Zabinski, Katherine Peer Interview

Scope and content:

In this interview, William and Mary student Katherine Zabinski describes her upbringing in a military family, how it exposed her to other cultures and helped inform her passion for American history, and also describes her path to the college and the love of hip hop DJing she picked up here. Zabinski narrates her family's moves from California to Washington State to Virginia, where she has lived since middle school. She explains that she does not consider uprooting multiple times a downside, except that she finds it awkward trying to describe where she is from. On the contrary, she describes how living in multiple places exposed her to more diverse American cultures, growing familiar with Native and Chicano communities in California, Indigenous and Asian-American communities in Washington, and Black communities along with other diverse cultures in Virginia. She describes moving to Virginia and the South as a culture shock, but enjoyed the diverse geographies along with the diverse cultures: the California deserts, Washington mountains, and Virginia cotton and cornfields. Zabinski describes the roots of her interest in history and the way attending predominantly Black middle and high schools and becoming friends with Black women inspired her to learn more about African-American history and American history that acknowledges white supremacy. She narrates how she came to be interested in William & Mary. Initially having thought to join the military or attend cosmetology school, it was her teachers who encouraged her to take summer classes in the NIAHD program at the college, causing her to fall in love with the campus and with colonial to revolutionary American history—with Richmond as one focus. Zabinski closes the interview by describing the extracurricular she has most enjoyed at William and Mary: the SOUL students of hip hop legacy club. She describes her involvement in the executive and social media branches of the club, and the DJing she had the opportunity to on a large and small scale during her time here.

This description was taken from the headnote created by the interview team.

Access and use