Episode 138 – Winstina Hughes

Introducing Winstina Hughes

Winstina is an Assistant Regional Planner for the Maryland Department of Transportation. She created her first WordPress blog for a Geographic Information Systems assignment, and followed it soon after with one on community development and suburban planning. She has presented at WordCamp NYC, WordCamp US, and WordCamp Austin. A WordPress Meetup co-organizer, Winstina led WordCamp NYC 2018.

Photo credit: Photo of Winstina by Tim Parker at the Open film premier in 2019 at WCUS.

Show Notes

Twitter | @planningwrite

Website | WinstinaHughes.com

Website | PlanningWrite.com

HeroPress | We Are the Same

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Episode Transcript

Tara: This is Hallway Chats, where we meet people who use WordPress.

Liam: We ask questions and our guests share their stories, ideas, and perspectives.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 138.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today we’re joined by when Winstina Hughes. Winstina is an assistant regional planner for the Maryland Department of Transportation. She created her first WordPress blog for a geographic information systems assignment and followed it soon after with one on community development and suburban planning. She has presented at WordCamp New York City, WordCamp US, and WordCamp Austin. A WordPress meetup co-organizer, Winstina led WordCamp New York in 2018. Welcome, Winstina. We’re so glad you’re here.

Winstina: Thanks for having me, Tara. Thanks for having me, Liam. I’m excited to join you.

Liam: We’re so excited to spend some time with you, Winstina. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Winstina: Okay, I can tell you a bit more about myself. I grew up in northern Jersey in south Orange Maplewood. My family immigrated from Sierra Leone, West Africa, and somehow fate brought me back to Maryland where we settled initially. So I am living and working in Baltimore.

Liam: That’s fantastic. There’s a lot there that we could delve into. But let me just talk a little bit about growing up there since you started with it. How old were you moved from Sierra Leone? Do you remember your country of birth, or were you young enough to not have any memory?

Winstina: I have memories of playing in our backyard. Like the lush greenness of it, the red dirt. Just kind of outside where we lived. I remember just how right it was. I remember listening to my dad calling to see how I was. Just the memory of knowing that my parents were with me, and just really happy to hear his voice.

When we moved here, this is really where I grew up. Those memories are of like a child. When we moved here, that’s when things really start forming. That’s when I started thinking about school. As a kid, I think, when youngest, four or five, things are just kind of like impressions. But then we hit an age where we start understanding what’s around us and we start having a sense of the places where we’re going and the people that we’re spending time with. When we immigrated here, that was the time where things really started forming for me as a child and being aware of the spaces I was in.

I grew up here and every part of who I am is really the experience of being raised here in the states and being raised in South Orange Maplewood.

Tara: Have you been back to Sierra Leone?

Winstina: I haven’t been back.