As a junior in high school, LaKyla Yazzie, of the Diné tribe, had rarely been outside of her small hometown of Kirtland, New Mexico. Apart from traveling to a couple of championship cross country races, her world was largely confined to the Four Corners region of the southwest. So getting an expense-paid trip to visit universities in Boston and watch the marathon was a big deal.
“That was my first experience of the real world,” Yazzie, now a senior at UNLV, says about her 2018 Boston trip. “When we got to Boston, it was a huge culture shock—I had never seen so many nationalities at one time.” Yazzie recalls marveling at how crowded the city was, how most people didn’t own a car, the price of a small apartment, the lack of quiet, and that you couldn’t see the stars at night. Staying in a dorm she observed how independent college students were, and, while it was hard to believe that she was only a year away from that situation, she decided the adult world was not all that scary. “That was the biggest takeaway,” she says. “Stepping out of my comfort zone—it taught me how to do that and not be…
