Welcome to Beyond the Surface, hosted by Inaaya Omer. During the course of this series she’ll be joined by a new guest in each episode to talk about their experiences and their perspective on being a minority, from an immigrant family, or even just from a different culture or background. 

In this episode, Inaaya is joined by James Urrutia, a junior at Serra high School. He compares growing up in Australia versus the Bay Area and shares how his culture played an important role along the way. His dad is Filipino and is from the Philippines while his mom is Filipino and Italian. She is from Melbourne Australia where James lived until he was ten. 

If anyone is interested in sharing their story on Beyond the Surface or providing feedback, email [email protected].