The World in LA; Los Angeles in the World

Last week, Poly middle and upper school students experienced an amazing hour of performance and presentation by the Malawi-American singer and songwriter Masauko Chipembere, who graduated from Poly in 1988. At an assembly that brought the two aforementioned sections of the larger Poly student body together, Chipembere wove insightful thoughts on activism, citizenship, and sustainability between lively renditions of various songs of his. His story in the United States started at nearly the same time as his parents; he was born only months after they arrived as political refugees. His father played a significant role in Malawi’s independence movement, but after disagreements with former compatriot and newly established prime minister of Malawi Hastings Kamuzu Banda, he took up residence in California, where he studied and taught for most of the rest of his life. During the assembly, Chipembere offered various anecdotes about his experience at Poly and as a teenager growing up in th