Native Education: Moving beyond the Asterisk*
Alberta Jones, Juneau, AK. Alaska Natives and American Indians are often just an asterisk (*) in higher education and other data. We are collectively, trying...
In Indonesia I am asked “Dutch”?
Nancy Deschu, Anchorage, AK. My Dutch ancestors arrived in New Amsterdam in 1624. Now, four hundred years later, I live in Alaska but my roots...
Chilly chainee, courageous changer, world warmer.
Melinda, Ephrata, WA. 50- year-old woman born in the south, grown in Alaska’s wildness, married too young. Courageously moving from isolation to a warmer world....
I’m Diane. I’m Alaskan, and Black.
Diane, Fairbanksm, AK. Images of Alaska never show Black faces, but yet in Fairbanks, the state’s second largest city, the Black population is equal to...
I trusted adults that taught hate.
Stan Pitts Anchorage, AK I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and was 10 years old during the fateful year 1963. My father was a Birmingham...
I’m Neither Asian or White Enough
Susie, Fairbanks, AK. I am tired of being told I am not white enough or Asian enough. As mixed race, racial identity is already hard...
Rural Alaska, six blacks, my family.
Lydia Taylor Memphis, TN I was born and raised in Alaska. When I was 4, my father got out of the Air Force and accepted...
Privilege is real. I get it.
Eric Moore, Anchorage, AK. “I get it” cuts three ways. First, I understand this is true. Second, I am in most ways the example of...
Listen, I am not a minority!
Skywalker Payne, Homer, AK In the 1970’s I worked at the University of Texas in Austin, where I first heard the oxymoron “minority-majority.” I wrote...
Your families background doesn’t even matter!
Sara Proffett, Healy, AK. I am Russian, Scottish and Spanish. I’ve always been kind of tan and I have light brown hair. I’m short but...
West Asians Count As Asians Too
Ali Arturo Mansour Hull, Anchorage, AK Im mixed race. My maternal grandma is of Syrian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Saudi, Iranian, Indian and Pakistani Ancestry. My maternal...
Black folks DO live in Alaska!
Diane “Bunny” Fleeks, Fairbanks, AK. My father arrived here in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1959. My mother and I “came into the country” (as we old...
Blond hair – can’t use Afro Sheen
Diane Smith, Anchorage, AK. I was the only white girl in my 6th grade class at Windsor Hills Elementary School in Los Angeles. I wished...
No, I’m not Italian or Spanish
Arturo Mansour-Hull, Anchorage, AK My mom’s biracial Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Lebanese,Yemeni, English, Turkish, and Kurdish. My dad’s English, Scottish, German, and Irish. White people think...
