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Growing up as a young black girl in Potomac, Maryland was easy. I had a Rainbow Coalition of friends of all ethnicities, and we would carelessly skip around our elementary school like the powerless version of Captain Planet's Planeteers.

I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different.

Through my music teaching and my not absolutely irregular attendance at church, I became acquainted with the best class of colored people in Jacksonville.

I was made fun of in the Midwest - I was the only Asian in my graduating class of 200. Fortunately, I found my niche, and it was fine. But I wanted to be so white, you wouldn't believe it. I was like, 'I want to be white; I don't want to be this anymore.' But now I embrace it.

And I can relate to that, because I went to an all white school, so I knew what that was like. And it was hard at the time, but anything that's difficult you learn from, don't you?

If you're of multiple races, you have a different challenge, a unique challenge of embracing all of who you are but still finding a way to identify yourself and I think that's often hard for us to do.

I grew up in L.A. in a school that was diverse, but it was not really integrated, so I didn't ever fully fit in with the black girls or the white girls or the Latina girls.

Some of my toughest races are people I've known, because it gets more personal than it should be.

It is truly not fun to be the family that sticks out in an all-white community. On the other side, I have five brothers and sisters; we all look exactly the same, and we're very, very tight. The lessons about race were not pleasant, but there are things that I loved about my childhood.

I was one of I think three white girls in my school. So, I was very much an outsider. And plus I was Jewish and all of my friends were black and Baptist because they listen to the coolest music. We were all listening to Ray Charles and what was then called race music.