INDIGO’S JOURNEY: A STORY OF IDENTITY, ACCEPTANCE, AND COMMUNITY

Sep­tem­ber 10, 2025 | By NRCF Recip­i­ent

Roots in Oak­land

Indigo’s sto­ry begins in Oak­land, where she was raised by a pow­er­ful trio of women—her mom, aunt and grand­moth­er. The city’s diver­si­ty shaped her world­view from day one.

“Oak­land is incred­i­bly diverse, and my life reflects that,” she explains. “I was exposed to dif­fer­ent iden­ti­ties from a very young age.”

Mid­dle school brought her first major tran­si­tion. Mov­ing from the pub­lic ele­men­tary sys­tem to an inde­pen­dent school opened her eyes to a dif­fer­ent world—one where some class­mates came from house­holds with sig­nif­i­cant­ly more wealth. The adjust­ment was­n’t easy at first.

“Although some stu­dents shared sim­i­lar back­grounds to mine, I was sud­den­ly exposed to a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent socioe­co­nom­ic real­i­ty,” she recalls.

A Cul­ture of Accep­tance

What made Indigo’s school expe­ri­ence tru­ly spe­cial was its embrac­ing of diver­si­ty in all forms. Fam­i­lies with same-sex par­ents were part of the fab­ric of the com­mu­ni­ty, cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment where dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly struc­tures felt com­plete­ly nor­mal. “A lot of fam­i­lies had two moms or two dads,” she reflects.

One mem­o­ry that stands out is of a les­bian staff mem­ber who open­ly shared her sto­ry of liv­ing with AIDS. This kind of vul­ner­a­ble, hon­est dia­logue was the norm rather than the excep­tion. When polit­i­cal winds began to shift nation­al­ly, the school admin­is­tra­tion held an assem­bly, reas­sur­ing stu­dents that their com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the entire school community—regardless of iden­ti­ty or background—would remain unwa­ver­ing.

Activism in Her DNA

Indigo’s fam­i­ly cares deeply about social jus­tice. “My fam­i­ly has always been open about dis­cussing dif­fi­cult top­ics,” she empha­sizes. “The gen­er­a­tions in my fam­i­ly have a strong activist his­to­ry, includ­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Black Pan­ther move­ment. Advo­ca­cy is lit­er­al­ly in my DNA—it’s BIPOC sol­i­dar­i­ty cou­pled with Black pow­er, all sup­port­ed by a fam­i­ly that con­stant­ly encour­ages me.”

The core prin­ci­pals of her fam­i­ly gave Indi­go some­thing invalu­able: the absolute cer­tain­ty that she would be accept­ed for who she tru­ly is. When she began ques­tion­ing her sex­u­al­i­ty in mid­dle school, the process felt nat­ur­al rather than fright­en­ing.

“It felt nor­mal because so many peo­ple around me were already out,” she describes. “I did­n’t need to have a for­mal ‘com­ing out’—this is just who I am. I don’t like to call it com­ing out because this is who I’ve always been.”

Nav­i­gat­ing New Envi­ron­ments

Even when Indi­go moved from Oak­land to Marin—a shift with­in the Bay Area that brought a new school and social dynam­ics to her life —she found accep­tance. Her high school friend group was equal­ly wel­com­ing, with many also iden­ti­fy­ing as part of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty.

Col­lege at San Diego State Uni­ver­si­ty, how­ev­er, pre­sent­ed new chal­lenges and rev­e­la­tions. “In col­lege, I knew exact­ly how I want­ed to iden­ti­fy,” she says. “I pre­fer no labels, or sim­ply use the word ‘Queer.’ ”

Col­lege exposed her to dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives. “The first friend group I met was more con­ser­v­a­tive and many of them had­n’t been exposed to the same cul­ture I’d grown up in. It real­ly showed me that even with­in Cal­i­for­nia, there are pock­ets of beliefs depend­ing on how peo­ple are raised. These friends held tra­di­tion­al ideas about what fam­i­lies should look like.”

Despite ini­tial ques­tions and dif­fer­ent view­points, those friend­ships endured. “Sure, peo­ple had ques­tions at first about my iden­ti­ty and ori­en­ta­tion, but all of those friends remain close to me today,” she notes.

As some­one who iden­ti­fies as both Queer and a per­son of col­or at a fair­ly homo­ge­neous uni­ver­si­ty, Indi­go became more con­scious of her inter­sec­tion­al iden­ti­ties. “It’s some­thing I think about reg­u­lar­ly here,” she shared.

Spir­i­tu­al Chal­lenges and Growth

Dur­ing col­lege, Indi­go decid­ed to deep­en her spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion, explor­ing what faith meant to her per­son­al­ly. How­ev­er, this jour­ney led to some painful encoun­ters with­in the Black Cam­pus Min­istry club.

“There was a slide shown dur­ing the meet­ing that said it was a sin to be LGBTQ+. That you could not be gay but also be a Chris­t­ian.” she remem­bers. “When the dis­cus­sion turned to repent­ing, I real­ized there was­n’t space for me in that par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty. If their belief is that you can’t be a Chris­t­ian and Queer simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, then that’s not a com­mu­ni­ty I want to be a part of here.”

Rather than dimin­ish­ing her faith, this expe­ri­ence clar­i­fied her under­stand­ing of her mul­ti­fac­eted iden­ti­ty. Con­ver­sa­tions with her friend group helped her process these chal­leng­ing moments.

“This real­ly brought home my inter­sec­tion­al iden­ti­ties,” she empha­sizes. “I am Black, Queer, reli­gious and spir­i­tu­al. Those are all beau­ti­ful parts of me, and I can be all of them simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.”

Fam­i­ly Love and Future Aspi­ra­tions

The warm embrace in Indigo’s fam­i­ly extends to the youngest gen­er­a­tion. When she shared her iden­ti­ty with her two younger sis­ters, ages 9 and 3, their respons­es moved her deeply.

“They respond­ed with pow­er­ful words like ‘love is love’ and ‘it’s okay to love who you love,’ ” she shares. “This tru­ly makes me empathize with stu­dents who don’t come from sit­u­a­tions like mine.”

Today, Indi­go is in a lov­ing rela­tion­ship. “I have a girl­friend now who is the light of my life. We’ve been togeth­er for over nine months!” she says with joy.

For her career, Indi­go plans to com­bine her pas­sion for advo­ca­cy with pub­lic rela­tions work for non­prof­its. “I want to ampli­fy impor­tant mes­sages in soci­ety and shift the dia­logue,” she explains. “I’m minor­ing in soci­ol­o­gy and lead­er­ship specif­i­cal­ly for that reason—it’s the advo­ca­cy piece my fam­i­ly has always demon­strat­ed.”

The Pow­er of Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund

Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund has been trans­for­ma­tive for Indi­go, pro­vid­ing sup­port that extends far beyond finan­cial assis­tance.

“This schol­ar­ship means so much more than money—though that sup­port is incred­i­ble,” she explains. “I’m enter­ing my senior year and could grad­u­ate debt-free. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly mean­ing­ful com­ing from a low­er-income fam­i­ly. My mom went to col­lege but accu­mu­lat­ed sig­nif­i­cant debt. She expe­ri­enced that bur­den first­hand and want­ed my jour­ney to be dif­fer­ent. She want­ed noth­ing but oppor­tu­ni­ty and poten­tial for me.”

Inter­est­ing­ly, Indi­go encoun­tered a sim­i­lar schol­ar­ship in high school but was­n’t ready to apply. “I knew I was­n’t straight and iden­ti­fied as Queer, but when I saw a schol­ar­ship for LGBTQ+ stu­dents being adver­tised, I thought to myself: I’m not going to apply right now. Why? I was­n’t ful­ly out to myself yet.”

The tim­ing had to be right. “When I found Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund last semes­ter, hav­ing ful­ly stepped into myself and being in a rela­tion­ship, I was ready. More than ready—I was excit­ed to apply and tell my sto­ry.”

She sus­pects her expe­ri­ence isn’t unique. “I know in my heart that count­less oth­er stu­dents have had the same expe­ri­ence before, think­ing to them­selves, ‘I’m not going to apply for that.’ ”

Com­mu­ni­ty and Vis­i­bil­i­ty

Being part of Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund com­mu­ni­ty has pro­vid­ed Indi­go with new oppor­tu­ni­ties for vis­i­bil­i­ty and con­nec­tion. She was invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in San Diego Pride with Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund.

“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I could­n’t go because I was home in the Bay Area, but it would have been my first Pride! That would have been such a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly giv­en the cur­rent times we’re liv­ing in. With con­fi­dence in myself and fam­i­ly sup­port, I can now add this Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund com­mu­ni­ty to my sup­port net­work. The feel­ing that this com­mu­ni­ty is accept­ing me with open arms is incred­i­ble.”

Moments of Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and Strength

One of Indigo’s most pow­er­ful reflec­tions comes from attend­ing a recent San Diego Foun­da­tion schol­ar­ship cel­e­bra­tion. Her expe­ri­ence there strad­dles both the chal­lenges and joys of liv­ing authen­ti­cal­ly.

“My girl­friend and I still don’t hold hands in pub­lic some­times,” she admits. “We nev­er know who’s around us. So, when I arrived at the schol­ar­ship cel­e­bra­tion, I was ini­tial­ly ner­vous. I brought my girl­friend as my guest, and the place card on our table had ‘Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund’ on it—I real­ized every­one would know I was gay from that.”

But the envi­ron­ment quick­ly trans­formed her anx­i­ety into belong­ing. “Very quick­ly, I felt sup­port­ed by the sur­round­ings and the ener­gy of the peo­ple there. My table and oth­ers next to mine had oth­er stu­dents who iden­ti­fy as LGBTQ+, and it was a beau­ti­ful way to enter my senior year of col­lege.”

Look­ing For­ward

Indigo’s sto­ry is one of grad­ual self-accep­tance, fam­i­ly love, com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, and the courage to live authen­ti­cal­ly in a world that does­n’t always make space for com­plex iden­ti­ties. Her jour­ney from Oak­land to San Diego State, through moments of chal­lenge and cel­e­bra­tion, reflects the ongo­ing work of being true to one­self while build­ing com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers.

With her senior year ahead and a debt-free grad­u­a­tion on the hori­zon, Indi­go is posi­tioned to take her pas­sion for advo­ca­cy into the pro­fes­sion­al world, car­ry­ing for­ward the activist spir­it that runs in her fam­i­ly while build­ing new com­mu­ni­ties of accep­tance and sup­port.

Her sto­ry reminds us that iden­ti­ty isn’t just personal—it’s com­mu­nal, sup­port­ed by fam­i­ly, friends, edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, and orga­ni­za­tions like Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund that rec­og­nize the impor­tance of invest­ing in the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers.

Want to Make a Dif­fer­ence?

Here’s how you can sup­port LGBTQ+ stu­dents:

• Donate today
• Vol­un­teer with NRCF

Every action counts — thank you for being part of this move­ment for edu­ca­tion­al equi­ty and oppor­tu­ni­ty. No LGBTQ+ stu­dent should ever have to choose between their safe­ty and their edu­ca­tion­al dreams.