Deconstructing and Decolonizing Wellness Fair shows cultural and religious practices

Photo courtesy of Nafeesah Ahmed-Adedoja '23. The Muslim Student Association's booth, pictured above, featured dates, a prayer mat, and more.

By Jesse Hausknecht-Brown ’25

Managing Editor of Layout & Features Editor

Numerous colorful flags from countries around the world hung from the balconies in the Great Room in the Blanchard Community Center on Sunday, Nov. 13, during Mount Holyoke’s first-ever Deconstructing and Decolonizing Wellness Fair. Mount Holyoke Peer Health Educators hosted the fair in collaboration with some of the campus’ cultural and religious organizations. Peer Health Educator and Wellness Chair Nafeesah Ahmed-Adedoja ’23 led the event planning along with the other two members of the Wellness Team, Raven Joseph ’25 and Sean Fabrega ’23, as well as Be Well Area Coordinator Sarah Garijo-Garde.

Ahmed-Adedoja explained that Joseph had read an article about decolonizing wellness and shared the idea with the team. From there, they came up with the idea for the fair. “We felt it was important to highlight practices that may not appear in the mainstream and bring awareness to [them] in our community,” Ahmed-Adedoja said.

The team had been working on planning this event since September. They wanted to make sure that they were presenting authentic cultural traditions and wellness practices. In early October, they reached out to the following groups and organizations: Mount Holyoke African and Caribbean Student Association, La Unidad, Jewish Student Union, Muslim Student Association, Origami Club, Students of Hinduism Reaching Inwards, Asian Center for Empowerment, Counseling Service, Health Services, Daughters of Zion and FAMILIA.

“Firstly, we wanted to ensure that we were accurately representing cultures and spiritual [and] religious practices from around the world and decided to get organizations on campus involved to reach our goals,” Ahmed-Adedoja said. “We also had to do a lot of research on food, drinks and other items to make our event come to life.” Seven restaurants catered the event: Priya Indian Cuisine, Jamaica Spice Paradise, El Comalito, Oriental Flavor, IYA Sushi and Noodle Kitchen South Hadley, Bernardino’s Bakery and LimeRed Teahouse.

The Wellness Team wanted to publicize the event early on and tabled in Blanch for two weeks prior to the fair. They raised money for the Crisis Text Line and The Trevor Project by selling “flowers and tea” goodie bags. The team anticipated a 40-person turn out and were happily surprised to see over 100 people attend the fair and, as Ahmed-Adedoja stated, “learn about cultural and religious wellness traditions, make stress balls, spin the wheel and get a bite to eat.”

Joseph was also surprised to see how many people showed up and was “relieved” to see that students were having a good time and engaging with the booths. “This event was necessary because it acknowledged the disconnect we have with the origins of wellness practices seen in mainstream media today,” Joseph said. “Notably, the portrayal of wellness often reflects how it has been stripped of its history to become inaccessible and more profitable.”

Ahmed-Adedoja hopes that the Peer Health Educators host more wellness fairs in the future, especially because the team received positive feedback from students regarding the fair. “During and after the event people were hoping it would become a long-standing tradition which excited [Fabrega], [Joseph] and I,” Ahmed-Adedoja said.

Ahmed-Adedoja serves as the secretary and Five College representative for the Muslim Student Association board and enjoyed running the MSA’s booth at the fair. “Our booth included dates, prayer beads, sweets, quran, henna, prayer mat and zam zam water. As Muslims, we have many ways which we connect to Wellness through our faith and items that are of huge significance in Islamic history and our everyday lives,” Ahmed-Adedoja said. “We hoped to share and enlighten others of what some of these practices were and also provide other Muslims with a sense of empowerment and recognition.”

Joseph enjoyed getting to work with other student organizations on campus. “I’m glad we collaborated with them because we couldn’t have done this without their hard work,” Joseph said.

Ahmed-Adedoja enjoyed getting to work with Joseph and Fabrega and is excited to plan similar events with them in the future. “Working with [Fabrega] and [Joseph] has honestly been the highlight of my semester and I am excited to see what we do next semester as we work toward part two of the Deconstructing and Decolonizing Wellness Fair, [which will include] a speaker and more.”

Isaac Fitzgerald speaks at the Odyssey Bookshop

Photo by Norah Tafuri ’25.
Isaac Fitzgerald and Jarrett Krosoczka steal bites of fluff sandwiches and sips of Capri Sun between bouts of booming laughter at the Odyssey event.

Rebecca Gagnon ’23 & Norah Tafuri ’25

Staff Writers

Content warning: This article mentions addiction.

Fluffernutters, tales of childhood trauma, prodigies in ivory towers, deep belly laughter and a Carvel ice cream cake are items that seemingly have nothing in common — except for the fact that they were all staples in a reading event with two well-established authors. 

On Sept. 14, 2022, the Odyssey Bookshop doors in the Village Commons opened at 6:30 p.m., and staff of the small bookstore shuffled to make preparations for the audience that would soon pour inside. Quiet loomed over the crowd as people began to gravitate to their seats; a few attendees shifted awkwardly amid the gathering anticipation of the reading. However, as Isaac Fitzgerald and Jarrett J. Krosoczka took their chairs against a backdrop of colorful cookbooks and calendars, the humor and knowing familiarity of their conversation eased the crowd into collective comfort as they began to discuss Fitzgerald’s newly premiered memoir-in-essays, “Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional.” Krosoczka, illustrator and author of the graphic novel “Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father and Dealt with Family Addiction,” a recollection of his unconventional upbringing, proclaimed, “Welcome to the annual meeting of fucked-up childhoods in Massachusettes that have been put to the page.” 

To get himself and Fitzgerald in the headspace of their childhoods, Krosoczka revealed an all-too-big tub of marshmallow fluff and Wonder Bread to make the traditional sandwich of Massachusetts, a fluffernutter, with the sweet addition of Capri Suns to wash it down. As the two authors scooped the syrupy gobs of fluff with flimsy plastic knives, they began a rapid-fire exchange of biting remembrances from their respective upbringings. 

Fitzgerald and Krosoczka’s recollections are ones that would be an all-too-familiar story for some children raised in New England: one of drug use, broken homes and proud, working class bloodlines. These topics framed the conversation for the evening and acted as a bridge that marked their journeys toward self-reflection and healing through the process of writing as they introduced Fitzgerald’s new book. 

Fitzgerald explained that he originally wanted his story to be titled “Asshole, Massachusetts.” “[But] you can’t call a book ‘Asshole Massachusetts,’” he said. “Therefore, the title changed to “Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional” and became the story of his childhood that he never thought he would write. 

As described by Bloomsbury Publishing, “[Fitzgerald’s] been an altar boy, a bartender, a fat kid, a smuggler, a biker, a prince of New England. But before all that, he was a bomb that exploded his parents’ lives ― or so he was told. In ‘Dirtbag, Massachusetts,’ Fitzgerald, with warmth and humor, recounts his ongoing search for forgiveness, a more far-reaching vision of masculinity and a more expansive definition of family and self. … From growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to his lifelong struggle to make peace with his body, Fitzgerald strives to take control of his own story.” Instead of allowing his all consuming emotions of anger and isolation to guide his life, Fitzgerald strived to accept himself and allow for self-love and for him to show kindness to others as well.

With this book being an ode to his childhood, Fitzgerald admitted that the original intended audience for his story was a younger version of himself. “[‘Dirtbag: Massachusetts’ is] not out in softcover yet, but I picture a younger version of myself — 12, 13, 14 — running around in the woods or maybe hanging out at the benches downtown around all those abandoned buildings that made up Main Street at the time with that softcover stuffed in my back pocket,” Fitzgerald described. “I love the idea of a young kid … [reading the book], especially … a cis straight white male, somebody that might need to hear this to understand that they don’t have to be a certain kind of way.” 

“I love the idea of a young kid … [reading the book], especially … a cis straight white male, somebody that might need to hear this to understand that they don’t have to be a certain kind of way.”

— Isaac Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald continued to describe his experiences entering boarding school on a scholarship with a chip on his shoulder from the previous defining experiences of his life. It caused tension between himself and the other students — students he assumed were wealthier, more content and less harmed from childhood trauma that kids like him had endured in their earlier years. “Who are these rich kids?” Fitzgerald wondered. Over time, however, he realized that this was not the case for everybody he interacted with.

“As I met these other students, my horizons started to broaden and that’s something that I’m a big believer in too. The more people you meet, the more people you talk to, the more you open yourself up into the world, the more you’re gonna not just figure out about the world, but you’re gonna figure out things about yourself,” Fitzgerald stated. “You’re going to be able to keep parts of your identity that are helpful [and] that still ring true to you but put down some of those things that don’t help you … [but] are actually a burden to you.” 

Through this realization, he was able to understand the intersectionality of his identity and the identities of others, allowing him to build deeper relationships. The maintenance and creation of meaningful ties has become a fundamental element in his way of engaging with the world. 

“It seems like such a basic concept,” Fitzgerald commented. “But you’re gonna get out of the community what you put into it … [by] being vulnerable, sharing yourself [and] opening up to others so that they feel comfortable opening up to you.” 

Fitzgerald continued to explain that community is a mutual exchange, and it takes strength to maintain. It is the persistent work of sharing oneself with others, and working to be an unrelenting ally for those who are generous enough to share themselves in return. As they described during the reading, both Fitzgerald and Krosoczka have found various communities and deeply feel that community can be found anywhere, including in an Odyssey Bookshop event.

Robin Glossner, the event and marketing coordinator for the Odyssey, stated that bringing readings such as these to the community is one of the best parts of her job. “[It’s nights like] Wednesday night when it’s really magic and, we’ve had a few of those where the author is excited to be here, the people, there’s enough people in the audience that are really engaged in having a conversation with this author. … It’s connecting authors and readers. I think [that’s] the most exciting thing a bookstore can do,” Glossner said.

Glossner continued explaining that this sense of community and magic should be felt by all, including Mount Holyoke students, stating that it might add something valuable to the college experience. She added that it would allow students the opportunity to experience things that they might not have otherwise.

This was echoed by Zosia Kessel ’25, a prospective English major who attended the event. She had never been to a reading before, and suggested that “[Mount Holyoke students] … definitely go.” She admitted, “I didn’t know anything about [Fitzgerald and Krosoczka] beforehand, but I’m so glad that I went.” 

Kessel continued to describe the overwhelming feeling of warmth and bittersweet joy in the store that evening. She remarked, “[Fitzgerald and Krosoczka] were very funny and that was … felt throughout the crowd. They were very interactive. Even though it was just the two of them talking it really felt like everybody [was] very comfortable with them and they made you feel like you [were] a part of their conversation.”

Fitzgerald has felt throughout his life that events like these can create a type of magic that can be felt throughout the community, especially for readers. “On paper, growing up in an unhoused situation would probably look pretty bad for a kid but … my parents loved books, they love literature and so … even as my life felt very small — especially in some of those early years after we moved to North Central Massachusetts — because of books, I had these escape hatches,” Fitzgerald said. “I was able to understand different things about the world and about different people’s experiences. … It sounds cliche, and it’s cheesy but it’s just so true, I really believe reading is a special kind of magic and it’s something that I think is so important.”

Even though Fitzgerald has an immense and intimate relationship to literature, in his early 20s he was extremely hesitant to publish his own work — or even put pen to paper. “I thought writing was a gift from God,” Fitzgerald commented. “I thought you either had it or you didn’t. I thought that the people who knew how to write sat in ivory towers, they typed beautiful manuscripts, they didn’t take a single edit, they sent it to New York, they got a cover on it and [then] they had a million dollars. None of that is true.” 

For some child prodigies, this may be the case. However, for the majority of people, writing is a process that demands practice and encouragement. Fitzgerald’s advice: Drink the pages, let your pen fly, and read a wide variety of books, be it fantasy or feminist theory. “Read, write and [understand that] there’s no right way to do it. That’d be my advice.”