It’s been three years since I’ve spent Thanksgiving at home\u00a0with my family in California. Not being from the States, the holiday isn’t personally meaningful to us in the traditional sense, but it has\u00a0always been a time when all the family members have off from school\/work and we get to spend some quality time together. But, having\u00a0lived on the East Coast for two years, and now in Detroit, time spent\u00a0with family (and close childhood friends) has diminished over time and\u00a0the holidays are becoming more and more personally meaningful.<\/p>\n
That being said, how and with whom I spend my holidays away from home\u00a0had become increasingly important. And as I celebrated\u00a0\u00a0Thanksgiving in Detroit this year, I had a chance to reflect not only on\u00a0the people who were with me at the dinner table, but on all of the people I’ve\u00a0met in\u00a0the city in the last six months … and let me tell you, I have a lot to be thankful for. The people I have been privileged to meet, from strangers to fellows,\u00a0and\u00a0those I now feel comfortable calling good friends,\u00a0are what makes this city especially\u00a0beautiful and special, unique from anywhere\u00a0else I’ve lived before.<\/p>\n
The sense of camaraderie and support for one another (as opposed to the cutthroat competition one\u00a0encounters\u00a0in NY or LA, practically on a daily basis) is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. In large part,\u00a0I think this stems from the fact that\u00a0most people here, those who’ve settled in Detroit, are so incredibly passionate and genuine about making this city\u00a0better for everyone,\u00a0they understand\u00a0that it’s more valuable and important to bring up the city and everyone in it – to increase the size of\u00a0the so-called pie, rather than vie for a larger piece of it.<\/p>\n
I’m also so\u00a0inspired and enchanted\u00a0by the\u00a0fact that so many of the people here are creators<\/a><\/strong><\/em>,\u00a0doers<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, makers<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, and pure hustlers<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. Detroit is not without its challenges,\u00a0but\u00a0that doesn’t stop Detroiters. In many cases, I’d say that’s probably what\u00a0pushes them to work harder, to find creative ways to make things work in an at times broken system, and to\u00a0stop talking and just do.<\/p>\n On a personal note,\u00a0the Detroiters I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, working with, and becoming friends with are incredibly open and welcoming, creating a sense of community so much stronger that anything I’ve experienced before. That’s not to say everyone is welcomed with open arms, and with\u00a0good reason. Those who have been here for a minute have been burned in the past, may be a bit skeptical of newbies, and as such take a minute (or a few) to\u00a0sense whether your intentions are pure or if you’re here to purely benefit yourself. But\u00a0they’ve honed their radars over there years, so as long as you’re\u00a0genuine, you’ve got nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n And I could go on and on, gushing about this … so I’ll close with a huge thank you to everyone I’ve\u00a0had the chance to meet over the last six months!\u00a0So honored to be in your company. Detroit is lucky to have\u00a0you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been three years since I’ve spent Thanksgiving at home\u00a0with my family in California. Not being from the States, the holiday isn’t personally meaningful to us in the traditional sense, but it has\u00a0always been a time when all the family members have off from school\/work and we get to spend some quality time together. But, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[379,380,95,381,382,63,383,384,385,161,386,387,388,389,235],"class_list":["post-31244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alt-j-lab","tag-collaboration","tag-community","tag-creatives","tag-creator","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-hustles-harder","tag-doers","tag-human-capital","tag-makers","tag-omnicorps","tag-people","tag-salt-and-cedar","tag-social-change","tag-social-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}