Jessie Blakely
Los Angeles, CA

I was raised in Hawaii, where there really isn’t such thing as a racial stereotype. Hawaii kids tend to be so ethnically diverse, that any stereotype today may apply to up to 1/2 of their bloodline, but rarely more. When I moved to the mainland to go to college, I was faced with a multitude of ethnic stereotypes, none of which I was previously aware of. It made me realize how little color matters in Hawaii. I saw how some people on the mainland claim not to care about race, but race is the first thing they notice. Bit of a contradiction, I think.