I think part of it is the fact that my parents came early. We were one of the first Somali families in Canada. We arrived here in 1984 in Edmonton, Alberta, when there were no Somalis there.
I think part of it is that we had a little bit of a leg-up on integrating into society. Most Somalis have been here less than 30 years, so they're still catching up on how to figure the society out, how to blend in. I think many people don't understand that we're actually refugees. We come here as people coming from war. So there's a lot of trauma in the community, and I think that my parents coming early allowed us to integrate a little bit more and learn the system a little bit more.