My father is white and my mother is a first-generation immigrant from Okinawa. I grew up in a small town in rural Illinois. I present as racially ambiguous to most folks. My mom, however, was consistently dismissed and disrespected by many and a strange curiosity by others. Her accent made it harder for people to understand her unless they made the effort. Even my teenage self would sometimes pretend not to understand her if I didn’t want to hear it. 

Growing up in a town where my family was the only diversity was sometimes a source of embarrassment. Everyone remembers my mom bringing octopus for new foods day in Kindergarten as requested by the teacher. (The teacher didn’t believe me when I told her I had tried it.) Now that I’m older and part of a community of other Okinawan and Japanese people, it has become a source of pride and identity. Being the only one is hard, but being part of a group with traditions and shared culture is a joy.  

I think of my mom walking through our local mall and spotting someone who appeared foreign among the sea of white people. She would walk up to them and ask them, “What is your nationality?” I would be mortified by her boldness, but I think it was her way of connecting and making people feel welcome in a way that she never was. When I walk into a conference, I want everyone to feel seen and connect with someone. As attendees and presenters, we want to see people we relate to and not feel like the only one. 

My parents and I came to the states from the DRC (formerly Zaire)  when I was 2 years old.  Growing up in America as a new immigrant was very challenging.  I remember one Thanksgiving coming to school and the teacher asked the class what we all did to celebrate.  Well my parents were from a country that didn’t celebrate thanksgiving so we didn’t do anything this year.  I mean nothing!!  No turkey no chillin no nothing.  When it was my turn to answer I told the class  that we ate sandwiches and watched football.  My friends and teachers were shocked with this idea that people might celebrate the holidays differently.  It gave me a bit of a complex and made me feel like I was not included in the class. This experience taught me to be really in tune with the cultural experiences of my students and celebrate the rich culture they bring with them every day.

I identify as African and more broadly as being black.  I think identifying myself  as black allows me to connect with other African descendent people in a meaningful way.  Whether you’re from the islands, the States, or from the continent, there are very many similarities that we share.   The similarities allows for a common frame of reference when trying to solve some of the complex issues that are present in our communities.  I have a lot of pride in being from DRC.  Congolese people are full of pride for the culture.  That pride was instilled in me at a young age by my family.  

I’ve always been interested in the challenges our community faces.  I was at a crossroads in my career a few years back.  Trying to figure out what direction I wanted my work to gravitate towards.  I came to two thoughts.  The first thought was working with schools and students through STEAM, learning and motivation.  The second thought was working with black students to close the achievement gap.  I’ve been grappling with how to combine these 2 levels of interest.  When the opportunity came to work with my close colleagues in EquityinActionCA, I jumped at the opportunity.  This was the opportunity to dive into this work in a meaningful way and look to impact the change I wanted to see in education in regards to black students.  

I am Bi-Racial; Black and Mexicana. My father, Dwayne Sims, is a Louisiana-born Black man who loved with a heavy, firm hand ordained and guided by God’s Grace. My mother, Martha Sims (Lopez), first-generation US Citizen spoke only Spanish, her first-language, at home (native tongue of my grandparents) and learned English in the streets of Compton from her friends who were all Black. Since my family and I lived with my grandmother for 16 years of my life, learning Spanish was a must for me in order to communicate with my grandmother. Coincidently, whenever my cousins visited, which was every weekend, I had to translate for them as they communicated with grandma.

Both of my parents demanded, expected, and guided us to greatness:  grow in Faith, increase our relationship with God, family and education second, and no distractions from friends and their unnecessary drama (in particular the he-said-she-said nonsense). My parents raised my siblings and I to love and embrace both of our racial identities, as we grew up with both sides of our families we learned about the differences with an overwhelming amount of similarities. Watching both of my families commune together and yet own their perspectives laced with certain biases remains intriguing and curious to me.

Honestly, I always have identified as a biracial child of God, even when systems in the US and people worked overtime to tell me differently. Requesting I choose one box or check “other” (which I ALWAYS checked both), being called “a light-skinned bitch” when so-called Black girlfriends were upset with me, applications removing “Mexican” as an option and instead can only mark “Hispanic” as an ethnicity or “ “non-white”, growing up in a predominantly Black/Latino community in Compton and attending their schools, where I faced colorism from Black females utilizing my hair texture and skin color as a way to diminish my self-worth and continuous accomplishments, entering educational spaces of all White people as they ignore, side-eye, and speak condescendingly to me.

And even with all of these accounts plus NUMEROUS more, I remain dedicated to identifying, living, and honoring my biracial roots at all cost. My identities have shaped the Sims nose on my face, my Lopez eyes and skin tone, and the attitude and drive I have to share and honor our voices that have been forced out, hidden, and purposely lost. My identity has led me to instill this empowerment of voices and self-identity love to my students and those I meet.

Attending conferences (local and national) and a myriad of teacher institutes throughout the year, I ALWAYS take inventory of who’s in the room. In particular, I look for other Black educators in the shared space. And true to form, in my experience, I am typically the ONLY one or 1 of 2. It’s rare if there are more of “us”. In fact, a running joke between many Black folk and I is if there are 3 or more, then it’s a “gang” and that can’t happen (this stems from a de facto law in Burbank whenever my friends and I attended the movie theatre in college and were stopped by police EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.) Now, I will say that at national conferences, there are more EOCs in attendance. However, we are attendees more than presenters, keynoters, or featured speakers. At the local level, in particular at our CUE Affiliate events, EOCs were sprinkled here and there, with 1 (me) or 2 Black Educators. I knew this could no longer be the case, as I wanted to learn and hear from EOC voices whether as attendees and even more so as presenters. 

I am an African-American woman who was raised by my grandmother and uncle who is nine years older than me. I grew up in the Inland Empire during the time of busing low income kids to the more affluent schools to build diversity. I was taken from a predominantly black and latinx school and integrated into a predominantly white school. I was the only person that looked like me in my classroom, in my curriculum, and on site. I have NEVER had an African-American teacher. NEVER!  I know first hand what it is like to code switch between two worlds. I learned how to navigate my neighborhood and switch to acceptable behavior for school.  It was very isolating at times.

While in school I was always searching for other people that had shared experiences. I have always been the “only black girl” in most settings and I quickly learned how to get grounded in who I am. For so many years I dealt with microaggressions, gaslighting, and plain racism. I developed a sense of constant performative actions as I felt the need to prove myself and my abilities to others. These experiences made me yearn for more diversity in school and opportunities for Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC). It is important for all people to see themselves represented in their learning, work, or recreational spaces. 

I was asked a simple question by a dear friend and that question was, “I see you are the only African-American in this setting. How do you feel about that?” That one question gave me “permission” to actually verbalize how I was feeling for all these years. My friend listened and ended our conversation with another question, “What do you want to do about it?” That is how my work in Equity In Action CA was born. How can I help create more diverse and welcoming spaces for people to start sharing their insights and voice. I could not be prouder of this diverse group of people set to challenge the status quo as we strive to create a more inclusive work space for professional development and beyond. 

I identify as a white LGBTQIA female. Growing up, I was surrounded by mostly white people until a very traumatic experience that resulted in a move. We ended up moving to an area that was predominantly not white. When this happened, I experienced my own racism that helped me to understand what racism truly is. You may scoff at reading that, but when we moved I was in the 6th grade and a 4th grade boy actually dragged me down the street by my hair on my way home from school saying he was going to "rape the white girl". I say that to share just one experience in which I was targeted because I was white. These experiences though are something that happen to people of color all the time and have been for WAY TOO LONG. These experiences helped me to see how people are treated in specific ways based on the color of their skin, and this is not okay. As these things happened, I learned one way to avoid these situations was to get in trouble enough that I would not be around them. If I could get in trouble I could be safe in school suspension or even better, safe at home with out of school suspensions. 

Then I started battling another issue altogether that had nothing to do with race, but everything to do with being my true self. I had a feeling that I was not like most girls who liked boys, but I was very afraid to even think that. I went to church all the time. I even ended up doing two years at Bible College trying to force myself to be something I was not because of things I heard others say about people like me. Let's just say, I was afraid of being my true self because of the judgment, treatment by others, stereotypes and so much more. Even in this story, I am not being my 100% full and true self because it takes a lot for me to trust and really share about who I am. But when I found this group, I was able to be me and not be fearful. It all started when I was the events coordinator for Coachella CUE. An attendee at the conference completed our evaluation to say how the event went. This attendee was honest and said that the event was great but that being the only black person in the room was hard and it should not be like that. When I read that it hit me in my core. Not because I am a black person, but because I understood what it felt like to walk into a room and feel like you are the only one. I understood what it was like to be uncomfortable because of something people could see about you. I DID NOT understand it at the level the attendee did, but I wanted to. I wanted to understand, I wanted to find out how it could be better and I wanted to make those changes. Every person should be able to walk into a room and feel like they belong. Every person should feel like they have something to share. Every person deserves the right to be at the table, have a voice, and be their TRUE self. I am learning. I don't think I'll ever fully understand everything, but this group is my family and they help me be better every day.