Who is Jamila K. Gaskins?
That’s quite the existential question, right? To start, my name Jamila (pronounced Jahmeela) Kamaria is Swahili and means “beautiful like the moon.” My mother named me after seeing a full moon on the way to the hospital while in labor with me. At heart, I am a storyteller, researcher and strategist thinking about and working towards ways that we can live and work together in a world based on justice and equity.
This wasn’t always my work. To arrive at a place of wholehearted living, I had to traverse the landscape of my life, weaving into my identity the pieces that fit and leaving those belonging to society or family.
Luckily, my mother modeled a commitment to transformation.
As a kid I wanted to be an artist. I dreamt of dancing in the streets of New York, being on Broadway and on television. What I heard over and over was when your mother works hard to create a life for you, you do not squander it on dreams.
When I was eight, after 12 years of marriage and three kids, parents divorced. My mother set on a journey reinventing herself. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, AND a 4.0 GPA. I witnessed her courage and tenacity striving to stand on her own and live a life of meaning while building a better life for us. Her perseverance and commitment inspired our surrounding community to rise up in support of our family.
The price of trying to make everyone happy was my own happiness.
Instead of following my dreams, I compromised hoping if I lived a bit of other’s expectation, then I could have little bit for myself. I went to college and became a “responsible” adult over the years working as an administrative assistant, office manager, and marketing manager.
After work, I was in my element using my B.A. in Theater and Communications to assist independent artists in producing their plays and films. I crafted my own monthly cabaret spotlighting and supporting women of color artists.
The example of my community filling the gaps for my mother has always stayed with me. As a result, I became a Big Sister, a Sexual Assault Victims Advocate, and participated in triathlons and marathons raising money for organizations like AIDS Project Los Angeles and Avon 39.
There came a point where I said, “Enough. I can’t do this anymore.”
There comes a time when the pain and cost of continuing the status quo begins to outweigh the benefits. It’s at this moment you are presented a choice of resigning yourself to staying the same or committing to change.
For me it was in November 2014, following the murders of John Crawford and Tamir Rice, both of which happened in my home state of Ohio. I was additionally disgusted and enraged by the language used about the victims and their communities.
I could not reconcile dehumanization with the Black kids I played with and went to school with, the boys that stood up for me against bullying and racial name-calling, the community that cared for me and my family as Mom worked for a better life.
I had already been involved in community work, but I was tired of splitting my life. I wanted to figure out how to use all of who I am for the betterment of myself and those around me.
What does a life lived on my own terms look like?
In living her life to the fullest, my mother created a blueprint for my siblings and me to do the same.
She taught us to:
1) Be Intellectually Curious
2) Find Our Community
and,
3) Be Persistent.
So, I got curious. I didn’t know where I was going, and that was okay.
All I knew was I wanted to show up more fully for myself and my community.
It’s not a lot to go on, but I am the daughter of academics, so I started researching beginning with a simple subject search: careers in social justice and social change.
From 2014-2016, I asked myself questions like:
Who is doing things that excite me and engaged more of my curiosity?
Where should I be?
What should I be doing?
What feels right to me?
I attended panel discussions, had conversations on community organizing and development, listened to countless podcast episodes, volunteered with food cooperatives, traveled to learn about building mission-driven businesses and cultivating resilient agriculture, and studying intergenerational trauma.
Where are my people?
Oct 2016, I enrolled in Antioch University Los Angeles (AULA) Urban Sustainability Master’s program.
The program grounds you in environmental science while focusing on environmental, economic, and social justice.
For almost two years, I worked full-time and attended graduate school full-time. I commuted 45 minutes to work, then camped out in a conference room for night classes. I scoped out late night coffee shops close to work noting the ones with good reviews for having decent wi-fi and being excellent for studying.
Then make the drive back home to sleep for five hours, wake up and do it again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
While I knew I was burning the candle at both ends, and something would have to give, I received a note from a professor who praised the content of a paper but wrote, “…we should not see those types of (grammatical) errors in graduate-level and professional writing.”
“We didn’t come this far to only come this far.”
My cohort had two mantras:
We have a track record.
We didn’t come this far to only come this far.
One reminded us that we made it through every challenge to date, and therefore have a track record of success.
In late night study sessions, or the times everyone in the house slept while I was in the dining room with books, articles and studies strewn about the table wondering if the words I typed were even a sentence, the second mantra said, “Don’t give up now. Persist.”
I asked myself, “What do you want? What changes are you willing to make to get it?”
My job wouldn’t allow me to shift to working part-time. After the feedback from my instructor, I knew either the job or school had to go. I felt as if I was barely doing either well.
In considering, the next action which felt right and aligned, my pursuit of living an integrated life meant that the only right decision for me was to devote my time and energy to my graduate studies. First, I had to save money to quit my job. The goal was to tuck away as much as possible in the seven months between my decision and the beginning of thesis writing.
I budgeted my money, spent only on necessities, and tightened my belt. Over seven months, I save $30,000 to transition from my corporate job to focus on completing my thesis.
Because I gifted myself time and space for research, writing and revisions, my thesis, “How Did Forced Migration and Forced Displacement Change Igbo Women’s and Their African American Daughters’ Environmental Identity?,” won the AULA 2018 Library Research Award. The Library Research Award Committee found my “paper to be compelling, creative, intellectually daring”.
I am living as the artist and creation of my life.
And today, I continue to follow my mother’s blueprint, but I have incorporated her pillars into my vision for living a good life. I am able claim my life as my own and fully embrace myself and honor where I came from.
My work with people and organizations focuses on three areas: people, principle, and practice. Are you in right relationship with yourself and others? What is your guiding or core principles? How do you practice them?
After the transformational inner journey which brought me my own pillars, I knew my work was guiding others on their own path of healing and freedom.