{"id":29785,"date":"2014-02-25T14:49:05","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T19:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/2014\/02\/25\/white-fund-and-necc-present-award-winning-journalist\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T16:28:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T20:28:06","slug":"white-fund-and-necc-present-award-winning-journalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2014\/02\/25\/white-fund-and-necc-present-award-winning-journalist\/","title":{"rendered":"White Fund and NECC Present Award-winning Journalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7992\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/media-old\/2014\/02\/Raquel_Cepeda_1-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7992\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7992\" alt=\"Raquel Cepeda, author and cultural activist\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/media-old\/2014\/02\/Raquel_Cepeda_1-2-300x246.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"246\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-7992\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Raquel Cepeda, author and cultural activist<\/p><\/div>A White Fund lecture featuring award-winning author and cultural activist Raquel Cepeda, author of <i>Bird of Paradise: How I Became a Latina<\/i>, a memoir chronicling Cepeda\u2019s year-long journey to discover the truth about her ancestry, is being held in partnership with Northern Essex Community College on Thursday, March 6 from 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Lawrence High School, 70-72 North Parish Road, Lawrence. \u00a0Cepeda\u2019s presentation is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n<p>During the event, entitled \u201cDebunking and Redefining the \u2018American Dream\u2019 in <i>Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina<\/i>, Cepeda, who was born in Harlem to Dominican parents, will discuss her coming of age in New York City and Santo Domingo as well as the process of uncovering and exploring her ancestry and what it means to be Latino today.<\/p>\n<p>Cepeda is an award winning journalist, cultural activist, and documentary filmmaker. She has written about identity, race, Latino issues, hip-hop culture, and travel for The New York Times, The Village Voice, CNN.com, and the Associated Press. She directed and produced \u201cBling: A Planet Rock\u201d, a critically-acclaimed documentary about American hip-hop culture\u2019s obsession with diamonds and is currently in production on \u201cDeconstructing Latina\u201d, a documentary about a group of troubled teenage girls in a suicide prevention program who are transformed through an exploration of their roots using ancestral DNA testing.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0For additional information on this lecture, contact Martha Leavitt, director of operations \u2013 Lawrence Campus at <a href=\"mailto:mleavitt@necc.mass.edu\">mleavitt@necc.mass.edu<\/a>. The White Fund\u2019s purpose is to have a free series of interactive presentations for Lawrence-area adults, youth, and children. The audience is encouraged to seek wisdom, cultural enrichment, and intellectual enhancement by attending and participating.<\/p>\n<p>Funded by a generous financial gift from the Honorable Daniel Appleton White, the White Fund Lecture Series has provided cultural conversation featuring well-known lecturers in fields such as history, literature, travel, the arts, and politics. The White Fund is collaborating with Northern Essex on this series.<\/p>\n<p>The NECC White Fund series will continue on Monday, May 5 with a presentation of <i>The Prep School Negro<\/i>, a documentary recounting the experience of Director and Producer Andr\u00e9 Robert Lee and current-day minority students in elite prep schools will be held at Lawrence High School, 70-72 North Parish Road, Lawrence from 8:45 to 10 a.m. and from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Boys &amp; Girls Club of Lawrence, 136 Water Street, Lawrence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For additional information or to be notified of upcoming events in the White Fund Enlightenment Series, call 978-738-7403 or visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.necc.mass.edu\/community-engagement\/white-fund-enlightenment-series\/\">www.necc.mass.edu\/whitefund<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The views expressed in the White Fund Enlightenment Series Presentations are the views of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Northern Essex Community College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; A White Fund lecture featuring award-winning author and cultural activist Raquel Cepeda, author of Bird of Paradise: How I Became a Latina, a memoir chronicling Cepeda\u2019s year-long journey to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>White Fund and NECC Present Award-winning Journalist - NECC News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2014\/02\/25\/white-fund-and-necc-present-award-winning-journalist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"White Fund and NECC Present Award-winning Journalist - NECC News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; 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