Courtesy of Jan Pieter Van Voorst Van Beest, an individual partner
Description
“Girls never go to school,” Mary Otto’s uncle scolded her when she was young. Yet in May 2008, Otto graduated from the University of Southern Maine. During the intervening years, she did what she was supposed to as an Acholi woman of Southern Sudan—raised a family—and much more.
In the 1990s, Sudan’s civil war forced Otto to call on a different kind of intelligence that she possessed in great quantity: the quick-witted resourcefulness needed to live on the run from bullets.
Today she is a role model for students who, like her, experienced trauma.She tells them, “If I can do it at forty, you can do it!”
Mary Otto immigrated to Maine from Sudan and as of 2017 is a language facilitator for Portland public schools.
About This Item
- Title: Mary Otto, Portland, 2009
- Creator: Jan Pieter Van Voorst Van Beest
- Creation Date: 2009
- Subject Date: 2017
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Locations:
- Portland, Cumberland County, ME
- Sudan
- Media: Digital
- Object Type: Image
Cross Reference Searches
Standardized Subject Headings
- Emigration & immigration--United States
- Emigration and immigration--Sudan
- Immigrants
- Immigrants--United States--Maine--Portland
- Language education--Maine--Portland
- University of Southern Maine
- Wars--Africa--Sudan
People
Other Keywords
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. No Permission is required to use the low-resolution watermarked image for educational use, or as allowed by the applicable copyright. For all other uses, permission is required.
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