To the outside world, I appear to belong to the traditional white nuclear family culture, but my family included co-cultures and subcultures that were rare in the southern suburbs. Both my parents were raised in a tradition of noblesse oblige-inspired progressivism, characterized by bravery and service. Both grew up in families dominated by a scientific co-culture that encouraged intellectual pursuits. My family is strongly collectivist in nature. My grandfather grew up as a poor orphan in New York. He had a younger brother to take care of and wanted to avoid the “orphan trains” of the time. As a child he worked as a bicycle messenger and learned wooden model making as an apprentice. He eventually became a pioneering aeronautical engineer in the first decade of the 20th century, but unlike the modern, individualistic autodidact who believes that because he is self-made he has no responsibility to anyone either, my grandfather preserved the collectivist culture of street children and orphans from his childhood: The older children take care of the younger ones, the healthy take care of the sick, the strong take care of the weak. The orphans recognized that they were all at one time or another young, sick and weak. When they were older, healthy and strong, they took care of the other children. He later moved from New York to the Gulf Coast of Florida and married the wealthy, beautiful daughter of the city's mayor, a free spirit who broke and defied tradition. She once crashed an ambulance – sirens blaring – full of bootleg whiskey in the middle of downtown on Sunday morning, causing a local scandal. My grandmother raised my father to believe that his position in the community dictated that he had a..... . middle of paper...... We do not identify as Irish, French, Creole, or Southern. We have close friends from other cultures, religions and countries, and we have thrived in a modern culture of diversity. Rather than culturally exclusive decor, we have always adorned our homes with an eclectic touch. I like living in a co-culture that values ​​justice, equality and intellectual curiosity. The best thing about it is that it is future-oriented and inclusive. Growing up in a traditional white nuclear family, this course helped me express how different I was from the dominant white culture of the South and why. I learned a communication style that emphasizes bringing people together, building consensus, and promoting justice. I found myself even more able to rely on a diplomatic style of communication than when I lived abroad in Africa, South America, and Asia..