2010 YWCA Women of Achievement Empowerment Award Winner: Star Hogan

Meet Star Hogan - our 2010 YWCA Women of Achievement BrickStreet Empowerment Award winner and the last in our 4-week series of blog posts leading up to this inspirational event on February 18. The BrickStreet Empowerment Award recognizes and rewards a YWCA program participant who, through great perseverance and with the help of the YWCA, overcomes obstacles and transforms her life.This year marks the 14th annual YWCA Women of Achievement Awards Luncheon, honoring the outstanding women in our community whose personal and professional achievements inspire and empower other women to strive for their highest goals.

STAR HOGAN has dreamt big all her life. Even while growing up in a Charleston housing project, she aspired to be the first in her family to graduate college, become a professional, raise a family, and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, Star’s life hasn’t always been a fairy tale. During her sophomore year in college, she met the man she believed to be her “prince charming.” However, after being diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease and suspending her education indefinitely to undergo chemotherapy, Star became completely dependent on her significant other for daily support.

For the next 15 years, she withstood a relationship that was physically, emotionally, psychologically and financially abusive. In 2004, she filed a domestic violence petition and was introduced to a legal advocate from the YWCA Resolve Family Abuse Program during a child support and custody hearing. With the information and legal representation she received from the program and the encouragement and support from her friends and family, Star finally found the courage to leave her abuser once and for all. She returned to school and obtained both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Mountain State University, which opened new career opportunities.

Today she works as a benefits administrator at a large financial institution and lives in a new home with her two children. She also teaches the YWCA Resolve Program’s Keys to Financial Freedom financial literacy course, which enables domestic violence survivors to fully understand their financial circumstances and helps them engage in short-term and long-term financial planning to accomplish their personal goals.

Cultural values: Do they define me?

The following post was written by YWCA Racial Justice Program Coordinator Nell Fleming. As we celebrate Black History Month, Nell's insights lend to the larger cultural and racial dialogue the YWCA of Charleston wishes to promote this and every month as part of our mission to eliminate racism and empower women.

One of the reasons my parents cited in their argument against my marriage to a black man, was that we were from two different cultural backgrounds (which they pointed out would make marriage harder). They gave me statistical evidence that persons who marry someone who lives within a mile of where the other person grew up have an astronomically higher rate of staying together. I must admit, my husband and I did grow up 380 miles apart – he in an urban all black setting, and I in a rural mostly white setting. We do have very different cultural backgrounds in that respect. However, when I traveled to Japan in 1990 and experienced the shock of some of my friends’ parents upon seeing a photo of me and my fiancé, I calmly explained that we were both American and that we had the same culture and values. This was something of a revelation in such a homogeneous country where people view culture and language to be synonymous with ancestry and ethnicity. They accepted it to the extent that I was allowed to continue having tea and be in their homes; how they really felt will forever be a mystery.

Although my husband and I do have distinctly different communication styles and have had our share of challenges in the past 22 years, the bigger challenge for me has always been with other people who who look more like me – white women, who were my teachers and colleagues over the years. I have been picked on endlessly for not smiling enough, looking too serious, being too serious and even accused of being stuck up. My facial expressions were such a thorn in my side, I took to reading books on communication styles and looking in the mirror to practice appropriate faces so that I could be viewed as a friendlier person. I took a Dale Carnegie course and won an award for “most improved.” However, no matter how much I’ve learned, grown, adapted and practiced, my natural state of being is to show the true emotions on my face. If I am concentrating or tired, I look severe and, to my dismay, almost angry.

Imagine my surprise when another parent who was from Eastern Europe befriended, saying: “You are one of the few Americans who don’t smile all the time. You show what you are really feeling.” She went on to say: “In my country, when Americans visit, they are always smiling and people say ‘Why do those Americans smile all the time those fake smiles? I wish they would show how what they are really feeling.’” It is no surprise that my mother’s family roots are Eastern European and that the women in my family are the dominant sex with regards to communication. It is nice to know that my way of being is not a flaw in me but a cultural difference that I can explain if given the opportunity.

What is unfortunate is that when we talk about cultural differences in groups, we assume that to be different, one has to have a different skin color. In the same manner, we assume that if persons have a different skin color, they must be culturally different. It is a root of the angst many Asian Americans feel when people ask them “Where are you from originally?” or “What other languages do you speak?”

Perhaps for Black History Month, we should challenge ourselves to think about what we as peoples of many races and colors have in common. Remember that being “white” or “black” isn’t a thing that can be defined by one set of rules or cultural attributes, but is unique to each region, each time in history, and each individual. Part of learning about other cultures is also learning about yourself. If you understand who you are and where you came from, it will be easier to understand others and what impact the past and present has on who they are.

In closing, what would you like people to know about you and your cultural values? Is there anything about your culture that you wish you knew more about?

Photo: Nell Fleming pictured with her daughter, Ronnell.

2010 YWCA Women of Achievement Honoree #3: Kay Goodwin

Meet Kay Goodwin - one of this year’s 2010 YWCA Women of Achievement honorees and the third in our 4-week series of blog posts leading up to this inspirational event on February 18. This year marks the 14th annual YWCA Women of Achievement Awards Luncheon, honoring the outstanding women in our community whose personal and professional achievements inspire and empower other women to strive for their highest goals.

KAY GOODWIN is a lifetime forerunner in arts and education. She was reappointed Cabinet Secretary for the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts in 2005 by Governor Manchin and currently serves on the WV Higher Education Policy Commission, the WV Humanities Council, and the Professional Staff Development Advisory Council. Named a Distinguished West Virginian, WVU’s Outstanding Alumna, and recipient of the WVU President’s Distinguished Service Award, she was inducted into the WVU College of Human Resources and Education Hall of Fame in 2008.

Secretary Goodwin is co-chairman of the Center for Professional Development Board, chairman of the West Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission, co-chairman of the West Virginia Council on Civics Literacy and the Governor’s designated chairman of the Educational Broadcasting Authority. She is a member of The Workforce Planning Council, a lifetime member of the Governor’s Honors Schools Advisory Council, a member of the Board of Advisors for WVU’s Blaney House and serves on the HB 3009 Workforce Development Initiative Committee.

Formerly, Secretary Goodwin served as chair of the University of West Virginia System Board of Trustees, the WV Commission on the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Financial Aid Coordinating Council. She was appointed in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush to serve on the Independent Commission to Review the Grantmaking Procedures of the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2004, Secretary Goodwin was designated one of only four recipients of the National Public Service Award and was recognized as Daughter of the Year by the WV Society of Washington, DC.

For more than 20 years, Secretary Goodwin directed community and high school musical theatre in Jackson County, in addition to staging opera performances in other state venues. Secretary Goodwin was honored by both the National Educational Theatre Association and the West Virginia Thespian Conference for her support and advancement of student theatre in West Virginia and the nation. Secretary Goodwin has taught at both WVU and WVSU and has received five honorary doctoral degrees.