"I find that everything that I went through - all the negative, all the positive - has made me stronger"
Sandra Jean Paris was born January 20, 1960 in Truro, Nova Scotia. She has two sisters and two brothers and grew up in a military family in Wallis Heights in Dartmouth, NS but moved with her father to Prince Edward Island where she finished high school.
Sandy says that racism took a toll on both her parents. Her Dad, Joseph Lawrence Paris grew up in Mulgrave, NS and her Mom, Evelyn Veronica Jackson Paris Cackette grew up in Windsor, NS with both experiencing a lot of racism. She doesn't really know their stories because no one talked much about it. Sandy was a bit apprehensive to talk about how racism affected her but says it was good to talk about and it "cleansed her soul."