It doesn’t matter where you come from or where you were raised, Little believes that no one should be or feel marginalized by society.
Little is a minority (of Appalachian heritage) who knows what it means to feel like an outsider. As a professor at Sinclair Community College, she noticed her feelings, and her student’s feelings about marginalization were mutual between African-American, Appalachian students and other minorities.
She seeks to stop the cycle with REACH. By celebrating different cultures and ethnicities, REACH continues to emerge as one of the premier Dayton organizations that promote respect, appreciation and understanding of the region’s diverse cultural populations through the arts and humanities particularly at Sinclair Community College, where the organization orginated.
Tess Little is this week's Daytonian of the week as a supporter and advocate for all Daytonians.
Meet Tess.
What do you do in Dayton?
I am a professor at Sinclair Community College. I am an artist. I started REACH with Paula Recko and Bing Davis in 1993. We had our first conference in 1994. It was created in order to bring people together, and to look a similarities between cultures, acknowledging that there are differences but understanding that we have more similarities than we have differences. That’s the whole premise of REACH. We celebrate those similarities. It was designed as a three-year program. The first year was to teach ourselves about our own heritage because we believe that if you don’t know about yourself then you certainly can’t learn about others very well. You need to know who you are so that you have something to reference. The second year was designed to learn about other cultures. We started with the Appalachian and African-American cultures in Dayton because those are the two underserved minority populations that often come with a lot of misconceptions. The third year was to have the teachers learn about these cultures so that they could teach their students. What happened was the program was so popular and so enthusiastically received that we expanded and added Native Americans, Latinos, and now we have all cultures. We all come from somewhere. We all have some form of cultural background, and we look at those cultural backgrounds, and explore what our core beliefs are and what is similar about those beliefs, and those things that we hold important.
I am Appalachian, my parents moved up here from Eastern Kentucky. I was trying to figure out how to get my students that were African-American and Appalachian to succeed and not drop out of their classes then I noticed that my Appalachian students and my African-American students — a lot of the times, what they said to me were the same. That’s how I started realizing that there were so many similarities between the two cultures.
What do you love about life in Dayton?
I love Dayton! I love the people. The people are wonderful. They are giving, friendly, they will help, they will kick-in and become a part of something. There are just good people. Dayton has the advantage of being a big creative place, an innovative place, and there is just a lot going on. It is usually below the surface — we don’t see it sometimes, unless we look for it. But, if you take the time to look for it, it is there.
What do you wish more people knew about Dayton?
It is my opinion that Dayton has an inferiority complex. I hear a lot of people say 'there is nothing going on in Dayton,' or 'Oh, we are just from Dayton,' just excuse after excuse. Especially students that I have coming in, they will say 'I want to move away from Dayton.' I have them get the Dayton newspaper and the other newspapers, and I have them start looking at what's going on in Dayton, and what is happening in Dayton, what has been invented and what programs have been started. Then they realize 'Oh my goodness there are all these wonderful things going on in Dayton.' People don't realize that Dayton is so culturally diverse, until they start looking. They just don't look hard enough.
Favorite Dayton food?
It's on Third Street. The Mexican restaurant Taqueria Mixteca... that's our favorite hands down. I stop there sometimes going home from work just to get dinner. I stop there pretty often.
Recreational activities?
Me and my husband go to the Dayton Visual Arts Center a lot, we go to the Dayton Art Institute a lot we go to Riverscape and walk — for us, that's recreation.
How can people get involved with REACH?
They can email me at Tess.Little@sinclair.edu and offer to be involved.
What are some of the activities people can do through REACH?
We have art shows and a conference. If anyone has a particular background in something cultural, they can say they have knowledge about a certain subject and they can come present at the conference. They would submit that to me and we would look at their submission. We are always looking for cultural arts or people who know of artists. We are always looking for more keynote speakers. But if they just want to get involved, they can come and stuff envelopes and put together packets and do some of the grunt work.
We also have a community arts project every year. The Dayton Visual Arts Center is involved with us — there is a Sinclair Dayton Visual Arts Center and a gallery collaboration, and we usually have a community arts project and they can come and take part in that and we announce that. We send out a little card that says what dates they come and tells them what they can do at these art workshops.
We made a collage bridge a few years ago and we have all kinds of people at these workshops, and all kinds of people came in and helped with that collage bridge.
What is a fun fact about yourself?
I am going to retire at the end of the year in May. I plan to teach part time, and I am going to make art full time. It will be 30 years that I have taught, and I think it’s time to have some fun.
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