Black Girl from Pyongyang by Monica Macias

Despite her language proficiency, she still stood out due to her skin colour and hair texture and often felt excluded from her classmates.

She returned two years later to study at the Mangyongdae Revolutionary Boarding School, where she quickly became fluent in Korean. Macias's memoir chronicles her unique childhood, which began with a state visit to North Korea in 1977.ĭuring her stay, Macias was captivated by Pyongyang's beauty. By doing so, he entrusted his children to the care of Kim Il Sung. Her father sent his oldest son to study in Havana(Cuba) and his three younger children to Pyongyang. Macias is the daughter of Francisco Macias Nguema, Equatorial Guinea's first president, after gaining independence from Spain in 1968. Cuba, China, and North Korea also did, and it is the latter that is the subject of Monica Macias's new memoir, Black Girl From Pyongyang: In Search of My Identity. However, the Soviet Union was not the only socialist country offering educational opportunities to students in developing countries. Today, the People's Friendship University of Russia boasts an impressive alumni list that includes former heads of state from Central American and African countries. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union established the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow to educate students from newly independent states, including many from African countries. Please enjoy this piece explaining the entire memoir initially written in South Korea. It underscores how much our environment plays a significant role in our cognitive ability as adults and how racism and classism exist in almost all societies, irrespective of skin colour. Optimistic yet unflinching, Monica’s astonishing and unique story challenges us to see the world through different eyes.The story of Monica Macias is quite a motivating and equally captivating story of a black woman who grew up in a 'perceived' harsh environment. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises.Īfter university, she went in search of her roots, passing through Beijing, Seoul, Madrid, Guinea, New York and finally London – forced at every step to reckon with damning perceptions of her adoptive homeland. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. Within months, her father was executed in a military coup her mother became unreachable. She was sent by her father Francisco, the first president of post-Independence Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung.

In 1979, aged only seven, Monica Macias was transplanted from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea. The extraordinary true story of a West African girl’s upbringing in North Korea under the protection of President Kim Il Sung.

Black Girl from Pyongyang by Monica Macias