Our audio stories in no particular order. Just click on the title to listen.
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Getting on Your Feet, Staying on Your Feet
The most difficult thing about homelessness as a female is maintaining your level of dignity.
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I was pulling a suitcase down the sidewalk going from one friend’s house to another friend’s house to a staircase in an apartment complex.
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Wow, it happened to me, it could happen to anybody.
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When you feel like you have no recourse, you take it.
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We were proud.
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Lived Between Two Physical Barriers
If it’s the culture… that’s what you do.
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If I just let them assume, they’ll assume I have the same kind of stuff as them.
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If we think of it in terms of race, we would not hold a debate over whether it was appropriate for blacks to be pastors.
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I need for people to stop making that assumption of me.
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It’s embarrassing when you have to put everything out on the table.
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I am not ashamed…
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What It’s Like to Be in That Position
It’s not a healthy way to live. It’s very, very stressful.
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Our students will learn to celebrate a broad collection of voices when they start hearing a broad collection of voices.
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I’m all for free speech, but a lot of these things kinda went a step beyond.
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Hello, here I am, I’m trying.
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Yeah, maybe I really thought some Disney princesses were absolutely beautiful, but the princes were really cute, too.
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My Hindu friends say I’m a Hindu… my black friends call me “sistah…” So, no, I don’t identify with white.
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I would have been so normal if I grew up anywhere else.
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It seems a little strange to them when I get people overload.
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We play a very integral part in this community, and we want to be recognized for that.
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Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of two worlds, four worlds, and sometimes I feel like I’m not a part of any of them.
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It Felt Kind of Odd to Wear It
People did a double take when I walked in… I could feel them looking at me.
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Well, I wish I could go in there, but I can’t.
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I took my hijab off, and I put it away, and I told my husband, “No more.”
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Indiana? That’s a Foreign Land
They live in igloos… you’re gonna freeze, and they’re not going to give you sweet tea.
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Muslims Are People’s Neighbors
There are two billion Muslims in the world, like, that’s two-sevenths of the world population.
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The more I learn about other people, the more the obstacles fall between us.
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Here’s me and a Hispanic Muslim kid and everybody else.
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Totally Safe Unless You’re Brown
When he would come visit me, we would never leave campus.
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This is me and this is how I’m going to dress.
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I’ll see people down the hallway, and they’ll walk out a door because they know who I am. They don’t want to “catch the gay.”
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People may turn it on people and say, “You did this because I’m black and you’re white,” and “You’re racist.” It hurts you inside.
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My first year experience wasn’t very welcoming, and I never really got that initial ‘belonging’ feeling.
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I don’t know if it’s really a race thing so much as a cultural difference.
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I’m all for free speech, but a lot of these things kinda went a step beyond.
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It was tough for me because I don’t like to tell people to shut up.
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I Don’t Feel Excluded, but I Don’t Feel Invited
Valpo has a very big responsibility to each student to ensure that they are feeling welcomed.
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I’m ok with identifying myself as a Southerner, but I wouldn’t say that that’s my identity as a whole.
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I don’t think there’s a strictly White category; I think that’s just the default.
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You’ve Got to Be Able to Adapt
It really depends on all the connections you build because belonging’s something you have to work at.
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Enamored with These Beautiful, Young Faces
It takes a lot for our hearts and our minds and our eyes to get there, where we start viewing groups that look different than us not as groups but as individuals.
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You should always be willing to let someone else in–if you trust them.
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We’re all fundamentally the same and our differences are trivial–I disagree… We’re fundamentally different, and we have an unbelievable amount in common.
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Baptism: I Was Not Very Religious
I went to Pastor Char and said, “Hey. I’d really like to be baptized, but I don’t think I’m a Lutheran.” And she looked at me and said, “Okay. What questions do you have?”
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I would teach him something so when he encountered with people from my community, he or she would never get shocked or surprised by my people.
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I Have This Fear That I Come Off Weird
The real good friends will pay attention to you no matter what.
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I wish that people would take that step back and think about how it would make them feel.
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They don’t come to us. I want to be in a sorority, but they assume I don’t want to be in there because they’re all white. I feel like they lose out.
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Core Kind of Turned Out to Be That Way
Even if the Chinese students couldn’t always understand what was going on… they still felt like a part of our family.
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I have met other international students from my roommate… They’re all pretty cool.
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I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was like, “Really guys? Really?”
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Curious in a Very Positive Way
I love that my older daughter makes reference to her friend, Regina, as brown.
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Q: So you didn’t want to eat, or you didn’t like yourself?
A: No, it’s a different issue.
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There isn’t a single Syrian family that has not had to deal with loss in Syria…, but humanity in general should be worried.
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He was a very solitary man and I totally respect that… Having alone time is a necessary thing.
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We Don’t Know What You Guys Think
We really want to make friends with any American students.
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I never wanted to be part of an organization fixed towards one type of people.
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Kept to Myself for a Good Long While
I had a lot of preconceptions, or, maybe, misconceptions, about what it would be like.
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I was getting mad every single time.
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It was strange to see men and women sitting with each other, discussing economics, politics, sports.
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You have to embrace the differences because it helps you realize who you are and who you’re not, who you don’t wanna be or who you do wanna be.
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I feel like the Midwest is very–not old fashioned–but socially conservative; anything that is not normal is either wrong or judged most of the time.
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I’m used to the idea of being looked at, but I’m not used to actually being looked at.
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I Have a Mohawk; I’m Scaring People
On those really, silly, totally American, almost hackneyed or clichéd topics, you find these commonalities, and then you can just burrow from there.
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Something That I Was Looking For
If people are uncomfortable, they’re just not going to go.
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Barging in with Our Rainbow Flag
He said, “The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality; it’s holiness.”
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Different feels, whether it actually is this in truth, feels like less than.
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I’m in the right place.
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American People Take It for Granted
I have to constantly learn how to keep good relationships with people.
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By playing [Thai] music, people recognize me as Thai.
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Why Do You Look Like Such a Little Boy?
They’ll say, well, it’s fine, I just don’t want to hear about it.
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I Get Food from the Food Pantry
So you liked being on the bus with all the people who don’t have money?
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The hope. . .was that we would be able to be inter-Lutheran on that day. . ..
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The University needs to do more than putting a bunch of different kinds of people in one spot and hoping they interact with each other.
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Most of the people that you see are white, straight, and English speaking.
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Valpo likes to hide things that are going wrong.
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It’s something white people should make themselves do–go be awkward.
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Diversity Should Come Naturally
How many people are willing to step out of the comfort zones and learn about different worldviews?
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I feel like people are just hiding under this Christian mask….
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It feels very human nature to me, but I think it’s wrong.
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I had a boyfriend on campus. And it was fine. People knew that. He himself wasn’t comfortable with being gay.
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Sometimes, I don’t feel black enough to hang out with black people.
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Almost just the thought of going to that event not knowing anyone terrifies the crap out of me.
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It made me feel loved that they were so willing to change.
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Naive in the Comments They Make
Why are you coming up to us when you know that either we can’t afford that or we just would never pay that?
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Better Than Struggling by Yourself
I come from a diverse background, so I’ve always ben really passionate about Hispanics and immigration.
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Maybe I will be rude to their religions.
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It’s Not You; It’s Your Gender
I couldn’t be for him what he wanted me to be.
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Hearing her say her own experience through her own words is pretty enlightening.
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You Don’t See Behind the Scenes
It’s not always about the fraternity and sorority Greek letters clashing across campus.
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Religiously Speaking Something of an Outsider
I’m not Lutheran, so in a sense I brought diversity to the theology department… and more than that I brought new methods.
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At first, that seemed to be something that would be totally contradictory to everything I ever believed. . .
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I like to be seen as an ally as opposed to an enemy.
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I’ve Prayed in Some Really Weird Places
At the end of the day, most of us want the same things. There should be respect on both ends.
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The ideal is a gender blind society… but in some quadrants, we’re slipping back into patriarchy.
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White privilege does not equal white guilt; racism does not equal minority rage.
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Does Valpo even know who I am?
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Not all trans people want a surgery; they just want to be seen as the gender they’re presenting as.
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Atheism is like the black mark. Nobody wants to say they’re atheist.
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Basketball Has Been a Necessity
This is where I belong; I should be out there now, helping my teammates.
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I do have trouble finding friends here because I’m in the graduate program.
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I have a non-binary gender identity. A lot of people don’t know what that is here.
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I came onto campus quote-unquote Lutheran.
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Religion is the one thing that shouldn’t be compromised… We shouldn’t water down a message to bring in as many people as possible.
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I Didn’t Even Want to Drink the Water
What am I doing here? Are these really my friends?
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Everyone Instantly Went Silent
Not knowing that what he said was very rude, he thought he was being funny.
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I slept through my station. It was dark and the trees were out and it was like in a scary movie. I saw one last car.
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On one level, it was intimidating; on another, it was curious.
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Hey you, you look black, stand over there, and hey you, you look gay, stand over there.
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You see things through tunnel vision because society has set it up to where you don’t have to see so much.
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100 Different Stereotypes in a Second
It’s just a vehicle for your soul; it’s what you’ve been given.
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Love sporting the ties and man jeans.
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When you’re a minority, it’s hard to grow as a person.
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