Editor’s note: This column is the first place winner in The Daily Eastern News’ African American Heritage Celebration 2003 essay contest.

When I think of culture and heritage as a black person, I think of something that is current and ever-changing.

Culture evolves from heritage. Heritage to me means roots and history. These are the things that cannot be changed like slavery, the civil rights movement and other defining points in the history of my people.

Our culture is defined from our heritage in some form or another, and this creates this tie that binds. As a black person, it is hard to overlook or turn my head from the events of the past that affected not only Africans and blacks, but also this country as a whole.

Through my own personal discovery, I have come to appreciate and accept the past as it affects me everyday, and this is what I call my culture. Being a person of color is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because I get to see the world through difficult yet informative lenses. When I wake up in the morning I am Crystal, but when I go out into the world I am a Black woman.

I define myself as a unique individual and as a Black woman. These are two separate entities, which I have had the opportunity to explore throughout my undergraduate and graduate career.

Growing up, I did not get the opportunity to learn about my culture or my heritage in my household. The only exposure I really had to my culture and heritage was during Black History Month at school and through my friends. When I went to my undergraduate institution, I was invited to a Black Student Association (BSA) meeting. I felt as though I was invited because I was black, and so I turned down the invitation.

I began to feel alienated from the black students, and I struggled to fit in with them.

My second year of college, I began to go to the BSA meetings because I had this internal struggle of wanting to be this unique individual named Crystal, but, also, I wanted to learn what it meant to be a black person.

This may sound funny, but it is true. I thought I had no concept of what being black was about or even if there was such a thing as “being black.”

I ran for vice president of BSA, and I was elected. I began to do research on great African American scholars and people of the past who still influenced great thinking today.

As I read about and spoke to black people, I started to have this feeling that I belonged, and I could comfortably say the words “my people.”

This journey of self-discovery and ethnic identification encouraged me to be open to everyone and learn about everyone and everything.

Everyone is a unique individual, and we all have a culture and a heritage.

As a black person, I try to learn about myself through working with others.

As black people we are bound to our history and we are bound through our culture. Our culture binds us because of our commonalties of our heritage.