Alums Return for ALES’ s 50 Year Celebration

Check back next week for The Exonian’s supplement honoring ALES’s 50th anniversery.

“On those weekends in May [when] we have alumni reunions, I never see black graduates,” lower Eman Noraga said. On the weekend of May 4, however, alumni of color filled the Grainger Auditorium. The weekend marked the Afro-Latinx Exonian Society (ALES)’s 50th anniversary, in which alumni returned to demonstrate to current students the society’s history.

“It was nice to see the alums talking about their opinions on ALES, especially since they had a clearer perspective and since they’re no longer part of the institution anymore,” [Malobika Syed] said.

The reunion’s purpose was to give current students a sense of how Exeter has affected the lives of past students of color. The reunion brought 76 alumni and 18 guests to campus; attendees’ graduation years spanned from 1961 up until last year.

According to Vice President of ALES lower Johan Martinez, the planning committee arranged this reunion weekend for past and current members to talk about the club. “I thought that it would be important to have a reunion because there’s so much history behind ALES, and it’s been such a powerful club on campus for such a long time. We chose specifically to create a reunion because we wanted to meet up with these alumni and learn about what our past was,” he said.

Noraga said, “I’ve never had a visualization of what happens after Exeter, so it was really cool to see people who went through the things I’m going through now and especially to see that they came out of it and succeeded.”

The weekend commenced with a school-wide assembly. Alumni Thee Smith ’69, Claudia Cruz ’96, Lauren Wilson ’17 and Kelvin Green II ’18, along with current seniors Charlotte Polk and Athena Stenor, spoke. Each shared their experiences in ALES; their speeches all correlated to the idea that ALES had been their safe haven throughout their time at Exeter.

The second event was a dinner in which alumni and students shared a meal catered by a local Dominican restaurant. They traded anecdotes on their experiences of being people of color at Exeter, and students gleaned knowledge on how they wanted to fulfill the rest of their time at the Academy.

Upper Malobika Syed appreciated speaking to the alumni at this dinner. “It was nice to see the alums talking about their opinions on ALES, especially since they had a clearer perspective and since they’re no longer part of the institution anymore,” she said. “At the dinner it was also nice to see how ALES has changed. From the way alums were describing it, ALES seemed way more loose.”

Students were particularly excited to discover more details about the way ALES functioned in the past. After hearing these anecdotes, they were inspired to incorporate these past traditions into current meetings. “The alumni had some wild stories,” Noraga said. “They told me about traditions they used to have...apparently after every ALES meeting they’d have a dance in Club Room B, or they’d play music as you walked in…It made me inspired to get some of those traditions back.”

(THIS IS COPY) Like Noraga, Syed was also energized by the sense of camaraderie that she heard from these stories. “I talked to two alums who talked about how right after ALES on Fridays they would jam out to music, and there was such a camaraderie going on there. Obviously it’s still there, we still hang out after ALES, but playing music did bring some kind of a comfortable space. I’d love to see that happen now,” she said.

On Saturday, the planning committee organized workshops and alumni panels. Noraga attended one in which the topic pertained to college experiences. Noraga learned about searching for the “right fit” for colleges. She remembers how one alumni told her that “it’s very important when you look for a university to make sure they’re a fit for you.”

Stenor, a member of the planning committee and president of the 50th ALES Board, conversed with different alumni and found that “because of how horrible the racial climate used to be here, there are a lot of people who can’t come back because of the negative associations that returning brings up,” she said.

The alumni who didn’t return showed the pain Exeter’s racial climate had inflicted on past Exonians of color. Stenor acknowledged, “it’s not fair to expect them to relive those traumatic moments. But at the same time, I think seeing how much it invigorated my schoolmates and how many connections we formed this weekend, I think it’s worth it to continue planning this and facilitating these connections.”

Dean of Multicultural Affairs Sami Atif also noted how some alumni would be wary to return to Exeter. He said that in the planning process, he made sure to make it clear to possible attendees that the reunion was “not a fundraiser” but rather an opportunity to reminisce and make connections with students.

Responses to the reunion were positive, according to members of the planning committee. Atif felt that the reunion was successful and attained the society’s main goal. “Part of ALES is to understand the footsteps that you walk in. I wanted Exonians to hear some stories and [get] a better feel for the history,” he said.