High school sucks.

doesn't it?

High school sucks at school suck They did a good job of making me feel like an outsider.

One of the jokes they would say in high school is, how'd you get here if he can't swim?

I'm like, God, I guess it was th crate that I floated over on, yo So you were born in Guam, right?

Yeah.

But we came to the United States when I was six months old.

We moved first to Bloomington be my dad read a Forbes magazine ar and in 1993, that was the best p to raise children in the United Wow.

In the whole country?

The whole country.

So then I finally moved to Minne by myself as soon as I could.

Okay.

Tell me about that move.

Were you tired of the suburbs?

Some of the suburbs and the, the school that I went to, it, it, y couldn't help, but feel it as a of an outsider because of my rac Being from Guam, but also mixed my dad is white, I didn't quite any of the boxes for the kids, y My high school was a, it was a p school and I actually got a whol financial assistance because of Obviously they met well and they want to include, you know, more in the school, but the way they it, sometimes made me, made me w Why?

They put me on the front cover o the school magazines on multiple occasions, like, ah, look at our diversities, doing homework on t Our diversity is standing on a ladder this time, look at this.

They were actually paying you to be a model for the school.

Yeah, pretty much.

That's what was happening.

Pretty much.

I still get teased and tokenized as an adult.

And I just can't imagine how hea that must've been in high school I told everyone that I was, I was a really good surfer.

I was an excellent surfer.

And it's funny cause I can't swim, but, but I would wear a swim trunks to school every day.

Obviously, there's no way that they could ask me to surf.

That's awesome.

That was my thing, and people were like, "Oh!

There's, there's the Guammie!

Yeah, there, there he is!

There's the surfer!

And I just kind of leaned into that, you know.

I was kinda becoming the person that they thought that I was.

Wow.

Senior year I finally figured out the formula.

I found that self-deprecation especially racial, self-deprecat really made people happy.

I think I was saying the things that they, they wanted to say, b wouldn't, you know, it made them and I became pretty, pretty popu I was the prom king, my senior y because I was sort of this, this self-deprecating clown that just all the, all their microaggressi and all they've name calling.

And I turned it against them.

I got to ask to prom, the girl t no to me and my sophomore homeco time, this time we went and she look at me all night, but that's I still, I still won.

So by teasing yourself, you got what you wanted.

Yeah, but I was doing damage to myself too.

You know, it's not, it's not goo to say those things about yourse Because you start to believe them eventually.

What would you say would have happened if you stood up for you Well, I did one time.

I did one time.

I got into a fist fight with my high bully and I, I beat his ass I really got him.

If I stood up for myself in the times that really, really matter Uh, I don't know.

I think that I definitely wouldn't have been as popular.

But I think I would, I'd still h the same friends that I I do now You know, I would still have the close friends cause they weren't people that were laughing at the They were the people that could see me as I was.

And I'm not self-deprecating any but I've learned to rely on thos reflexes of just saying whatever you need to, to make people happ But it doesn't, you can't, you can't live off that for ever.

Every year, I try to teach myself to swim by just diving into the deep end of something.

If it's a lake, a pool, you know, whatever.

And I think I have improved in m flailing, but I don't know if it translates to swimming yet, you