I know, ultimately, I want to help effect change; otherwise, I would look at myself in the mirror every day and think, 'What in the world am I doing with my life?'
When you are in the public eye as a person of color, you are given very little room to mess up.
The more you learn about someone, how could you not want to protect them and their rights? The more you learn about a culture or a certain identity, it's hard to not feel empathy.
When you're a part of any protected class, whether it is being a woman, a person of color, a part of the LGBTQ community, or an immigrant, we're expected to get everything right and be the embodiment of perfection when it is not expected of other people.
Fortunately I can say that social media has treated me pretty well. I've been exempt from a lot of the mean comments.
I feel comfortable putting my political stances out there without feeling as though I am filling some sort of quota. I don't have a wokeness quota for the day.
Being homeschooled for half of my life allowed me to choose my own curriculum and find things I really enjoy, and that's kind of inspired me. I've always been intrigued in or interested in the topics I've been covering.
I've always struggled with Hollywood feeling trivial. Red carpets aren't worth it.
My mama is African American and from Wisconsin. My baba was born in Iran. My parents have stressed the idea of creating your own path, and creating your own identity is part of that. That's why embracing these two cultures is important to me.
Personally, I love denim... denim pants, a shirt, denim jacket - I'm good.
I have the support of my parents and my teachers. They made it very possible for me to go to a school that is open and supportive of me being gone at times and pursuing acting. But school always comes first for me.
One thing I've always been concerned about is the objectification of women in ads, and that's one thing where I was like, 'Well, if I become a part of advertising, I could change that.'
For me, personally, I'm usually not on my phone that much. I prefer listening to old radio shows and watching foreign films than tweeting.
One thing that used to worry me is the fact that it seemed like Harvard was this big scary thing where I would have to spend all my time studying just to get in. But getting to go to both campuses of Harvard and Oxford and getting to meet some of the professors was absolutely amazing.
I'm louder and bigger with my curls. There's power in that. Also, straight hair is kind of annoying. It gets caught in my collar.
I've been shy twice. Once when I saw Matthew Bomer and once when I saw Adam Levine. I couldn't say anything, literally.
I am just a history nerd.
Gender is a spectrum.
What modeling taught me at a young age was how to say 'no,' which is something girls - we're not always good at saying 'no.' We want to be nice, and then we forget to look out for ourselves.
If you look at the history of art and fashion, it's always been political. It's always been pushing boundaries.
