Can you describe the moments in which you were able to fully embrace your culture?

“I was really out of touch with my Black American history until my dad had come to Australia and began to kind of educate and support me with that so I was able to begin to find more comfort in that connection, around middle school. I think that and when I moved to the United States were huge cultural changes because that is when it became so salient to me that I was so disconnected from what it meant to be black in the United States of America and its uniqueness because of the history that the U.S. has. Trying to wrestle with whether or not I even viewed myself as black was also a struggle, I kind of had to work through given my biracial identity and my upbringing in a different country that was so far removed from everything. Through college, I was able to openly embrace that part of my identity through my connections with others also through taking it upon myself to learn and educate myself about black history and culture. A huge part of that cultural immersion was to surround myself within a community that allowed me to uplift and embrace a piece of me,” Mental Health Counselor, Kean Flowers.