It's like you can't separate everything you do from it because it, it's just, it seeps into your very being, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think the language barrier first, I think that's one of the things a lot of the Caribbean don't necessarily have to deal with that, that barrier, right? And so they come in and could almost assimilate a little bit easier, whereas, you know, they're, they came in speaking a whole different language and had to understand this culture and like, and you know how big education is in the Haitian culture and like, and trying to excel.

They come from a, they come a culture where you're ranked at school every year, right? And my parents used to talk about, "Oh, I ranked number one every year, and my brother was number two, and my sister was number three." And it took, like really, they took a lot of pride in that, you know? And so coming here, not speaking the language, but then excelling, possibly excelling, for my parents' case, they excelled in school, pissed a lot of people off.

It's like, "Who the hell do you think you are coming over here?" And this was Brooklyn back in the '70s, and they used to get teased and beat up.

And they would tell me these stories, and then I would almost feel like ashamed, like, "Dang, what's going on?" Like, and so my middle school years, kind of kept quiet about being Haitian.

I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood.

You worked in finance, and what was that pivot for you like? I'd love to know more.