After not feeling well represented by the choices for Black community clubs offered at San José State, second-year speech therapy student Brooklyn Woodberry decided to start the club Cultured Pearls.
She started this club as a way for African American students to connect with their culture despite the underrepresentation present in the campus community.
“I think a lot of our Black-centered clubs on campus are very focused on the African experience, which is great, but there wasn’t really space for other people who were Black but didn’t identify as African,” Woodberry said.
The institution of slavery in the United States crippled the ability for many African Americans to trace their roots back to Africa, according to an article written by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
While there aren’t any actual pearls involved in the club, Woodberry said she came up with the name as an allusion to the Black experience in America.
In gemology, cultured pearls are grown in pearl farms and are a result of human intervention while uncultured pearls grow in the wild on their own, according to a web page from the Gemological Institute of America.
“I took that idea and applied it to Black people in America and I like the name because I think it kind of encapsulates our identity as people who are a part of the African diaspora,” Woodberry said.
Woodberry, who is also the president of the club, said the club activities are usually centered around different parts of Black culture within the United States.
The club hosted an event last semester during Halloween where they invited people to paint bottle jars as a way to educate people about the Gullah Geechee people, according to Woodberry.
The Gullah Geechee are a West African tribe that migrated to the southeastern United States, according to a web page from the National Park Service.
The jars were seen as a way to capture evil “haints” or spirits before they could enter the homes of the Gullah Geechee people according to a webpage from the Lowcountry Gullah.
Social Media Coordinator, Alexandria Bovell, encourages the African American community to come to club events and get to know more about it.
“Surround yourself with people who have had the same experiences as you,” Bovell said. “That was my main goal coming into college and I feel like I’ve been doing good at that and it’s been honestly healing.”
Although the club is centered around African American culture, it is not exclusive to African American people. The executive board equally encourages people who are not African American to check out the club and come to events.
Trinity Asberry, the club secretary, compared non-Black students coming to club events to students taking ethnic studies classes on cultures that are not their own.
“People learn about different cultures all the time,” Asberry said. “People go to classes about different cultures all the time, so I don’t see anything wrong with trying to learn about a different culture that you don’t know about.”
The organization took part in the MOSAIC’s Multicultural Fall Welcome on Oct. 22, 2024, which can be seen on the MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center’s Instagram page.
Journey Anderson, treasurer for the heritage club, shares the same stance and equally welcomes people who might look a little different to the club.
“Don’t be nervous,” Anderson said. “I think a lot of times life is a learning lesson (and) every day we’re learning something new about anything, so I think that idea creates open spaces, open minds and really promotes overall happiness (and) inclusivity.
While it is Black History Month, the club does not have any events planned for the month or the semester as they are using the semester as a planning period for the next school year.
“We’re not having anything this semester because of other conflicts,” Woodberry said. “I do want to start planning next year very heavily, so unfortunately we don’t have plans for Black History Month this month. However, we will be ready for next semester and the semester after that.”
