Aaliyah Sonnier Vaden is a member of Black Like Water , a 2024 recipient of the Prebys Foundation’s Healing Through the Arts & Nature grant.
This grant supports nonprofit organizations that serve youth, veterans, justice-impacted individuals, and historically underserved communities. Through innovative approaches, these organizations provide meaningful opportunities to enhance well-being and quality of life in a post-pandemic world.
Aaliyah’s Story
“My parents met in the military. My dad stayed in after my mom had me, and we would move a lot. We lived in Japan, we moved to Wyoming for a couple years, and then we moved here to California, to Moreno Valley, because my mom’s family lives there.
I wanted to go to college, of course. And I honestly wanted to go as far away as possible. I wanted to spread my wings. I have four younger siblings. I’m the oldest of five. I needed my independence.
Because of my dad’s military service and because he retired in California, I could go to any public university for free. I applied to as many UCs as I could and I ended up getting into UCSD, which was my target school. They had a really good neurobiology program, and I wanted to be a part of it.
I got an invitation from the Black Resource Center, and they invited me and my family to come down for Triton days and for Black family weekend. And at the dinner that they had that night for Black Student Orientation, Latifah got up and spoke about Black Surf Week. I had always wanted to surf and decided to apply.
It was literally life changing, I met some of my really good friends. Black Surf Week helped me find my family outside of my family.
Black Surf Week is a program of Black Like Water, it’s designed for undergraduate, graduate or transfer students from UCSD to get together to build community.
It takes place the week before school starts. Even though it only takes place once a year, you can see people that you surfed with throughout the year, and it feels like old friends that haven’t seen each other in a really long time. You have this comfortability with someone because you did something as crazy as surfing with them for the first time, and you build a level of trust with them.
With my Black Surf Week fam, I can talk about issues I have with my family at home — I trust them with my information, my wellbeing, my life.
When I first came to Black Surf Week, I was shy, I didn’t really know what to do, my self-confidence wasn’t the best. The first few days of the program, you’re not in the water, you’re meeting people and learning about what you’ll be doing in the water. The second day is pool day, we do a swim test, go over rules, study the ocean zones, learn the different rules, like the stingray shuffle. We learn what to do if you’re in distress, like if you hit your head.
And then, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we start surfing. I remember being out in the water and wanting to be out there forever. It’s so fun, because you can go the whole week without doing much, and then the last day you’re able to stand up. And it feels like that sense of accomplishment trumps everything that you felt before.
Every day before we surf, we do an intention circle, ‘I want to stand up today or I don’t want to fall off the board or I just want to have fun.’ Whatever people feel is their next achievable goal, we as a community will support them with that.
One day, Dr. Wayne approached me and told me Latifah was going to be graduating soon and wanted to know if I was interested in coming back the next year to replace her as a coordinator. And so, this past year, I coordinated the program for the second time, and that went really well.
Growing up, I always felt like something was missing, like a part of my identity. Growing up everywhere and moving around, I didn’t really know what it meant to be Black, and I didn’t know that that was something that I should be proud of. I was the only Black swimmer on my swim team in high school but coming here and seeing a huge Black aquatic community that I didn’t even know existed and being able to find common ground with people I’d never met, and to build these relationships, I have found my chosen family out here.
I am so grateful.
There’s a film that we’ve been showing for the past couple years, called Wade in the Water, and it goes over the history of Black surfing. Before Black people were brought over from Africa, they were in the water, they surfed often. And even when people were taken, they would escape by surfing. So we were always in the water, always a part of it, and it’s always been a part of us.
There are stereotypes about Black people not swimming or liking water, but it is racism that tries to keep us away. At some point, people didn’t even want to use the same bathroom and same water fountain. Like, ‘we don’t even want y’all to be in the ocean either,’ and you know, beach front properties or anything related to the beach is high end, expensive. Unfortunately, a lot of people who experience low income or poverty are Black and Brown folks so, even if they do live here, they don’t have the money to get from the city to the beach. Do they have a board or a wetsuit? Or do they even have the money to rent it?
It’s more about access but it is also about the dominant surfing community too. We’ve had surfers explain how they were surfing and people approached them to tell them they shouldn’t be out here, and that they needed to leave, and for no other reason, other than the color of their skin.
At Black Surf Week, we eliminate that, we come here, we set up our tent, we put our loud music, we have our food laid out. Everybody’s here laughing, having a good time. You know, you’ll see the water full of red and yellow rash guards from all our people out there.
Being out on the water teaches you resilience and it teaches you discipline—discipline to tell yourself, ‘I can do this, I’m not going to shy away from what’s out there even if the ocean is a scary place.’ When you’re out there, you have to leave your problems on the shore. The only thing that you can focus on is the board and the water and making sure that you step where you should, or that you pop up when you should.
I really didn’t feel like I could be myself in high school and I always felt I had to tone myself down. But coming here my first year and every year after that, I find that it’s giving me the confidence to be myself. It’s given me an opportunity to shine without worrying about being seen, and other people see my light, you know, I was hired to be one of the coordinators.
I think the ocean is cleansing, it’s not predictable, but it’s steady, it’s always there. I feel like when it comes to depression or anxiety — I have bad anxiety and I have struggled with depression in the past — all those things are instability, you don’t know what’s happening or what’s coming. But when you’re in the ocean, you might not know what’s going on but you feel like you could conquer what’s out there. You feel like you can do anything.
When I’m in the water, it’s just me and my board or me and my people. It’s like a baptism, honestly, I often pray before I surf. I tell people all the time that Black Surf Week changed my life. So, give it your all, because it’ll give it back tenfold.
For Black students in particular, knowing that you’re on campus and you did something that people say you would never do, gives you a boost of confidence. You’re walking around campus, and you see people from Black Surf Week say hi, you feel the community, you don’t feel as alone. That does wonders for your mental health.
This profile is a feature for People de San Diego, a storytelling project by the Prebys Foundation highlighting valuable community members of San Diego County.
