Cydnee is mixed race and mostly identifies as Louisiana Creole and Indigenous. Like many mixed people, her family’s story is complex. She knows very little about her ancestors due to our country’s racist history that forced her family to hide who they are, but she is on a mission to learn more. With her friend Abby, she is also on a mission to create a space where people who have been made to feel “other”, like the boxes we are forced to check on paperwork, can share our stories. They are starting to develop this project called Check Other and hope it can provide a much-needed space of joy and healing.

Cydnee is also an adult English teacher and is getting her MA TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Her capstone project focuses on teaching English with an antiracist multilingual approach so that learners are not forced to assimilate and lose their languages. Instead, the classroom can be a community that honors learners’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds. She hopes to teach in South Africa after she graduates to continue her education in antiracist teaching.