Colin Powell School
Aisha Fuenzalida Butt
2021 Valedictorian for Colin Powell School
1. Where are you from and what is your background? Please share your story from the
period before you arrived at CCNY.
I am a first-generation college student from a low income family. I grew up in Staten Island in a bilingual, multiethnic Chilean-Pakistani household. I was raised by my single mother and older sister in a family made up solely of resilient women. There was always an abundance of arroz con leche and roti to welcome any company but no guidance to aid me as I navigated higher education. My mother always instilled in me the value of education and inspired me to pursue all my intellectual curiosities. Knowing I always had my family’s support to rely on allowed me to freely explore my various passions and led me to find other circles of community like Sadie Nash Leadership Project and establish the Community Action Team that fostered my growth as an intersectional feminist, environmentalist, and overall scholar.
2. What brought you to City College?
Growing up in the very red, conservative borough of Staten Island, I was really drawn to City College for its commitment to inclusion, equity and justice. Staten Island tends to have a rather homogenous demographic, and I yearned to be in an environment that valued diversity and complimented my interests in social justice issues and environmental science. City College’s long history of expanding the intellectual and professional experiences of students of color and its dedication to granting accessibility to students from underrepresented communities is what motivated me to apply and ultimately enroll. When I was younger I didn’t have the opportunity to venture into the city or spend as much time there as I wanted to. I knew in college I wanted to have NYC as my classroom and take advantage of all its wonderful resources like visiting museums and attending various talks. Placed in the heart of Harlem and with a rich legacy of student activism, I felt I would fit right in.
3. What is your passion or purpose behind pursuing what you did at City College?
During my first semester at City College, I happened to take Intro to Anthropology as part of my general requirements and fell in love with Anthropology. I was exposed to works of literature by black and brown authors that I had never encountered previously, igniting my passion for social, racial and environmental justice. A whole new world opened up for me. The inevitability of climate change intensifying underlying problems such as economic inequality, health disparities, and access to resources in marginalized communities sparked my interest in intersectional environmentalism. There is a violent history of BIPOC communities experiencing environmental racism and those communities face greater dangers today from environmental harms. My home of Staten Island once housed the world's largest landfill, so large it was rumored to be visible from space. The will to better my community, a site for toxic dumping, motivated me to explore both the sociocultural and ecological effects of environmental protections, regulations and policies and environmental devastation on local communities. I believe harmonizing an anthropological lens and perspective with conversations about climate and policy are essential. In the future, I plan to pursue a PhD in Anthropology and hope to work at the intersections of Anthropology, Ecology, Environmental Science and Archaeology to bridge the gap between the hard and social sciences. Using the toolkit I gained from the Colin Powell School and an interdisciplinary approach, I hope to contribute new discoveries and developments to the field of Environmental Anthropology to improve the lives of low-income, geographically endangered communities of color experiencing the destructive effects of climate change.
4. Briefly, how has your career unfolded? How did City College and/or the Colin Powell School help you to get where you are at in your career?
Being a student in the Colin Powell School (CPS) has bestowed me with many enriching opportunities and experiences. As an Anthropology major and Women’s and Gender Studies minor, I have taken classes that have intellectually stimulated and challenged me, studied abroad, participated in various fellowships, and worked with a variety of diverse communities and organizations. As a student in CPS with a primary focus in AGIS, I built my own curriculum and course of study. While my love for Anthropology blossomed, so did my passion for science. I am interested in learning how Anthropology and ecology are intertwined and connected to each other. Using an interdisciplinary approach, I enrolled in courses across disciplines. My coursework has allowed me to integrate sociocultural and biological perspectives when thinking about climate crises. Additionally, I gained vital hands-on field experience working with local communities and wildlife in conservation contexts. As a low-income student, being awarded the Chancellor’s Global Scholarship allowed me to participate in three study abroad programs in Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands, and Australia. Studying abroad allowed me to engage with local and global discourses of race and environmentalism. With support from CPS, my learning approach has extended beyond the traditional settings of a classroom and equipped me with a holistic understanding of how environmentalism and conservation materialize on the ground.
As a Mellon Mays and Climate Policy Fellow, I’ve had the pleasure to share spaces with the most talented, intelligent and passionate people I have ever met. I connected with students that shared my passions and we’ve supported one another in our endeavours. The Mellon Mays fellowship provided me the opportunity to develop my own research project and demystified the pathway to getting a PhD. As a Climate Policy fellow, it’s been wonderful engaging with students of different disciplines in conversations about climate and policy. The Colin Powell School has given me so much, most importantly my deep passion for Anthropology, intersectional environmentalism and a commitment to promoting justice, equity and equality for all. I will forever be indebted to my wonderful mentors, the Anthropology department, professors, staff and friends at CCNY who saw potential in me and invested so much of their time and energy to help me succeed. Where I am today and where I will be in the future is a result of their kindness.
5. Do you have any significant memories or accomplishments from your career or time
at City College that you would like to talk about?
Before my time at CCNY, I had never been on a plane. During my sophomore year, I studied marine biology abroad in Costa Rica during the winter semester. Here I made life-lasting friends and memories — I released baby turtles into the ocean, scuba dived and snorkeled with marine life, recorded the biological data for caimans, dived for rays and so much more. While abroad, I also volunteered with various environmental organizations and NGOs observing first-hand the challenges of conservation projects and its effects on local communities. Studying abroad in Costa Rica, unknowingly, greatly impacted my future. It has stuck with me throughout my entire college career. It was the catalyst that inspired me to develop my interdisciplinary independent research project on the social and ecological effects environmental protections and understandings of nature and conservation have on local communities in Costa Rica as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate fellow. Having the opportunity to work with my amazing mentors, Professors Matthew Reilly and Stanley Thangaraj, has been an incredibly rewarding and enriching experience. They inspire me to be a warrior for change, guide me in investigating and cultivating my interests, and encourage me to think critically about the world around me.
Being valedictorian of the Colin Powell School is a tremendous honor not only for myself, but for my village of professors, mentors, peers and family that have supported and guided me throughout my undergraduate journey. As the daughter of an immigrant Chilean mother who always wanted to but couldn’t attend college, the desire to uplift my family and compensate my mother for her sacrifices incited my aspiration for academic success. Amidst lacking resources and the various hardships in my path, I am proud of myself for working hard and succeeding academically, while also actively engaging in ample volunteering and community service projects. As valedictorian, I hope to inspire others who look like me and have similar experiences to believe that higher education is not only possible, but you can thrive and excel.
6. Do you have any advice you could give to current or future students?
I believe many students, oftentimes students of color and those coming from marginalized backgrounds, feel this tremendous pressure to “change the world” and to find a career or job that will allow them to do so. While it’s honorable to want to impact and change the world for the better, this is a burdensome task for an individual to take on by themselves. We’re often fed this romanticized blueprint of instant and global ways to change the world. Don’t try to change the world by following what you think is the cookie-cutter conventional way to enact change. You can simply change the world by doing what you’re good at and what you’re passionate about. There’s so many people doing incredible, meaningful, and impactful work and that’s because they find their passion and what speaks to their strengths. So take the time now to explore and cultivate your interests and where you can possibly best contribute your skills because that is a pathway to changing the world. I, myself, have often felt overwhelmed by this weight on my shoulders to “change the world” and questioned whether I’m doing enough. It’s important to remember that for many of us at CCNY, simply attending college and existing in certain spaces is a revolutionary radical act itself! Keep this in mind when you feel you’re not doing enough or you’re not changing things—you are, but may not notice it! Change isn’t linear and even if you’re not able to evidently see the change, know that it’s adding up long term. It’s a process. It’s vital to work collectively with groups of people who have the same end goals, ambitions and interests as you. By working together with likeminded people who bring diverse strengths to the table, you have a better chance of having a more meaningful impact. Lastly, remember to always thank your support system throughout your journey and to extend your hand backwards to uplift and support others.