Bekah Hawley leaves an imprint on many orgs

If you're involved on campus, you've probably met Bekah Hawley. She's an activist of all trades, dabbling in more activities and clubs than even she could fit into one sentence. She's warm, enthusiastic and actively looking for more ways to understand and question the world around her. And she wants to inspire her peers to question society, too.

"My absolute passion is trying to get people to think of things in a new way," Hawley said. "My passion is trying to get people to question their boundaries and see things from a different perspective, because, especially in this day and age, it's easy to put blinders on."

 Hawley was born in New Jersey, but moved to Derry, N.H., at age nine with her mother, Diane, her father, Curt, and her younger sister, Rachel. With New York City less than an hour away from New Jersey, Hawley said she remembers growing up in a diverse, suburban area, where her neighbors strongly identified with their unique cultural heritage.

 But Derry was where Hawley cites first recognizing what she refers to as "homogenized whiteness." No longer did her neighbors identify strongly with religion, culture or ethnicity, something that a nine-year-old Hawley missed.

 "When I was younger I didn't have words for it, obviously," Hawley said. "But as I grew older I sort of came to realize that the New England area is very deep in the idea of homogenized whiteness, that white people don't have an ethnicity and different cultural experiences, which is very sad because it allows for more of a group thinking mentality and it doesn't allow people to celebrate their own specific heritage."

 Also at age nine, Hawley first started questioning her sexuality. Hawley was sitting up late one night after her parents and sibling went to bed. While watching TV, she saw a lesbian couple and thought about how nice it would be to be in that kind of relationship. This single thought, according to Hawley, would dramatically affect her mood and state of mind for the upcoming years until she finally came out to a friend her freshman year in high school.

 "When I was in middle school I didn't really deal with it," Hawley said. "I was depressed a lot, and I had a close group of friends but I didn't really talk to them much either. I was just very alone."

 Hawley first came out as questioning, though this would later switch to bisexual, then lesbian, then queer, a process that Hawley stresses is a natural and normal part of celebrating and embracing one's identity.

 "Coming out is a continuous process. It's not something you do once. I'm coming out to you right now or I did the other day," Hawley said.