After spending almost 20 years putting her formal classical music training to use in higher education and the
performing arts, spaces where the inequities that exist in the United States are especially highlighted, Mariama (Mari) Torruella decided she was ready for a change. Pivoting to non-profit training and development, Mari was looking for an opportunity that spoke to her as much as her early love of music had. She also wanted to find a professional home where she could engage with the activism embodied through generations of strong women leaders in her family – women like her grandmother, Juana Amparo Campos.
Mari found the opportunity she was looking for at Heartland Alliance where she is currently the Senior Project Manager for Heartland Alliance Business Services (HABS). In her role, Mari works with the HABS leadership team to move forward strategic initiatives. She is also a founding member of Heartland Alliance’s Anti-Racism Response Council (ARC).
In honor of Black History Month, Mari reflected on her own family’s legacy, and shared her vision of a future where barriers to Black success no longer exist.
Describe a truly equitable and free society. How is it different from now? What are we still missing?
For me, a truly equitable and free society means no one stands in my way. Honestly, that’s all I want. I want for there not to be obstacles to getting the education that I want, growing the wealth that’s in my family, owning property, living in the place I want to be, having the children in the generation after me be able to freely move about in society and fulfill their dreams. If no one is creating obstacles, then that’s truly free.
And then I do believe in reparations. And what reparations look like for me in a truly just society is, for example, it’s harder for me to have a good credit rating, and I get higher interest loans, and I am targeted by predatory lenders when I’m looking for a house. That is punishing me for being Black. I want to see legislation that says that we are going to counteract the hundreds of years of systemic racism by helping Black people get an education without saddling themselves under crushing debt, to own a house, and to have several avenues towards owning a house even if dealing with credit or a past history that doesn’t look like a white person’s.
Reparations mean, for me, to undo the wrong through real policy change and legislation, through real institutional regulations that say we are going to turn the tide. We’re not just going to even the playing field; we are going to make it better because for so long it’s been so much worse.
I think Heartland stands at a wonderful place for that because of our programs, because of our fantastic research and policy team, because of our innovation focus, and because we are data driven. We can show how poverty disproportionately impacts Black women; we can show how the school to prison pipeline starts in kindergarten for Black people. I really think Heartland is well positioned to be on the right side of moving towards a just and equitable society and being truly anti-racist.
How are you working toward this vision? How does your work at HA support this? How can others work toward this?
The coolest thing I get to do now is work with the Anti-Racism Response Council, the ARC. It’s a fantastic group of leaders and we have just expanded to include working groups with another fantastic group of passionate people who are ready to do this hard work every day. We meet regularly to talk through putting together a structural framework for how we help Heartland Alliance become truly anti-racist.
People who know me know that I am courageous in my speech, so I also call it out if I see inequality. I throw myself into the fray and challenge language that someone may not realize is racist, like the term “grandfather clause” that is rooted in slavery. I show up to work with my own perspective on equity and justice because I grew up with an activist mind frame. It’s always there; it’s in my DNA. It’s in every pore of myself.
And hopefully, with my colleagues, I am a person they can confide in when they are dealing with a difficult situation and microaggressions. I also want to be a resource as a peer to just listen. I think just listening and just showing up to let someone vent when they’re having a tough time is real work, too.
Sankofa is a word in the Akan Twi and Fante languages of Ghana that translates to “Go back and get it.” Sankofa symbolizes the importance of knowing and learning from our past to guide our future. Where should we look to in our past to help guide us to that vision? Are there individuals or events that could help us achieve our goals of equity and opportunity for all?
My whole name, Mariama, is a Swahili name. It means “gift of God.” My mother gave me and my sisters African names because when we were born, the “come back to Africa” movement was really hot and my mother wanted to honor her African roots with her children’s names.
I also grew up Mormon and a very important part of that religion is genealogy. My brother and my older sister (who are still active in the church) have done a lot of work on our family genealogy and so I’ve been able to see that my ancestors include a freed slave, indigenous people, Europeans, and free Black people, free Africans.
When I think and read about the history – especially in Puerto Rico, in the Dominican Republic, in Central America, in the West Indies, where my mom’s grandparents came from in Jamaica – I think about what my ancestors had to overcome. We are talking rape, slavery, persecution, being hunted, being tortured – and I’m here.
The land, I feel like the land takes in the sadness, the trauma and it continues to put out new green. So if my ancestors could survive trauma, and if the land could take the blood and tears of my ancestors who survived to produce me, that is some inspiration for my daily life. I do feel quite formidable, that I am a phenomenal woman who can overcome anything, because my ancestors overcame impossible odds to produce me. And I do believe I am my ancestors’ dream come true.
