Anna Lapera
Junior / Peace Studies Major and Spanish Minor / Potomac, MD
In terms of my experiences in class, I can think of examples where I knew firsthand about some of the things we were talking about. It’s a different sort of knowledge that you really can’t get from textbooks.
Related Links
Peace Studies
Modern Languages & Literatures
Women's International League of Peace and Freedom
El Fusil
International Studies
Anna Lapera already had an international background when she arrived at Goucher. Born in Guatemala, she spent time living in Belize, Ecuador, and Romania before her family settled in the United States. Her interest in social justice and cultural equality led her to Goucher’s peace studies program, an interdisciplinary major where students learn about the historic background behind world conflicts, consider peaceful solutions, and engage in service-learning projects that promote nonviolence on a grassroots level.
Lapera’s interest in finding peaceful solutions to international problems has led her to start two student clubs. During her sophomore year, she teamed up with a fellow student to start a Goucher branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She kicked off the club by holding a fundraiser for Kashmir, a contested region along the northern borders of India and Pakistan that has been wracked with violence since the 1980s. Goucher’s WILPF chapter has shown documentaries, hosted a former Palestinian refugee for a lecture, and co-sponsored a number of other events.
“I think the campus is pretty receptive to the kinds of things we’re trying to do,” says Lapera. “We’ve had good turnouts for the events that we’ve held.”
Buoyed by her success with WILPF, Lapera recently chartered El Fusil, a new club designed to promote intercultural dialogue among minority groups on campus, particularly between Latin American and African-American students. She feels that members of these two groups deal with similar social issues and, by working together, can make a greater impact.
“What I hope to see is a more politically involved campus,” says Lapera. “There are pockets of people here who are politically active, and I’d like to do more to connect them.”
Lapera’s focus on peace studies and activism—specifically issues related to women and other minority groups—naturally influenced her decision to take “Women’s Social and Political Activism in Argentina and Uruguay,” a three-week intensive course abroad that found her interacting with historians, political scientists, writers, women’s groups, political prisoners, and activist organizations, all in an effort to learn more about how Argentinean and Uruguayan women are rebuilding their countries after living under a dictator’s rule.
“Meeting so many activists really broadened my perspective about peace studies,” says Lapera. “We saw so many different takes on peace and reconciliation, and how to get there. Living in the United States, you don’t hear very much about women’s movements in Latin America. Taking this class, you realize how many active groups there actually are.”
Looking ahead, Lapera hopes to become involved in human rights work. She’s already amassed some valuable work experience related to her major, first through an internship at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where she worked with the director of the West Bank/Gaza office, and second, through an independent study project at Bernard Harris Elementary School, where she helped lead students through conflict-resolution exercises.
“It’s not just about majoring in peace studies, it’s about what you can do after that,” says Lapera. “I think that peace studies will lead me in a direction where I can start to do something about the things I’ve seen, living abroad. I also feel like it’s a discipline that will allow me to continue going abroad as I begin my professional career.”