Moving from the East Coast to the Midwest: Lessons Learned

It will almost be a year in August of 2022 that I moved from my hometown in the East Coast to a small town in the Midwest specifically located in Minnesota. My journey may be different than some because I was 24 years old when I officially moved out of my "mamas house" and took the leap to real independent life. There are so many things that I have learned in general about family, support, love,standing up for myself, and faith. When I left home I felt some fear but mostly I was cushioned by stable resources, the frustration of not living under my own rules, and the belief that I was finally headed towards my purpose and financial and personal freedoms I had never had before.

The flight from my home on the East Coast to Minnesota is about 2 hours and 30 minutes, but this is the equivalent to a 16 hour drive! I had never been that far away from my family unit and I knew that I would have to change dramatically especially around my communication, standing up for myself, and definitely having a work-life balance so I could have a good handle on keeping my own peace. One of the first lessons that I learned when moving to the Midwest in particular is that race and gender matters.

1.) Race and Gender Matters- I have lived on the East Coast for my entire life I have lived in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and I spent plenty of Summers and Vacation trips in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolina's. There were some pockets of Maryland like Westminster, Frederick and definitely parts of PA such as the town that I went to college (Middletown) that had a less friendly or intimate knowledge of the true existence of what it means to be a person of color and black American specifically. I grew up learning the basic "fears and requirements" of being a woman such as not dressing too revealing, not going out late at night by yourself, never be the only girl in a group of men or boys, be very patient and accommodating of men, and take care of your duties well at home while allowing others to enjoy the finished product. When it came to being a Black American ( my proudest identity) I felt like I was always searching for my sisterhood of black girls that I could relate to, bond with, tell my secrets, and share life with openly and with freedom. I liked what Destiny's Child had in their song "Girl", but of course dressed down more with a witty graphic T-shirt, some jeans on, and some worn in sneakers. Overtime I have found a great range of online friends many who are black women who are critical to my entire health and well being. I also know that my own family unit automatically provides that kinship if both people are willing to open up, respectfully, and in a way that is healthy and understanding.

If we are being real we do live in a caste system of sorts in the United States if we want to admit it or not. People that appear more European and male are granted more privileges, earn more money in their lifetimes, enjoy better health outcomes, have less threat to be unemployed and jailed, and are cushioned by the "boys club" norms of sexism disguised by modern day surface level "integration". We listen to some of each others music, stand next to each other/ mingle in class and work, and even some have interracial families but at the root of it both races still do not know each other because of denial, "white privilege", and a lack of belief in the history of America.

One of the first incidents that happened even before we moved was on the morning that we arrived into the small town in Minnesota, while we were with our family member that was a transplant to the small town, a local man from the neighborhood that attended church services excitedly walked up to our family member. She spoke about some diversity or black culture seminar or event and he said "you will have to teach me about that". That incident was a red flag for me because it showed that the locals in this town do not take any accountability or responsibility for healing race issues in their own community. Being able to act as if race is a black issue or a person of color issue is a privilege and it is very different than other social justice issues because it actively embraces and welcomes the suffering and day to day, moment by moment stressors and injustices of "living while black". Black people are a minority with a majority of health related preventable deaths, unemployment rates, incarceration rates you name it!

Another incident happened while in the throes of the Semester. My family member and I live in an apartment complex about 15 minutes away from campus and we had reached our "final" time of having to reach out to our property manager for noise complaints for our upstairs neighbor who was a young man. Essentially, this time the property manager got so many complaints from us that the tenant was supposed to be moved out of the apartment due to the leasing handbook. When we contacted the manager about him making loud noises, banging, and dropping things late at night at least 8-9 times but the "final" time turned into blaming of us, and excusing the behavior of the man upstairs without any repercussions. I have no doubt that us being women was the reason why we were labeled "hypersensitive", and being black tenants made our concerns not be taken as seriously and ignored in favor of the comfort of the late night video game playing and loud intimate behaviors of the young man upstairs.

According to the U.S. Census Quick Facts the white percentage alone in Minnesota is 83% and the black percentage of the population is 7.4%. This was a major culture shock coming from my home state where the U.S. Census Quick Facts lists the white percentage as 57.8% and the black percentage as 31.4%. In my experience when the races are not as evenly mixed this leave a lot of room for bias, and isolation for the minority race even further. Coming from my home state where I had friends of all races to seeing how the dominant race is still not as friendly to "outsiders" or do so in a way that is surface level "nice" while being unaware willingly of the actual existence of the minority races makes day to day living uncomfortable to say the least. In my home state all races are much more familiar with one another, friendlier with absolutely less bias.

Another short example that I want to note are police interactions here. I have been driving since I was 15 and 9 months and I am now 25 years old. While here in a matter of 4-6 months I was pulled over by the local police two times for minor and unnecessary infractions where as in my hometown I was never pulled over by the police. These incidents were extremely frightening for me being that I knew from the news how violent police officers were to black residents in an unbalanced way including George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and Amir Locke in this state. I can honestly say that me being a responsible driver was not a safeguard in protecting me from these incidents from happening. My survival instincts definitely had to come into play: fawning, being agreeable, and making the officer feel right were must haves. I got a glimpse into what could have happened to me if I was a black man by hearing the story of another student in Minnesota who happened to get pulled over, and handcuffed by police and how this negatively impacted his participation in school and mental health.

2.) Leadership Can Be Lonely

My second lesson learned was that leadership can be lonely. I consider myself to be a trailblazer not just leaving my home a few hours away but half way across the country feels like what I assume it is being an international student. The level of bouts of homesickness surpassed anything I could have imagined. The longing for home, the familiarity of the diverse cultures, roads, and food feels like an attachment injury akin to losing a parent or authority figure. Similar to college out-of-state not having stable social support on a daily basis can make or break you in the stressful school environment.

When in college in my undergraduate life I relied heavily on my faith, faith community, and my therapist to carry me through the isolation. I also had family over the video chats and phone calls, but the in-person community does wonders for health and well being. Our nervous systems go completely out of whack when we feel that we are not supported, accepted, validated, understood, and needs met in the appropriate timing. So while in this state having one close family member has been so critical especially after the start of the Pandemic gave me crippling social anxiety! When I meet new people in person I discovered about myself that I am hypersensitive to the stressors in the conversation, the outside environment, the fast conversation, and the activity that we are partaking in. When I moved to the Midwest I did not take into account having to find a faith community that was friendly and accustomed to progressive young communities so to combat that I listen to meditations and watch the live streams of my faith communities back at home.

To combat the loneliness of being this new leader I find comfort in the arts. I consider the arts to be cooking, singing, watching old cartoons like Scooby Doo, and Avatar:the Last Air bender, as well as writing. Outside of making strides towards my education, I find that creating my own creative projects fill the space of the loneliness, and allow a freedom of expression that is repressed in the rigid and cutthroat academic world. Taking care of yourself as you care for others is also a way to fill the empty place like cleaning the home, taking a bath, painting your nails, washing your face, doing makeup, doing yoga, and taking walks.

3.) Stand up For Yourself

A fundamental lesson that I learned is that there is no benefit to your own dignity and well being to let others dominate you and force you to agree with their reality when that is not true for you. A pattern that occurs in my life is that I am backed in a corner having to "respect" authority figures while they have free space to diminish my accomplishments, make me feel small, or automatically have to agree with their points to make them feel protected and better about themselves.

We can show others how to treat us when we demand accountability, remain persistent, speak up when things are not right or you are being blamed for someone else's wrongs. We can also not engage, have contact, or minimize our interactions with people that can only see their own feelings, comfort, and "being right" as valid. Those people will not be able to empathize with you, will not respect your boundaries, and cause you harm in multiple ways especially mentally, emotionally,but maybe even physically because they do not care about your pain just what you "look like" to them.

A few instances like this happened for me. While in my first year of learning new academic materials I was constantly ridiculed, pestered, and blamed for not having the knowledge of those things. The authority figures did not have faith in my intelligence, and I felt constantly judged, abused, and powerless that I would be able to learn this material and even graduate. This plays on my greatest fears of not being "enough", not being intelligent enough than other students that I am competing with, being a disappointment for being who I am or not worth the investment. I felt all of those things above on a daily basis, but I was able to stand up for myself in an anonymous survey after about 5-6 months of that treatment.

Another instance happened recently. While working one job over the Summer seemed like enough taking a second job part-time proved necessary. This second job requires patience, compassion for yourself, and constant persistence/understanding. First, when we were trying to get a definitive answer about pay amounts after emailing, and texting the authority figures we were not given any clear answers. This was a surprise and seemed like maybe the pay was made up because we thought that our pay would be like the other employees, but it is still unknown if it actually is. After we received our first paychecks we were able to discover for ourselves what our own pay would be.

Then, broken promise after broken promise we were told that we would get our pay but it kept getting pushed back. While this was happening we made phone calls which were met with voicemails, sent texts and emails with no replies, and had to scope out our "bosses" after waiting and waiting for them to be in their office. This absence, and lack of prompt response to our actual survival needs provides nothing but anger, frustration, feeling unimportant, forgotten, "too much", and suspicious. The silver lining to this was that by standing up and staying on top of those that were not responsive to our needs held them accountable and made them want to follow through on their end for us. ( to end their own guilt or pressure to follow through)

Although there were very stressful incidents and environments while living in the Midwest from the East Coast (some which I did not list here) I feel like my own voice is shaping out, and I have learned many tests that will push me to demand respect. As someone who believes that American can be the place for all people if the few greedy people at the top give up control and old beliefs about race and power, I honestly still believe that new interracial movements can be created with all genders included that serves all of our needs while healing past traumas. If we listen to each other, start providing each others needs, accept our faults/blind spots, while being gentle with ourselves I do believe that all parts of the country can be safe, filled with understanding community, and a place to thrive for any American. If you plan on coming to the Midwest from the East Coast make sure that you have enough safe family members before you get there, that you immediately join an organization like a sports team,spiritual community, or exercise group, and that you know how to make yourself be heard especially when you are hurting.

Much love for reading <3<3<3