“Over the course of 4 years, I felt more connected with my own heritage and committed to building a better America for the immigrants who raised me and the rest that will add true purpose to this country as history has continuously shown us. I believe they did their due diligence, so it is now my turn. But I know I would not have been able to get to where I am or figure out where I am going if I did not first figure out how to succeed as a unique individual.” ~ Jacqueline Abraham

The most frequently asked question about my name is this: “Why do you go by Muna and not Alicia?” I usually got asked this when people just heard that my first name is Alicia. They usually find this out during attendance, when the teachers start by saying “Ali-” and correct themselves and say “Muna”. I did not understand the answer to the question, so I just told people that there were other Alicia’s in the class. All I really knew about that topic at the time was that my parents told my kindergarten teacher that I would go by ‘Muna’.

You can call me a product of Gen Z, I am cool with that. But you cannot say that we are all the same, or that we need to “mature” and grow up. We got it from our mamas…Sorry, our parents.

As time went on, the stories became persistent. The information being passed around seemed to be converging and were starting to sound similar. It felt like the virus had completed its conquest of China and Italy and was getting closer and closer. The number of reported cases in the United States grew. Then the number of cases in Massachusetts inched upwards. There was even a case in my town. Things were getting worse. Fear was starting to circle my heart.

Based on our research to understand how Nigerian parents raise their children, we found that parents who micromanage their teens decreases teenager’s confidence in their daily life at home and…