Film tells story of 14 scholars who left apartheid to attend Smith
In 1986, Smith College started a program to give a cohort of 16 South African students the chance to leave apartheid, a system of discrimination based on race, and attain an education on a full scholarship.
“Where I Became,” a documentary about the program produced by two alumnae, Jane Dawson Shang and Tandiwe Njobe, and directed by Northampton resident Kate Geis, contextualizes the history of apartheid in South Africa through interviews with the scholars, archival footage, and personal photos. Narrated by 14 of the 16 graduates, the film weaves the individual perspectives into a collective account that showcases the courage, faith, and determination each woman mustered to leave home in pursuit of an education.
“Suddenly, here we are at Smith and we’re finding our voices and we’re learning that we can speak up, we can be heard, we can be seen,” said Kholeka Mabuya, a student who graduated in 1996. “I think that’s why that title resonates with our growth, because essentially everything started at Smith.”
The film came to fruition after
Shang (class of 1982) met Njobe (class of 1994) in 2012. They began pursuing the project in 2018: Shang, based in the United States, sorted through the college’s records in search of the program’s history, and Njobe, across the Atlantic in South Africa, started contacting her former classmates.
The documentary opens with a scene from a Smith reunion, where the audience is introduced to Njobe and Nolwandle Mgoqi, the other alumna from the class of 1994. (Each year, they came in pairs.) The scholars explain the history of apartheid in individual testimonials before the camera, and describe the political climate on Smith’s campus as students, faculty, and staff called for divestment in South Africa.
The scholars credit the creation of the scholarship to the institution’s first female president, Jill Ker Conway, originally from Australia.
It was important to include as many of the student perspectives as possible, said Geis, not only in recalling personal histories and educational achievement, but also in documenting each scholar’s growth on Smith’s campus.
“There is an overarching theme of the strength of young people,” said Geis, “the strength of the power of education, whether you’re working within a system that is actively working against you, and then what the opportunity becomes when you’re on a campus where those doors start opening up.”
Mabuya said Smith is “home” to each graduate. “We’re coming from South Africa, we lived under very difficult conditions, and I think what the documentary is trying to show is that, regardless of who you are and where you come from, there are opportunities out there — and when you are presented with one, make the most of it, take it.”