Internationally acclaimed Guyana-born actress, Dr Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder fondly known as CCH Pounder was conferred with a Doctorate Degree in Excellence in Fine Arts and Civic Engagement by the University of Guyana.
Today was the University of Guyana’s 57th Convocation for the Presentation of Faculty of Education and Humanities Graduands.
Dr Pounder in a speech said she was glad to see those sitting before her as part of the Arts and Humanities, as she said while scientists, doctors and lawyers will always be needed, sometimes imagination is the thing that offers doctors and scientists a new idea.
The world-renowned actress said she is so proud to be part of that nation of artists that has sparked inspiration and given someone a new idea on an old way of doing things.
She also shared a bit about a story of tenacity.
“You can be from anywhere, six years old, looking out a jalousie shutter, looking at black stars and green moons and wondering what will happen to me.
And suddenly whisked away on a night… had no idea I was leaving Guyana. Whisked away early in the morning when it was still dark outside. Thrown on a plane, fighting with my father at something like 7 years old, and finding myself in America in a blue frock… in a blue cardigan and black patent leather shoes and seeing my mother… and so excited to see her that I forgot I had left the country, the only country I had known.
“And walking with her to the supermarket in Brooklyn, New York and getting to the end of the road and freezing and shaking and she says ‘run back home.’
And I turned around to walk back home and she carried on to the supermarket and I was freezing. I looked up and every single brownstone looked the same. There I was outside waiting for hours for her to come back.
When she got back she said ‘Oh my goodness what are you doing outside, you’re shaking like a leaf’…and I said ‘I didn’t know which house it was, they’re all exactly the same.’
She said, ‘Oh I’m so sorry’ and I said it’s okay Mommy I was just waiting for you anyway.”
Dr Pounder said there is something about some kind of tenacity that happens with Guyanese children that ‘we have to break and we have to push forward with it’.
“We’re accustomed to saying yes ma’am…that’s right. We are accustomed to using our soft little voices… in fact, there’s a really big stick inside this body that could really move the world if I wanted it to.”
She told the graduands she looks forward to them moving the world and declaring what it is they want to do with their future.
Dr Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder is a famous award-winning Guyanese-born American actress. She was born in Guyana on December 25, 1952.
She has starred in a plethora of movies and dramas including The X-Files, ER, The Shield and The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. (Loop News)
