Regina Lankenau '21 presents her certificate project, "Finding Resilience During A Pandemic: Lessons from a Venezuelan Refugee," during the Program in Journalism's third annual Senior Colloquium.
This project grew out of a summer spent collecting oral histories from resettled refugees across the U.S. for the Princeton Office of Religious Life Oral History Archive and was generously funded by the John McPhee '53 Award for Summer Projects in Independent Journalism. Although all the stories I had the honor to hear were varied and featured colorful lives, characters, journeys and dreams, a common thread I found was a steadfast resilience in the face of unimaginable obstacles. During a tumultuous 2020 summer spent in quarantine at my family's home in Houston, I couldn't help but feel there was so much I had yet to learn from women and men who had left everything behind in search of a better life for themselves and their children. It was a true testament to strength in a time of uncertainty—something that I felt was incredibly relevant to the moment we were living through.