Text by SADIE IBBOTSON-BROWN and EMILY YAO
Art by ZANDER LEONG
FINDING HER VOICE
SPEAKING UP THROUGH DEBATE AND ACTIVISM
H
EAD HELD HIGH, Wumi Ogunlade delivers her debate case to the panel of squares in front of her on her screen. “Democracy means rule by the people,” she says. She doesn’t back down, and looks the camera straight in the eye. Ogunlade has traveled across the globe, experiencing more than her fair share of change, but speech and debate has helped her find a voice to speak out for what she believes in. From Nigeria to America Ogunlade grew up in Ibadan, Nigeria,
30 OCTOBER 2020
where she attended a private international school. She was first exposed to speech and debate at the age of eight. “When I was little, I loved proving people wrong,” Ogunlade says. “I always wanted to be a lawyer.” As a way of getting out of the house and pursuing that goal, Ogunlade joined her school’s debate club. In December 2017, Ogunlade and her family moved from Nigeria to San Jose, where she struggled to adjust to a new school and community. “The transition from being a regular Nigerian to an African American was cra-
zy,” Ogunlade says. “People would come to me and say, ‘What’s it like in Nigeria? Are there a lot of poor people there?’ Once someone asked me, ‘Do you guys live with lions?’ I told them that I lived in Nigeria, not in the jungle.” At her high school in San Jose, Ogunlade continued to participate in speech and debate as an extracurricular to continue her passion and build new friendships. Debate in America, however, was different from what she had previously learned. “It was the total opposite [from Nigeria],” Ogunlade says. “I had to learn everything from scratch.”
