre and socially engaged art to lead participants in embodied activities, creating opportunities to both hear AND feel the guides lived experiences.

Reflection
The Listeners Project Paper

Throughout the journey of my story walk, I felt as if I was sailing on a ship. Leaning over the rail towards the front of the ship, with my arms spread wide. As the ocean air runs through my finger tips, entering the insides of my ear lobes, my small nostril wholes, the tiny cracks of my eyelets, and the small hairs upon my eyebrows as they sing Luther Vandross. The fresh air brushing against the blush inserted upon my cheeks, blowing away my thick mascara, creeping inside my dimples, almost removing the pink lipstick applied against both of my lips, and giving my gap a sense of drifty inner coldness. Pushing my strands towards the back of my neck and making the hairs on my arms dance to Faith Evans.

As I read my essay “Black culture, Black essence, Black celebration”,I felt Taraji P Henson, James Baldwin, Denzel Washington, and Kirk Franklin enlarging my throat chakra. To better enunciate the words that I needed to vocalize. As I read “The new Black girl in School”, I felt the 12 year old me healing itself. Releasing the shackles, the heavy boot, and the large brick she had been carrying over her shoulders for the past 6 years. She was sighing and exhaling with glory. Breaking strings and ropes of disparity and heart ache. Being able to truly say “I am divine, I am flawless, I am black excellence, I am the essence of blackness, I am the child of the most high god, I am black, and I love me unconditionally”.

When I mentioned the trauma that I had possessed from having to hear my teacher repeatedly say the n word, as she read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the Martin Luther King Letter. I felt a sense of therapeutic recovery and accomplishment. I felt that I was no longer camouflaging and erasing my feelings about that specific occurrence. I felt freed from the burden, that taunted me and inputted demons inside of my dreams that were then turned into nightmares. That caused me to lose oxygen and stillness as I layed on my mattress throughout nightfall. Shivering as if a spell or curse had been placed within me. Only being able to breathe in the voodoo potions and witchcraft stew. Shaking as if I was having a seizure and then stuck as if I was having a stroke. Stuttering and punching the air as my eyes remained shut. Searching for air in a place where there was none.

As I read “Harmonious Black Joy” I felt as though I was actually in my grandmothers living room, watching her smile as I did the electric slide and K-wang. As she witnessed me enjoy the scent and flavors of the yams and collard greens. But as I danced to the cupid shuffle and Cha Cha slide with the audience towards the end of the walk. I began to feel even more proud of my cultural traditions, ways of expressing black happiness, and black enthusiasm. Overall, leaving me with a sense of being rejuvenated and conquered.