My mom was raised in the heart of downtown Charleston, right outside of Marion Square, And I knew that we had Gullah Geechee. I knew my culture was Gullah Geechee. I knew my family spoke a lot of Geechee, but I wasn't allowed to speak Geechee growing up. And so for me, every time I would try to be with my family and be with my cousins, speak the way they're speaking, to get shut down from my family, from my mom, every single time to get corrected just made me make the association that the culture was bad, something was bad.

I didn't need to be focused on being a part of this culture because my mom was steering me away from it for whatever reason. And I kind of just leaned into that and kind of turned my back. I mean, I'm really sad to say, but turned my back on my culture and lost exactly who I was as a person.