#innerstaroc

Meet Nokukhanya! (Birthday: October 9, 1965)

Khanyi’s main outfit is her school uniform: a loose collared shirt and a hand-crocheted thick, red overdress. She also wears a dark brown leather belt (homemade) and white flats. Khanyi always brings her leather satchel to school, in which she keeps her pencil and leather journal. On cold days, she wears a hand-crocheted blue cap. Khanyi’s white and yellow camisole and briefs, which she wears with all her outfits, double as some light pajamas.

Nokukhanya, a customized American Girl doll, is short for her age. She has warm, dark skin and uses the Addy mold. Her bright brown eyes and sparse eyebrows sit above a wide nose and a wide, kind smile with big teeth. Khanyi wears her black hair in a short afro with a braid across her forehead.

Nokukhanya- Khanyi, for short- is part of a project about Black dolls and youth protest in Africa. She is an 11-year-old Zulu girl living in 1970s South Africa, named after Nokukhanya Bhengu Luthuli, a teacher and women’s activist against apartheid. Her name means “even shining light.” Khanyi lives with her parents in a town outside of Johannesburg. She doesn’t have any siblings, so she enjoys spending time with other kids and loves to go to school. Khanyi likes to learn and read. When she’s not busy, she talks with her best friend Lilli, or she and her dad tell stories, and she learns from her mom (a teacher) and her older students.

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In the first photo, Nokukhanya is seen in her weekend outfit: the flower dress and knitted hat she wears casually. These are the clothes she wears when her mom asks her to carry a secret message to her classmate! In the second photo, she is posing in her Zulu outfit. Khanyi’s culture is important to her and her family, even though she doesn’t have the resources to wear traditional dress very often. Her mom taught her about someone named Steve Biko, who made her feel proud to wear these clothes, even if she’s told she’s not allowed!

Khanyi is warm, intelligent, motivated, fun, and free. She likes telling stories with her family and friends, and wants to keep studying. She might become an ethnographer or folklorist when she’s older. She learns about the power she has, and she to have pride in her identity. Khanyi feels motivated to join the fight for social freedom and economic rights in her town.

Likes:

Yellow, green, and some blues

Writing in her diary

Stories

Time with her loved ones

Running outside

Cooking treats

Dislikes:

Prolonged boredom

Stiff clothes

Being made to “stop”