Who are you? I remember this question being posed to my freshmen English class during my first semester of college.

The context was framed around how we would describe ourselves and centered around, or at least most of the answers did, our ethnicity. Various answers were given from our multicultural class of students. We heard American, Japanese, Mexican, etc. At the time, I had just returned from serving a two-year mission in Africa and was accustomed to explaining to people I met that I was from the United States. In that English class, however, my answer was — I’m Californian.

If you look at my family history, we are a mix of many origins. One set of great-grandparents on my mother’s side was born in Mexico. Back one generation further on my father’s side, my great-great-grandfather was born in Prussia. Across the family tree branches, we have family members who came from other countries at other times.

So, who am I? Am I Mexican? Sure. German? Yeah, that too. British? Biologically, yes, but I lack the cool accent. So back to the answer I felt was most fitting — I’m Californian.

One of my closest and dearest friends would give the same answer. He spent most of his life in California despite being a military kid whose family moved around. He was raised not far from me and graduated from high school in Sacramento. He has the same accent, or lack thereof, that I do. But if he were to answer the question of who you are or where you are from, he must also answer a follow-up question.

Despite being a Californian in every way, his physical characteristics show that he is only one generation removed from his immigrant parents. We work in the same profession, share many common hobbies, laugh at the same dumb movie quotes, and generally feel like we have far more in common than what is different about us. I think of and love him like a brother. To me, that’s what he is.

Now, why did I feel like I needed to share this information about a question in a freshman English class from almost 30 years ago? I would assume I am not alone in my feeling of sadness as I witness the reactions of people around me to the things going on in our country and in our world right now. Saying nothing of the events themselves, I see people I love and care about speaking out very harshly about those who may view these events differently than they do. It almost feels like the motto on Facebook should be “If you’re not with me, you’re against me.”

I don’t believe that life needs to be like this. I strongly and truly believe that there is far more that unites us than divides us but we have to zoom in a little to see it. My dear friend and I share so much in common but there are lots of things about us that are different. We don’t agree on everything. Politically, we aren’t the same. Religion, not the same. Sports? The poor guy is a Mets and Dolphins fan for crying out loud. But I love him and would defend him with my life if needed and know he would do the same.

It is time to focus on what we have in common, on what brings us together, and when necessary, address the things where we are different from a position of love and genuine concern for our brothers and sisters.

Here are some simple thoughts on what we all share. We are all children of God. He loves us. As his children, that makes us siblings. We are all hoping and working for better days ahead. We all want to have joy and peace. Maybe we view things in different ways and maybe our approach to achieving those goals is different, but I hope we can all see in our brothers and sisters the desire for better days ahead.

Let me offer this simple suggestion. If I or you can do something today to make ourselves a little bit better, a little bit stronger, and a little bit more kind, we can improve ourselves. If we improve ourselves, we improve those around us. This could be our family, coworkers, neighbors.

Every little improvement lifts the group collectively. As we all make those little changes, we improve our community, our county, our state, our country, our world. A word that I truly dislike is “they”. There is no “they”; there is only “we”. As we strive to improve “us”, we recognize that there really is no “them.”

We’re all in this together, so let’s recognize and unite around what we have in common.