Corin Cort (P9 XXII, Taft ’13, Wesleyan ’17)

I was raised in a Guyanese household and mostly had American friends. I never felt a connection to my Caribbean roots outside of the food I ate and the music my grandparents loved to listen to. That is…until I went to Wesleyan.

 

Freshman year, I tried out and was fortunate enough to get into Kalalu, the Caribbean dance group at Wes. Not only did Kalalu become an entirely new support system and welcome escape from the hitches of adjusting to my first year as a college student,  it helped me connect with my heritage in a way that I never did before. Suddenly, soca and calypso became more than just what played in the background as I helped my grandmother cook, it transformed into the soundtrack of some of my most memorable experiences.

 

After four years of prep school in vanilla Watertown, CT, my mother told me that college would help define who I truly am and would provide the opportunity for me to (re)discover who I want to be – or, in other words, (re)discover my cultural identity. Of course while attending Taft, I, like my school peers, enjoyed J. Crew summer dresses, the newest hits from Alesso, Swedish House Mafia, and Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes. While I didn’t necessarily believe this meant that I had somehow lost touch with my “blackness” and needed to redefine who I was, I did, by the same token, tire of people thinking I was culturally disconnected or some sort of race traitor. The sum of my experiences provided me with eclectic taste in clothes, music, and many other areas. These conflicting ideas and experiences led me to realize that I truly did need to take the next four short years at Wesleyan to explore all of who Corin Cort is and define who I want her to be.

 

Six months later, Kalalu became the defining influence I needed. As a minority in predominantly white institutions for a major portion of my life, it would be dishonest of me to say that it has shielded me from my identity crisis. However, I did find a way to define myself beyond the simple black and white, and uncover a part of myself that had been hidden in my background for years.