By Brittanyana Pierro
Nashesha Rowberg is a sophomore at Evergreen, focusing her degree on sustainable agriculture. Rowberg grew up in Arusha, Tanzania, with a local mother from the Pare tribe and an American immigrant father.
Rowberg went to the very ethnically diverse local international schools. She says this was nice for her as a mixed person, but very homogenous in terms of creativity. “I didn’t really like school. I went to a very traditional very structured school, and I guess art was just sort of a break from that,” said Rowberg. “I could just like, be more expressive, and different. They did try to make art classes, but […] you can’t structure art. ”
Rowberg was hesitant to even attend college until one of her relatives told her about Evergreen. “My dad’s godson, he went to Evergreen, and I was talking to him, while I was looking at colleges,” she said. “I was feeling really uninspired, didn’t really wanna go to college because of my experience in high school. I was telling him about my concerns, and he was like, ‘Oh, why don’t you check out Evergreen. It’s very unique.’”
The reflective and interpersonal environment of classrooms here was exactly what she was looking for. “I’ve been really happy with my choice so far. It’s really cool how different the approach to education is. It’s really refreshing,” said Rowberg. “You really engage in what you are learning. I like that were constantly reflecting on our learning, and I feel like it helps you reflect in life as well. Not just academics, but where you are personally in your life.”
Rowberg studies sustainable farming here at Evergreen. Her art and her mentality are both influenced heavily by her love for plants. “I love plants, I love plants that produce food. What really disappoints me about people’s attitudes about farmers is that they’re seen as like the bottom of all the career paths,” said Rowberg. “You eat everyday, you should be bowing down to these people, they’re amazing. Being in a lot of food justice classes, learning about terrible treatment of farmworkers, that’s horrible. How did we as a society come to that point where people who feed us everyday are treated like less than even dirt?”
Her home town of Arusha is a big farm town and is a huge influence on her drive to study sustainable agriculture. “It’s a huge farming culture,” said Rowberg. “[There is a] big issue is sexism in the farmworker industry, and also owning land, a lot of women aren’t able to gain land rights, even though they’re [doing] most of the farmwork. ”
After she graduates from Evergreen, Rowberg wants to go back to her hometown and bring her knowledge of farming with her. “The first vision I had before coming to college was teaching people more sustainable farming practices, because there’s a lot of soil degradation back home,” said Rowberg. “Soil erosion is a huge problem. First heal the land, then help the people.”
In an evolution of sorts, Rowberg went from finding art as a solace in a boring school life, to begin finding art as a way of reflecting herself and the world around her, as she was doing in school.
Rowberg gains the most creative energy doing simple things, such as being “at the bus stop just sitting and watching stuff happen,” she said.
“This picture is from a traffic scene in Tanzania, [I like] showing all the chaos. It’s mainly just things that I’ve seen from observation around me.”
Rowberg’s identity as a Black Tanzanian woman is also a big part of her art. “My art is very African, as you can tell. A lot of it is derived from the culture in Tanzania.” she said. “It’s what’s in my blood, it goes through my veins.”
The nuances of ‘black-ness’ and black people are varied. Rowberg feels as though she doesn’t fit in with American POC youth. “Someone asked me if I was gonna stay in the U.S after I graduated, and I said no, because I just fit in so much better back home.”
One of the few encounters she had with the Black Americans back home was coincidentally with Pete O’Neal, the former chair of the Kansas City Black Panthers. In 1969 O’Neal was arrested for transporting a gun across state lines. He escaped to Algeria and then later Tanzania, where he still lives. Coincidentally, O’Neal and Rowberg’s dad are close friends.
Rowberg says this connection changed her. “That’s basically the only experience I had with Black Americans, and I feel like for him and his friends it’s different because they’ve been in Tanzania so long. They’ve just like been influenced by the culture there, and they’ve adapted,” she said. “So I feel like they’re in every way very Tanzanian now. Just differences in nationality and different cultures, there’s differences there, but I feel like there’s still similarities. Like having a sense of community is really big, in both cultures, and family is really important.”
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