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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}[ Tayo ] When I was born, my name was Tiffani Clyburn
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I changed my name--not legally yet but
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}it's pretty official--to Tayo, when I was
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}probably about 28 or 29
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}um I was born in SanAntonio, Texas to military 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}family. My dad was in the Army, so I don't really know where I'm from since we moved
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}every tow or three years for a long time. Um but most of my family
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}both of my parents were born and raised in North Carolina, so I usually claim North Carolina. Um
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I am African-American, I am
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}transgender-identified, uh, transgendered not 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}transitioning-identified, um
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I'm, I just turned 32, uh
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I live in Columbus, I've been in Columbus for, God,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}since 2002, 10 years--it's been a long time. 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}It has been a long time. Columbus has been good to me though.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I work at the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Ohio State
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and um, that really all I can think of
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}at the moment. [ interviewer ] well, do you remember learning how to read or write?
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}[ Tayo ] No. Um
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I just remember that I used to hate to read. Like I
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}hated it. I hated it, I hated it. And my brother was like
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}a voracious reader--he's two years old than I am. And
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I don't know when it changed. I think my parents
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}as they tell it, um, that I used to go to the library, they used to make me read.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}And I would try to get the smallest, thinnest books I could get
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and um, but that their rule was that
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I always had to get a book that was 5 pages longer than the previous book.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}And so I, I don't know, maybe I found a book that I loved, but at some point
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}all I used to do was read. Now you just couldn't stop. I mean I would
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}inn high school, I spent most of my time in the library, like lunch periods in the library
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I was that kid. I was totally that kid. I was like best friends with
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}the librarian. Uh, Mrs. Wetzel, hi Mrs. Wetzel. 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}If you ever see this, Mrs. Wetzel and her sister Mrs. Bryant. And
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}uh we were buddies and they used to give me books, and I just would read
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}read, read, read, read, read. I was really an amazing way to like
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}meet new people without leaving my room, you know?
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}Meet new people, go to new places, um, you know yeah
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}it was kinda a way to get away without, you know, leaving. [ interviewer ] Did you have a particular
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}type of book, particular genre that you liked? [ Tayo ] I remember like in middle school
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I got addicted to uh like Christopher Pike young adult books. [ interviewer ] me too! 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}[ Tayo ] I totally was hooked on those. I read every
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}Christopher Pike book, I used to get so excited. But then it was also like when I was in middle school
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and elementary school I used to save my lunch money--'cause I wasn't going to lunch, I was going to the library--and I used to save it
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}until they had the book fairs, and then whatever I could buy at the book fair
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I bought as many books as I could. and I loved science fiction, and
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}uh, I wasn't too into the like touchy-feely
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}like, you know, "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret," you know what I mean? Like that wasn't quite my thing. I was
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}into like monsters and vampires and, and 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}murder and and those were kind of my thing. And then I think when I got into like high school
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I just expand a little bit because I was taking English classes that were starting to expand my
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}horizons quite a bit. And, you know, that's when I started reading stuff like, um,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}you know, the great American classics, and you know, I read
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}"Native Son," and um oh gosh why can't I think of
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}it now. "The Grapes of Wrath," I loved the "The Grapes of Wrath," um
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and so yeah, so eventually, like I started out with the young adult
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}you know craving the young adult novels, you know the vampire series by Christopher Pike was just
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}my favorite, and then the more classes I would take--I loved taking English classes,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}when I was in high school--um, you know I would, I
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}my English teachers would be put me on to the track of some books, and they would say hey, you should 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}read these books. And I would be like, okay! You know I couldn't stop, I loved it
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I loved it, so it seemed sort of, it made sense um
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}when I went to college--I went to Winston-Salem State in North Carolina,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}it's uh a small historically black univeristy,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}um, that initially I wanted to go to law school. I don't think that I really 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}wanted to go to law school, but I thought I should go to law school, like it just seemed to make sense.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}My dad was always like, you should be a lawyer. I was like, well okay! What else am I going
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}to do? Okay. Um and I think a lot of times
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}um students of color are sort of
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}encouraged to go into, uh, be a lawyer, be a doctor without sort of
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}anyone talking to them about the breadth of possibilities outside of vocations
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}like that. Um, so anyway, they didn't have a pre-law program
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}you know or a pre-law major. So I went to the college fair, 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}in Winston-Salem, and the chair of the English department was manning
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}the English department table. Her name was Dr. Shirley Manigault, and she became one of my
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}mentors, eventually. But she told me that the best major if you wanted to
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}go on to law school was English because she said if you can read and write and communicate
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}well, uh, you're gold. You'll be fine in whatever you choose, and
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I thought okay. I love to read, obviously at that point
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I was, I loved to read, so I was like, okay. And I became an English major
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}right then on the spot. I was like, I wanna to come here, I want sh-her to be 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}my teacher, and-and I'm gonna be an English major and that
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}was it, that was it. And she was actually a Victorianist, so that's when I fell in love with Victorian
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}literature. So yeah, when I came to Ohio State for grad shcool I was actually a Victorianist,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}believe it or not, and eventually became an African-Americanist.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}So, I can't even remember what the question was! But I think I ran with it.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}[ interviewer ] um that's great
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