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Nyanza, Lorraina (correspondence on military harassment)
2019.044.w.r
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Contributing Institution:
Center for American War Letters Archives
Title: Lorraina Nyanza correspondence on military harassment
Creator:
Jones, Lorraina née Nyanza, Staff Sergeant
Identifier/Call Number: 2019.044.w.r
Physical Description:
0.01 Linear feet
(1 folder)
Date: 1989 January 26
Abstract: This collection contains one letter from SSgt. Lorraina Nyanza, USAF to her mother. In the fourteen page letter she details
some of her attempts to seek justice for racial mistreatment and harassment in the military while overseas.
Language of Material:
English
.
Container: Cold War 4
Container: 10
Container: 1
This collection is open for research.
This collecion originally contained one photocopy; the original was acquired June 28, 2021 with a donor from from the creator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Lorraina Nyanza.
Staff Sergeant Lorraina Nyanza, United States Air Force is an African American woman born in New York City and graduated from
Evander Childs High School before enlisting in the Air Force in 1982. She was deployed for overseas duty in Turkey, England,
Spain and Texas. During her service, according to Nyanza, she was sexually harassed while overseas and suppressed her memories
of these events until after her discharge, which she says included hostile work conditions secondary to racism while in Spain.
She served until 1990 when she made the "heart-wrenching" decision to end her military career due to her treatment. Though
she used Jones as her surname during her service, she has since reverted to the use of her maiden name Nyanza.
Nyanza later earned four degrees (AA, AS, BA, MSW), with service in the field of Military Social Work as a Department of Defense
civilian asset in the Army assigned to multiple posts in Germany and Korea. According to Nyanza, these work experiences "mirrored
active duty experiences leading to early retirement in duress and resolved to invest in lifelong journey of trauma recovery
on behalf of self and others in need of healing." Her correspondence pleads with her mother for help and stated in her donation
to the archives, "All my effortes to attain justice via military and other offical channels proved futile. Battle-torn and
emotionally incapacitated, I reached out, once more, to a blood relative for help, support, validation for my pain and suffering.
And ultimately received none."
[Item title / description; Box "n" / Folder "n"], Lorraina Nyanza correspondence on military harassment (2019.044.w.r), Center
for American War Letters Archives, Chapman University, CA.
For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this
collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.
This collection contains one letter from SSgt. Lorraina Nyanza, USAF to her mother. In the fourteen page letter, written as
Lorraina Jones (her married name at the time), she details some of her attempts to seek justice for racial mistreatment and
harassment in the military while overseas.
The letter was written on January 26, 1989 from her duty station in Texas after recently being reinstated as a non-commissioned
officer, a grade of which she had been stripped of while overseas in Spain. The correspondence, in her words, is a "feverish
plea sent to my mother as I was suffering from severe psychological distress relative to military abuse, harassment and turmoil
at Zaragosa Air Base, Spain."
In the letter, Nyanza plans to take her issue to a higher level in the military and the government to seek justice for her
harassment and is attempting to explain some of the details to her mother to earn her assistance. Without going into detail
about her abuse, she lays out some of her efforts to bring this to the attention of her commanding officers, to no avail,
and later to senior military officials and even congressmen when she returns to the United States. She contacted Congressman
Kweisi MFume of Maryland and Congressman Ted Weiss of New York, receiving only a response from Congressman MFume and told
"not to pursue" the matter further by Congressman Weiss' office and the Pentagon. She also reached out to Reverend Jesse Jackson
and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Jackson never responded and the NAACP asked her
not to pursue the matter further, a decision which she expresses is due to the fact that a board member was a retired Army
officer.
Throughout the correspondence she listed dates and makes references to incidents, though mostly documents her attempts to
seek justice. An ongoing court case in Spain, in which she is seeking a $100,000 restitution, an apology and jail time for
two Spaniard assailants, had depleted her funds and she ends the correspondence by asking her mother for financial help, as
well as for her to begin calling high ranking officials in Washington, D.C., including the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air
Force, CMSgt. Binnicker.
Added October 19, 2021: one word document (digital and print included) with book excerpts from
Moving Past Broken: Memoirs of a Wounded Warrior, by Lorraina Nyanza, MSW, 2016. In the excerpts she recalls her decision to terminate her military career as a Ground Radio
Operator based on the adverse impact of cumulative in-service trauma exposure in lieu of re-enlisting and accepting an overseas
assignment in 1990.
There are no restrictions on the use of this material except where previously copyrighted material is concerned. It is the
responsibility of the researcher to obtain all permissions.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
United States -- Air Force.
Spain -- History.
United States -- Race Relations
Women and the military
Blacks -- History
African American politicians.
African Americans
African Americans -- Civil rights
United States -- Armed Forces -- African Americans.