Nicole Draffen

Nicole Draffen is a builder, a fixer, and a challenger. She loves tearing things apart to understand them, and then try to prove or disprove their merit. This allows her to move through life with an air of certainty about what she knows, and what she doesn’t know. So naturally when living abroad, the social and cultural consciousness of the people she met, and the things she observed inspired her natural inclination to understand and study the value of cultural norms. The more she traveled overseas, the more she grew to understand certain aspects of the American perception of culture. Her journeys inspired her to write about her experience.
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The prestigious IAN 2021 Book of the Year Award named Nicole Draffen’s debut novel, Hyphened-Nation: Don’t Check the Box, a finalist in the category of ‘Non-Fiction: Social Issues’.

When not travelling or writing, you can find her in her garden tending to a vast variety of plants, Feng Shui-ing everything in sight, pursuing her passion of collecting vintage oil paintings, reading, antiquing, and running.

HYPHENED-NATION: Don't Check the Box

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2021 IAN Book of the Year Finalist in the Non-Fiction: Social Issues Category
Non-Fiction Memoir

Hyphened-Nation was inspired by the authors travels overseas, and time spent living in the United Kingdom. Living abroad was an eye-opening experience, she grew to understand certain aspects of American culture better, the longer she lived overseas. This book is about her insights, and experience of being treated as an American, rather than a hyphenated one.
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The difference was startling and lead her on a journey to understand why The United States is one of the only, if not the only country, that hyphenates its citizens by ethnicity before nationality.

It is a journey of discovery in understanding that those same boxes we allow ourselves to be placed into as hyphenated-Americans, limit economic, educational, societal, and cultural growth. Her story focuses on ways the United States and our global community differ culturally, and steps citizens can take to create a non-hyphenated coalitional nation.
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