“The United States of America is one of the most powerful countries in the world." "You should be grateful that you were born here." "Why aren't you more interested in your own history?" These are all things I've heard over the past couple of years as I've immersed myself in cultures that aren’t my own. I wondered why it was such a big deal that I wasn’t up America’s ass, and then when I was sitting in my US Government class as a high school senior, I realized it was because everyone around me: my teachers, my textbooks, the media, were telling me that I should be.

I’ve lived in America…my entire life. I’d been learning about American history for 18 years. Even in world history classes, the focus always came right back around to the good ol’ US of A. Western voices were the only ones I was being exposed to. Literature classes? Try Books by Old, Dead White Guys classes. Looking back, this is pretty ridiculous when you consider the fact that America really isn’t that old and there are plenty of other histories to learn about in addition to America’s, especially since America is a mix of cultures in itself. “American culture” according to my teachers was excluding the cultures in America that aren’t European. We’re a “melting pot” that isn’t really melting, honestly.

So I decided to go out and learn for myself, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for me. Exposing myself to other perspectives has taught me a lot about myself as well as my place in the world as a teeny tiny dot on the map. One of the reasons why my mentality changed so much between high school and college is because of this. How humbling is it to look in the mirror and realize that your perspective isn’t the only one that matters? (Hint: super humbling.)

My eyes have been opened up to a lot of things I hadn’t even considered before, like the fact that the textbooks we learn from are usually pretty one-sided in terms of perspective (a new rule of mine is that nothing should ever be one-sided). And because of things like this, many voices are silenced. It seems that it’s become a custom in media and social contexts to speak over the voices of those who were actually affected and insert the feelings of someone who wasn’t affected but might have a degree in sociology. Insert Scooby-Doo “auuurug?” here. Could this be because we’re exposed to the act of silencing right when we enter school, when reading one-sided textbook and learning from the same one-sided curriculum that the school district set up? Could this be because America was founded on physical violence as well as mental violence through silencing and dehumanizing? It’s the norm now—it’s what we know, but that doesn’t mean it’s what’s right. As stubborn as I am, that was hard for me to understand.

My voice is important, but so is the person’s next to me.

This semester I’m enrolled in a class called “Afro-American Culture.” It’s pretty cool that I even have the opportunity to take a class like this, and I’m really excited to learn—not only from my professor, but from the people around me as well. During our first discussion, I caught myself trying to speak over other opinions and thoughts just because they didn’t match my own. In fact, this was happening a lot until one student raised her hand pointed this out. Then we all sort of took a breath and realized we were being disrespectful and silencing each other. Everyone has the right to an opinion, whether or not we agree with it. And it definitely wasn’t cool to speak over those who are directly affected by something in order to insert opinions from those who aren’t.

These are things I probably wouldn’t have figured out if I didn’t decide to take a step back and look at the rest of the world, which is full of so much culture, history and beauty that are often looked over in the West unless they’re being used for fetishization (yikes, a topic for another time). My life even changed when I decided to get more involved in learning about my own roots. Aside from “going global,” there are voices right here in America that are silenced as well. I’m guilty of this at times, and I only became more self-aware because I stopped putting myself above everyone else and I stopped trying to be comfortable all the time. Comfort is the best way to halt the learning process.

So, when someone asks me why I’m not more interested in my own history (referring to America), aside from wondering why they’re asking me why I’m not self-centered 24/7, I also wonder what they think America is. By learning about the world, I am learning about America. And my perspective, America’s perspective, western perspective isn’t the only important one.