Audio

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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It Wasn’t Fun No More

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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Bad Things, Good People

Wow, it happened to me, it could happen to anybody.

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Felt the Racism There

When you feel like you have no recourse, you take it.

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Neighborhood Turf

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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Please Don’t Come to My House

If I just let them assume, they’ll assume I have the same kind of stuff as them.

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Naming Can Be Powerful

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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No Part of Me Is White

I need for people to stop making that assumption of me.

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Never Ending Cycle

It’s embarrassing when you have to put everything out on the table.

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Didn’t Take Away from Me

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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We’re Not There Yet

Our students will learn to celebrate a broad collection of voices when they start hearing a broad collection of voices.

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Please, God, Let It Rain

I’m all for free speech, but a lot of these things kinda went a step beyond.

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Issues Put Out in the Open

Hello, here I am, I’m trying.

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I Can’t Just Pick

Yeah, maybe I really thought some Disney princesses were absolutely beautiful, but the princes were really cute, too.

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As Far As I’ve Gotten

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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What Are You?

I would have been so normal if I grew up anywhere else.

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Growing Up on a Farm

It seems a little strange to them when I get people overload.

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Travesty

We play a very integral part in this community, and we want to be recognized for that.

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I See Myself as a Bridge

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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Easy to Pretend It’s Normal

Well, I wish I could go in there, but I can’t.

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Bound to My Safety

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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I Don’t Believe in Borders

The more I learn about other people, the more the obstacles fall between us.

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Kept Quiet and Nodded

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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Positive Reinforcement

This is me and this is how I’m going to dress.

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Fuels My Ball of Fire

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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Racially Motivated

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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Harder Than I Expected

My first year experience wasn’t very welcoming, and I never really got that initial ‘belonging’ feeling.

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A Comfort Thing

I don’t know if it’s really a race thing so much as a cultural difference.

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Please God Let It Rain

I’m all for free speech, but a lot of these things kinda went a step beyond.

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Strong Female Leader

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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Springboard

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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A Tan that Holds Up

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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Rah Rah Guy

You should always be willing to let someone else in–if you trust them.

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On My Own Terms

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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Act of Hospitality

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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Moral Barriers between Us

I wish that people would take that step back and think about how it would make them feel.

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Missing Out

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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BFFs: Best Foreign Friends

I have met other international students from my roommate… They’re all pretty cool.

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Encountering True Homophobia

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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Recovery

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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My Ties Are Through That

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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A Solitary Lens

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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People Still Question Me

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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Nobody Talks to Me

I was getting mad every single time.

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Getting Used to It

It was strange to see men and women sitting with each other, discussing economics, politics, sports.

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Of Course–She Was My Roommate

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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It’s A Lot Like High School

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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The Ultra Evil Eye

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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Not Sharing My Own Questions

Different feels, whether it actually is this in truth, feels like less than.

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Explain Myself Again

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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Cool to be Different

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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False Unity

The hope. . .was that we would be able to be inter-Lutheran on that day. . ..

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It Doesn’t Just Happen

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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Opening the Chapel Doors

Most of the people that you see are white, straight, and English speaking.

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Corrupting the Moral Fiber

Valpo likes to hide things that are going wrong.

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Sheltered Your Whole Life

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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Omission in Admissions

I feel like people are just hiding under this Christian mask….

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People Get Scared

It feels very human nature to me, but I think it’s wrong.

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Me Going to Hell

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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Hard to Connect

Sometimes, I don’t feel black enough to hang out with black people.

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A Comfort Thing

Almost just the thought of going to that event not knowing anyone terrifies the crap out of me.

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I Told Them How I Felt

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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Afraid of These Things

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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Point A to Point B

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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Butting Heads

At first, that seemed to be something that would be totally contradictory to everything I ever believed. . .

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Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin

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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We’re Not That Far Along

The ideal is a gender blind society… but in some quadrants, we’re slipping back into patriarchy.

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Honest Discussions of Race

White privilege does not equal white guilt; racism does not equal minority rage.

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I’m Not an Exchange Student

Does Valpo even know who I am?

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Valpo Needs to Try Harder

Not all trans people want a surgery; they just want to be seen as the gender they’re presenting as.

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Oh, But You’re So Nice

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 Will Always Sign Up and Go

I do have trouble finding friends here because I’m in the graduate program.

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Going by My Initials

I have a non-binary gender identity. A lot of people don’t know what that is here.

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Buddhist Retreat

I came onto campus quote-unquote Lutheran.

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Preaching Without Apology

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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In Very Good Hands

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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Almost like a War Cry

On one level, it was intimidating; on another, it was curious.

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Marketing Tactics

Hey you, you look black, stand over there, and hey you, you look gay, stand over there.

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White Privilege

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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Threatened by My Expression

Love sporting the ties and man jeans.

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No One Stared at Me

When you’re a minority, it’s hard to grow as a person.

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