With flu season here, health officials urge communities of color to get vaccinated.
By Kate O’Kelley
“I am still concerned about flu season,” Tia Smith said from her home in the Bronx.
Smith, an associate professor in the department of English and language at Hunter College, is the author of a novel called “Loving Trouble,” based on the experiences of the first Black child on record to attend boarding school at Mount Hermon Academy, which opened in the 18th century to educate Black children.
“I think the books come from the pain and the hardship of living in New York and moving up in the world and going to boarding school, and feeling like there were a lot of things that were not possible,” Smith told NBC News.
The novel also touches on themes like race, privilege, and being a Black person in America. Smith said it was important for her to write because it is a way of reflecting on her own life.
“I was born and raised in the Bronx, and then I went to Hunter and did all of what I liked to do without really thinking too much about all of the implications of it, especially in my own life, what is right or wrong?” Smith said.
“For me, what I wanted to do, the first thing I wanted to do was write. I think writing allows me to sort of deal with a lot of stuff in my life that I haven’t dealt with before.”
“Loving Trouble” is part of Mount Hermon’s annual Black History Month programming. Smith, who is Black, told NBC that she wanted to use the book as a tool to engage with Black communities.
“I don’t really have a particular community. I was raised in the Bronx, and I wasn’t very, I don’t know, I didn�
