Double-edged sword

I was actually born in Toronto, but I moved to Seattle when I was one, so it doesn't even count. And I think the community that I specifically grew up in within Seattle was just very comforting to me because everyone I surrounded myself by at the school I attended was pretty progressive, and I think everyone really emphasized the idea that race and gender are two really important things in determining what your experience in life is. So we kind of integrated that in everything we did, and not in an overbearing way, but in a comforting and inclusive way.

Like I remember even in my like math classes, we'd like kind of start off class like in the beginning of the year talking about how a certain group of people might have been historically, you know, dis-included in the mathematics realm or like stuff like that. So I think like that was a really big pillar of my community was just like inclusion.

Another thing is that the community I grew up in was very much a bubble. Like, I guess that's like a filler. It was like a bubble. So in many ways, I think people were kind of afraid to speak out if they had any differing thoughts, other than like, the quote unquote norm. So, in that sense, sometimes it was a little bit troubling, and I kind of wanted more, I wanted to hear more diverse opinions and thoughts, and like, also expand upon what I know by hearing thoughts I don't necessarily agree with, or like, find like, politically correct, for example.