- Actress CCH Pounder conferred Doctorate Degree by University of Guyana
The University of Guyana awarded CCH Pounder, an internationally recognised Guyana-born actress, a Doctorate in Excellence in Fine Arts and Civic Engagement.
The 57th University of Guyana Faculty of Education and Humanities Graduation Convocation was held today.
In a lecture, Dr. Pounder stated she was delighted to see people before her in the Arts and Humanities because while scientists, doctors, and attorneys would always be required, imagination may give them new ideas.
The famous actress said she is proud to be part of a nation of artists that have inspired and changed old ways.
She also recounted tenacity.
You can be six years old and from anyplace, peering out a jalousie shutter at dark stars and green moons and wondering what will happen to me.
I was snatched away on a night without knowing I was leaving Guyana. Abducted in the dark early morning. Thrown on a plane, fighting with my father at 7 years old, and finding myself in America in a blue dress, blue cardigan, and black patent leather shoes, seeing my mother and so delighted to see her that I forgot I had left the nation, my only country.
“And walking with her to the Brooklyn supermarket and getting to the end of the road and freezing and shaking, she says, ‘run back home.’
I turned around to walk home while she went to the store and I became cold. Every brownstone looked same as I looked up. I waited outside for hours for her.
When she returned, she exclaimed, “Oh my goodness, what are you doing outside, you’re shaking like a leaf,” and I answered, “I didn’t know which house it was, they’re all the same.”
She responded, ‘Oh I’m so sorry,’ and I said, Okay Mommy, I was just waiting for you.”
Doctor Pounder said Guyanese children have a stubbornness that ‘we have to break and we have to press forward with it’.
Yes, ma’am, we’re used to saying yes. We use our quiet voices, but there’s a pretty big stick within this body that could change the world if I wanted it to.”
She told the graduates she hopes they change the world and declare their future.
Famous Guyanese-born American actress Dr. Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder has won awards. She was born December 25, 1952, in Guyana.
The X-Files, ER, The Shield, and The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency are among her many films and dramas.
