Kalilah Moxley '02
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- Alenka FigaAlenka: Okay.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: Go ahead?Alenka: Yeah, go ahead.Kalilah: Okay. My name is Kalilah Moxley. My maiden name is Wiley. I currently live in New Carrollton, Maryland, which is located just outside of Washington, DC, and I’m a member of the Grinnell College class of 2002, and no, my first name is not Hawaiian. I get that a lot at my job.Alenka: Oh, that's funny.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: I’m gonna go a little bit with the questions ‘cause, didn’t have anything prepared. Why did I come to Grinnell College? I came to Grinnell College because it was the complete opposite of where I was raised. I lived in Washington, DC and, of course, major metropolitan city, it was crowded, and I wanted to go to a small town to a small school where you can get individualized attention. And I came here and it was middle of nowhere, so it was complete opposite of what I was used to and I wanted to get far away from home to experience something different. I figured, “Oh, 1,000 miles, that’ll work.”
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: And I guess one of the things- there were so many different memories of the first time I came to the College. It was a complete other world, but it felt comfortable. I remember that people were walking around barefoot. I thought that was the weirdest thing, but it was-Alenka: They still do that.Kalilah: They still do that? OK. And then they would come to class in slippers, which was like, “Oh my God.” And people were like sitting around campus. It was just really laid back and I really really loved that, and I think another thing that struck me was coming into the campus because it’s like, most people, when you fly, you fly into Des Moines and, as soon as you leave the city limits of Des Moines, it’s like, it’s the middle of nowhere. It’s farmland, and it's like, from where I’m from you have to drive like, about an hour, hour and a half before you see the middle of nowhere so to speak.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: Let’s see, in terms of was there a professor, student or staff member that had a strong influence, I would have to say there’s several different types of influences. One professor I really, really liked and I get the feeling he’s no longer here. He was a History professor, Tom Hietala.Alenka: Yeah?Kalilah: Yeah, he’s gone. He taught American history but his focus was, he did stuff with African American history and he also did stuff with the Vietnam War and Civil Rights movement. I really enjoyed his classes because I had my Tutorial with him. It was called Screening the Sixties.Alenka: Oh, great.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: I mean, basically we read primary sources about his focus. It was Civil Rights movement, then it was the Vietnam War and then a little bit on the counterculture, and we’d watch movies based on those events. And I loved that class so much, and in my family history my father and my grandfather love history and I picked that up. I picked that up, as well, and it made me change my mind about doing Anthropology as a major, to, “OK, I’ll do History.” Haven’t done anything with it though, yet.Alenka: Yet.Kalilah: Except give- I now work in retail at Triple A and the only thing I can do with that is if people ask me about certain sites, I give them the information. That’s the only thing I’ve done with my History degree. Oh well! But it’s a job.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: There were a couple of... One other thing I will mention that was really cool about this place is, they didn’t have- In high school and junior high school you deal with the clique system where it's like certain people sit at this table and they sit at this table and they sit at this table and no one really intermingles. Whereas here, for the most part, there’s exceptions to the rule, different people interacted with each other. You couldn’t remember people’s names, but you could remember faces or, “Oh! Such and such does this such and such does this.” And that was like the really cool thing about hanging around here. You could get a chance to interact with different types of people.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: A couple of people that stuck to mind that I used to hang with, unfortunately they didn’t come back, so I would be curious to know what happened to ‘em. One person, she was actually originally from the Dominican Republic, and she spent her high school years in New York. And she came here to Grinnell, and she started this organization called Baile. I don’t know if it’s still around or not. I take that as a no! Basically what they did is, it would just teach you different styles of dancing from Latin America. So, I learned about Meringue, Salsa... I’d never heard of this stuff before coming here because of her, and she was actually my roommate for one semester and I hung out with her a lot. And she had a very laid back, y'know, positive vibe. I remembered her, and I haven’t seen her since graduation.Alenka: Hm. Kalilah: Yeah.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: And then the other one, she actually was a student- oh, I can give her- I can give the first person's name. Her name was Sagrario Rosario.Alenka: Cool.Kalilah: Yeah, and the other one, who was two years behind me, she was in the class of 2004, her name was Melissa Colon. She’s also from the New York City area. And one thing I remember about her was the fact that she had a positive attitude and she had a strong relationship with God.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: And the one thing I will mention is, I kind of, when I came here at that point, I was kind of like, “I’m leaving the Church. I’m mad at the Church, and dah dah dah dah dah," and all these other reasons. But she actually was able to help me to get back into the Church. I'm still- I do still take the teachings. I don’t agree with the Church on everything ‘cause I know there are some issues. I won’t get into ‘em, but one thing is she actually helped me to be able to have a stronger relationship with God, so I do have to... I’m very thankful, and she probably doesn’t even realize that because it was like she left before her influence took me to that next- to that next level.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: What did your dorm room look like? A mess. Organized chaos, same way as my desk, same way as my apartment, same way as everything. One interesting thing I did have in my dorm room, and this is something I would like to start up again wherever I end up living, and when I eventually get a house, I used to have pictures. I would take lots and lots of photos. Yes, before in the dark dark days before we had those lovely digital cameras, we would take- do the point-and-shoot. I had so many photos, I would put them up on the wall.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: And that was one thing that I would always do and that’s something – now, those same exact photos have been in shoeboxes for years and years, but... That’s something I would like to pick up again, but, yeah, that was like one interesting thing I did with the room. And another interesting thing, I picked up this habit from others and I've noticed it still goes on. People put Christmas lights in their room.Alenka: Yeah.Kalilah: That is like the coolest thing in the world. And they would just tape ‘em up on the wall and... loved it.Alenka: Yep.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: Uh.. see... What memories... How has Grinnell changed since I was a student? It’s changed quite a bit. There’s some things that I still remember, some things I don’t, and one thing is, there’s an East Campus. Before I left it was North Campus, South Campus, the division line was the railroad tracks. Now that’s gone. Now you have East Campus. That’s new.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: They’ve changed the dining areas. There’s no longer the Forum. There's, I guess it's the JRC, is what they call it. Yeah, I still have to visit that. Darby used to be there, but that’s now no more. There was another area. I can’t even remember the name of the gymnasium. It’ll probably hit me at 3 o’clock in the morning today. That’s now gone and they’ve replaced it with this new area where they have like a new fitness center thing. I think it’s something called Bear?Alenka: Oh, yeah.Kalilah: The Bear? Where you have like the new swimming pool and the Fitness Center.Alenka: Mhm.Kalilah: I still have to go see the new stuff. I was looking at a lot of the stuff I was familiar with. So, those are definitely the changes that I’ve noticed and I mean, some good changes and some things where you kinda like, hold on to stuff that’s sentimental but as they say, y’know, stuff does go on.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: If you met your spouse or partner at Grinnell- Well, that doesn’t apply. I met my spouse after I left. Um... wow.Alenka: You're not- you don't have to answer all of them. Just whatever jumps out.Kalilah: Whatever jumps out…Alenka: Whatever you feel like sharing.Kalilah: Whatever I feel like sharing... Oh, man... Yeah, that was definitely... Describe something that is no longer on campus. Describe something that is no longer available on campus but is meaningful. Well, I would have to say the Forum was one of the things.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: Describe your favorite place on the campus. Well, there’s several. I actually just took my husband over to Burling Library. That was a place I used to have to study at my first year and sophomore year because I had roommates and I was a late night studier. When I say “late night” two, three, four o’clock in the morning, so I had to go there. So I was just visiting the old areas where I used to study at. Another favorite place was Harris, ‘cause I would of course go pretty much almost to every single party that they had. Or you know, do movies and whatnot.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: I guess, the one other thing that I actually saw in here, what were your best memories of your time at Grinnell College? One of the best things, I would have to say, was... I guess there were several things. One thing that I loved was when we were outside of class, and, of course, a lot of people complained there wasn’t enough to do, and da da da da, but I thought it was the perfect mix because during the week your focus was studying and going to class, but it was, of course, mostly studying.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: And I liked the fact that there was not much to do so I could focus a lot better. And then, y’know, Fridays and Saturdays you would just go over to Harris, or go hang out in one of- go hang out with whoever was having, y'know, a random event or whatnot. So that was one of my best memories, was the extra-curriculars in terms of being able to go out and partying.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: Another great memory I had was, most of the classes that I took you were able to do the discussions in class and then after class you would have- I had to do, in terms of History, you have to do lots and lots of reading. And a lot of the- sometimes the reading was so boring I was just like, “OK, I’m just skimming this, just to get the point.” But there were some passages where it was so interesting, I read the whole thing cover to cover. And one of the- I guess it was like, one of the best things, was just learning all of these different things I learned. And I even have some of the textbooks to this day.Alenka: Oh my-Kalilah: In my apartment, collecting dust. I’ll get to ‘em eventually, as they say.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: Another great memory I have at school- it actually wasn’t per say at school. It was the fact that I had the opportunity to study abroad. My original intent, because I took Spanish and I was just like, “I’m gonna learn how to be bilingual in Spanish!” That, unfortunately, it didn’t happen because I didn’t take enough Spanish credits, but I also took French here.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: I started taking French here and one of the language assistants basically, by interacting with him and I got a chance to really know him. He actually, was part of the reason why I decided, “Oh, well, since I can’t go to a Spanish-speaking country I’ll just go to France.” So I studied in the south of France. The town is called Aix-en-Provence.Alenka: Oh, yeah, my second year roommate just went there in the last year.Kalilah: Yeah?Alenka: Yeah.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: It’s a really beautiful town. It's, of course, it is a touristy town because it's like, everybody and their fifth cousin has heard of it, and it also has a lot of college students, particularly American students, who go there, y'know, to become better acquainted with the French language. I have to say, I didn’t have the best time studying abroad but, I always say, I was always glad I had the experience because I always wanted to know, what is the secret of- Somebody would, before they would leave before study abroad, they would know the language and it was kind of, y'know, eeeeeeeeeh, kinda whatever.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: But when they would get back, it was like, literally, they could translate. They could sign up for the interpreter for the UN. And I was like, “I wanna be able to do that. What’s the secret?” Well, the secret is you operate in the language 24 hours a day. And that’s how you get good at it. The more you speak it, the better you get at it. You’re gonna mess up and all this other stuff but it’s like, "Eh, so what?" Y'know, they get the gist.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: Because of that my French speaking got so much better, I was able to understand better. My writing wasn’t still the greatest because it’s not the easiest language to write in, and it takes a while learn, and it’s not phonetic like it is with Spanish.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: And I would have to say, one of the jobs- actually a couple of jobs. Particularly, I used to do currency exchange and one of the nice things about me being fluent in French was I was able to communicate with people who came from French-speaking countries. And they were shocked, “An American who could speak French fluently!” Like, “Yeah. It does exist. It’s rare.” So that was really the best part and I was even- even at that job my Spanish did get a bit better, because well, I had to talk in Spanish.
- Kalilah Wiley MoxleyKalilah: I have to sadly say though, it’s kind of slipped a little ‘cause the current job I haven’t- I haven’t had the opportunity really. It's because it’s like- It’s still there, it's just kind of, as they say, it’s got some dust on it. But I would say it’s one of those, if anybody, I guess this a plug for anybody who’s considering studying abroad, it’s one of those experiences... Do it while you’re in college.
- Kalilah Wiley Moxley & Alenka FigaKalilah: 'Cause once you leave school, it's very... it can be difficult to do. It’s not impossible, but it can be difficult to do it, and particularly once you get married and have kids you can’t necessarily- It’s a lot harder just to say, “OK I would like to study abroad,” if you’re like, of the working age. Once you retire, that’s a different story. It’s different because you have to think more of the “we” versus, “Oh, I’m by myself, I can do whatever I want.” Yeah.Alenka: Okay. Well, thank you.
Alumni oral history interview with Kalilah Moxley '02. Recorded June 2, 2012.