Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ayisha Issa from the New NBC TV Series, ‘Transplant,’ Talks Her Passion Project

*Right before award-winning actress Ayisha Issa joined the cast of the new NBC show, Transplant, which centers on a charismatic Syrian doctor who came to Canada as a refugee during the Syrian Civil War, and is now rebuilding his career as a medical resident in the emergency department at York Memorial Hospital in Toronto, she made a major decision in her life: to go natural, publicly.

“I had had my hair permed forever and even though I was perming it, I was perming it because I didn’t know how to take care of it,” she explained.

If you’re a black woman working in corporate America, you know the weight of that decision. It’s one that can be met with a decent amount of contention, questions and curiosity, from a society conditioned to marginalize brown women’s kinky, curly, coiling hair as being ‘distracting’ or ‘too scary.’

“It’s exciting, because the timing I think is working out really well right now, where people are very curious about each other. They’re more open to new experiences and [how] other people are living…people from different backgrounds and cultures, there’s a push for that now,” she said. “I think that the importance of our hair comes from the fact that for a very long time, unfortunately, we have not learned how to incorporate that aspect of self-care into our everyday life [as black women].”

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It was a bold move indeed-one which she is fully embracing and encouraging other young girls to be empowered to do in Montreal, Canada, her hometown.

“I always felt like I had a platform. Right now, I’m doing some work here in Canada and trying to figure out how we can have black hair care be apart of our school systems.”

Her non-profit seeks to train young cosmetologists of all backgrounds to know, understand and care for black hair. It’s a passion project of hers, seeing how in Montreal, there was only one celebrity hairstylist who knew how to do black hair when the NBC series first started production, and she was booked, leaving Issa with few options of someone who understand her hair in the way she’d want them to.

“These people leave [cosmetology] school not knowing anything about black hair care, and that needs to change,” she said. “I’m hoping that because I have this platform, people will be more willing to hear what I have to say.”

Playing Dr. June Curtis, one of the main characters Transplant, Issa understands impact she has and can potentially have even more of with the platform she’s been given. Not taking it for granted, she’s using it to elevate her voice-for herself and for the future of girls who look just like her.

“It’s a beautiful transformational period that we’re in right now and I think that women of a certain age are all learning about their natural hair, and then the generations that are coming up, fortunately are learning their natural hair care, from young, and so that change is being made and I’m just so excited to be apart of that,” Issa said.

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So whether it’s embracing her hair, living a healthy lifestyle, or perfecting her craft as a practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Issa’s passion is to use this new platform she’s been given to promote empowerment, letting people know black women don’t have to fit in any particular box.

“What I want the generations coming up to know, is that you have every right to do you, and whatever that means to you and you’re not limited by any way, shape or form by the color of your skin. That is something that’s being projected onto you from the outside world and you don’t need to take that on.”

Transplant airs every Tuesday at 10pm EST on NBC.

 

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