CITY COLLEGE–“It’s the community that makes us who we are. With no community we are nothing,” Boukary Sawadogo said. That’s why he has worked to educate and help the African community in New York and people in his native Burkina Faso during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Dr. Sawadogo, a professor at The City College of New York, teaches African cinema, film history and theory. He came to the United States for graduate studies in 2006 and has maintained close ties with fellow African immigrants. When the scope of the pandemic became clear, he had to postpone the book tour for his recently-published West African Screen Media: Comedy TV Series and Transnationalization from Michigan State University Press. The world was locked down.
