Today for Women's History Month, we are featuring Melanie [1] (Duturna) Young. Melanie is a native of Jersey City, NJ. She is a Veteran of the US Navy and presently works as a Clinical Intake Specialist. Working with Military Veterans and assisting them in identifying and utilizing resources and the necessary services to meet their unique needs is Melanie's passion. It is also a mission that her military service well prepared her to undertake. In addition to working with veterans, Melanie works a travel agent part-time. One of Melanie's near-term career aspirations is to create a business that combines her love of travel and her passion for aiding military veterans. This business would focus on hosting wellness retreats for veterans worldwide.
Some of Melanie's hobbies include collecting crystals/stones, candles, and incense. She also enjoys learning about other cultures, particularly the importance of food and its role in different cultures. Since learning of her ancestry, she has also began studying African Spirituality and African Traditional Religions.
Melanie's Balanta ancestry is on her maternal side. She has one brother and two sisters, and a 13-year-old son. Both of her parents are also still living. Melanie learned of her Balanta ancestry this past September. She was motivated to discover her heritage after having conversations with her fiancée’s family about their lineage and ancestry, one day, she was asked about her own. Her inability to provide answers about her family's origin and ancestry set Melanie on a journey to discover her past. She needed to know exactly where her story began. That is when she decided to use African Ancestry services to pinpoint where her family did, in fact, originate. When Melanie received her DNA test results and discovered her Balanta ancestry, she was overcome with joy.
Melanie stated, "I cried; I was filled with a lot of emotions, to finally find a part of me that I didn't know was missing."
Since learning of her Balanta ancestry, Melanie has been intent on learning as much as she can about the Balanta people. When asked what she has learned so far about the Balanta and the country of Guinea Bissau, Melanie stated. "How they helped Guinea Bissau gain their independence, how they were initially colonized, and what the other countries the Balanta people may have come from before settling in Guinea-Bissau."
Melanie plans to one day soon visit Guinea Bissau and see the land and the people for herself. Being able to connect and with the land and the people and experience the culture firsthand and connect those experiences with her own is something she hopes to achieve one day very soon.
[1] Melanie received the Balanta name of Duturna during the naming ceremony in January of this year. The name Duturna means Duturna means - “shame is heaped upon those who captured your ancestor. “