Close All Tabs - 23andMe (andGeneticPrivacy)

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

When 23andMe filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, it set off alarm bells among privacy experts and consumers alike. According to a 2025 survey, about 1 in 5 Americans has taken a home DNA test. Among those who haven’t, privacy ranks as one of their top concerns. As with so many things having to do with data, there’s a trade-off between confidentiality and the ability to access services that can improve our lives. The fallout from 23andMe’s bankruptcy and an earlier data breach has left consumers more wary than ever and has underscored the need for stronger data privacy laws. In today’s episode, we’ll hear from someone whose life was transformed by a 23andMe test, and from a genetic data and privacy researcher who explains the risks of handing over our DNA to a corporation. Guests:  Trine Gallegos, Media Coordinator and 23andMe user Anya Prince, professor and genetic privacy researcher at the University of Iowa College of Law Further reading/listening:  I Tried to Keep My Pregnancy Secret — Anya Prince, The Atlantic  Judge OKs sale of 23andMe — and its trove of DNA data — to a nonprofit led by its founder — John Ruwitch, NPR California AG says 23andMe sale ‘does not comply’ with state law — Tyler Katzenberger, Politico 23andMe is for sale. Here’s why companies might want your genetic data — Lisa Eadicicco, CNN Read the transcript here Want to give us feedback on the series? Shoot us an email at [e-mail] You can also follow us on Instagram Credits: This episode was reported and hosted by Morgan Sung. Our Producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Additional editing by Chris Hambrick. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts, and also helps edit the show. Sound design by Chris Egusa and Brendan Willard. Original music, including our theme song, by Chris Egusa. Additional music from APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support for a Key QBD podcast comes from Xfinity. Thanks to the Xfinity five-year price guarantee, your guaranteed five years of reliable Wi-Fi with our best equipment, no annual contracts, and no fees. Plus, get online in minutes with same-day Wi-Fi. Lock in your price and unlock the possibilities. Xfinity, imagine that. Restrictions apply, select plans only.

Ugh, you also having trouble with scammers trying to poke holes in your dam? We need a phone plan that stops these pensions. at the perimeter. That's why I switched to Google File Wireless, a wireless plan built with industry-leading security. Google AI helps block pesky scampers so my info stays secure, and best of all unlimited plans start at just $35 a month. Whatever you do, your sake with Google. Explore Google File Wireless plans today. Plus taxes and government fees. Block spam known to Google may not detect all spam calls. From KQED. Trini Gallegos is a pillar of her community. She's a mother, wife, former journalists at the local paper, now a beloved staff member at the local high school,

and she volunteers in her spare time. She was even named Citizen of the Year in her hometown of Antioch, California, about an hour northeast of San Francisco. I am a lifelong resident of Antioch, California, this really great, tight-knit kind of community. Trini's in her 60s now, but she grew up the baby of the family. Her sister and brother are both over a decade older than her. They were a pretty typical working-class family. Her dad, a veteran, managed pest control for military bases nearby, and her mom worked at a cannery and then in food service. My parents were deeply proud of their background, as they should be. Trini's parents were both Mexican-American, and they raised her to be proud of her heritage, too.

I just love like Spanglish, where they're slapping, you know, some English and Spanish, and then one sentence might have English and Spanish. And so I really absorb. a lot of that. Trini grew up with very few questions about where she came from. As a kid, she had strawberry blonde hair, unlike anyone else in her family. But if anyone ever pointed out that she was different from the rest of the family, her fiercely protective mother would shut it down. Trini does remember asking her parents why she was born in San Francisco,

while her siblings were born in Antioch, but they brushed it off with a loose explanation about her dad's military health care. When Trini was five, her family was five, her family. suffered a devastating loss. Her brother, who was 19, had joined the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War, and he was killed in action. I'm sure some families suffer and kind of fall apart after something like that, but we're, you know, again, very lucky and that we kept it together, maybe even tighter. My mom was already a real protective parent, and I think that I realized much later that probably spurred from, you know, losing my brother. Trini grew up. She went to college, got married,

married and had a daughter of her own. She stayed super close with her older sister and her sister's kids and eventually their kids. In 2017, they all gathered to celebrate Trini's 57th birthday. We're talking around the table and I say, oh, you know what I think is going to be fun? I'm going to do a DNA test. Like, how Mexican are we? And my mom had always spoke to maybe having some Native American, et cetera. So I just thought it would be interesting to have a little breakdown. And again, literally this is how I said it. I think it'll be fun just for fun. Following some friends' recommendations, she decided to use 23 and me.

It was a San Francisco base, right? And I was like, yeah, I'll shop local, like that, basically. So she bought the kit, spat in a tube, and mailed it back to the lab in a neat little prepaid package. A few weeks later, Trini got her results back. It said literally almost down to exactly like 51% Filipino, 49% Irish. Which was obviously not at all what she expected. Her whole life, she had grown up proudly Mexican. So when I got mine and read it and there's like no Latin, no anything, I was just like, what a waste.

Like, yeah, I was just like, oh, dang, give me my hundred bucks back. Trini assumes that 23 and me had made a mistake. Maybe they had mixed up her results with someone else's or their own data was inaccurate. The truth was, Of course, a bit more complicated. On today's episode, we're going to hear more of Trini's story and also talk to a genetic privacy expert to find out, what do you really give up when you take one of these tests? And is it worth it? This is Close All Tabs.

I'm Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let's get into it. Before we get into the privacy questions surrounding 23 and me and all the other at-home DNA tests, let's hear the rest of Trini's story. And of course, that means opening a new tab. Show DNA relatives. About a year after receiving what she thought were bum results, Trini had forgotten about the 23 and Me test. Her dad had passed away by then and her mom's health was starting to decline.

While their mom was still able to travel, Trini and her sister decided to take the whole family on a big trip to Hawaii. But throughout the trip, Trini noticed that her sister seemed stressed. During their last day, the family took a morning walk on the beach, and Trini and her sister ended up alone. She's acting kind of odd, and then she's asking me a few little questions, and she brings up the 23 and me thing. And she goes, whatever happened to that test thing? And I go, oh, it was a big friggin disaster. Like, it messed up. It didn't say anything about our, like, you know, Mexican heritage or something like that.

And then she said, oh, I was going to talk to you about something and kind of mumbly. And I was like, well, just tell me. So she says, you're adopted. At first, Trini was incredulous. I go, right. Like, almost laughing. And then she touches my arm. And then I knew.

And then it just, like, kind of made me real. Because, you know, it was almost like a little comfort, like, no, I'm not kidding. And there, on the beach, Trini's sister revealed the secret that she had been holding onto for almost 60 years. Before Trini's arrival, their mom had had several miscarriages. Around that time, a distant family member was going through a rough patch and asked Trini's parents to adopt their baby. Baby Gloria was a joyous part of their family for over six months. But then, the relative came back and asked. to take her out for one last car ride to say goodbye.

They never came back. So, you know, a gut wrench, right? And, I mean, they were, I mean, just heartbroken. My sister and brother are, like, apparently crying every day. It was just a scene. And so my sister telling me this. And I had heard about Gloria before, but obviously not my part of the story. Sometime later, when Trini's brother was 14 and her sister was 12,

their parents announced that they were going to take a drive into San Francisco. This wasn't out of the ordinary. They went into the city all the time. And then they get to this hospital. They get there and they're in a room and a woman brings a baby in and hands her to my mom. It's me. And then, you know, we all get in the car. We come to Antioch and I guess as we arrive or getting out of the car, my mom says very matter of factly,

which my mom was a girl boss before it was a thing. And she said, this is our baby. And we're not going to tell anybody how this happened. This is our baby, and that's it, and nobody's going to take her. And then my brother and sister were like, yeah, fine, let's go. But this is all, again, from a 12-year-old's point of view. That's all she knew. Back on the beach, Trini was reeling.

But she didn't have time to process anything because the rest of the family was getting out of the water and fast approaching across the sand. They still had to pack, get through the airport, and catch their flight back to California. So Trini pulled it together. She didn't tell her husband or daughter about the bombshell her sister dropped until they got home nearly a day later. That's when she broke. I'm almost crying just thinking about it because it was so intense. So now my daughter's crying, my husband's crying because we're like, what? I don't get it.

I was kind of a mini-wrack. I call it where I was an upside-down world. And I'm pretty, you know, open and fairly lighthearted and positive. But that, you know, that took my knees out. Trini still had so many questions. Who were her birth parents? Records were scarce, and there was no such thing as open adoptions back in 1960. Her sister didn't have many answers because she was so young when Trini was adopted.

And they decided not to bring it up with their mom, who was more easily confused as she got older. A few weeks later, Trini's nephew and his husband came by to check on her. And my nephew's husband, who had also done 23 and me, but he knew his result. He said, have you gone back to 23 and me and see if there's any connections? So she logged on for the first time in over a year and clicked show DNA relatives. And then sure enough, boom, like a big fatty circle that showed like a match that not like partial, not like fourth cousin, like, you know, 100% this is your sibling. That was Trini's full biological brother, Mark. He's five years younger than her.

They messaged each other through the 23Mee website. Hesidently at first and then over the next few weeks, shared more and more. Mark told her about their other younger brother, Sean, who's eight years younger than her. The brothers had grown up in San Francisco and were even born in the same hospital that Trini was born in. They had both gotten married and had kids and raised their families less than an hour away from where Trini raised hers. They've been in the Bay Area the whole time. I always, you know, say that we've been 40 minutes away from each other and a bridge apart, our whole wife's. Just crazy.

Trini was floored when she saw a picture of her youngest brother, Sean. It is my face. I look like Mark. You can definitely tell we're siblings. But Sean has, like, exact same coloring, the same kind of shape, morph. I mean, it was like just an absolute mind blow. Trini, with her journalism background, had so many questions. that it overwhelmed Mark.

After a few weeks, he suggested that they meet up in person. They talked for over four hours. So my mom, Delphina, was 16 when she got pregnant with me. Our father, Gary, was like 17 or 18. My biological grandma, Delphina's mom, was like, no, you're 16. And this is 1960. This is not a thing. You can't have the baby, you have to finish school.

Also, you know, undertone, you're Catholic and Philippina. No, no, no. So, you know, that's what she had to do the adoption thing. Delphina tragically died just before she turned 50. At her funeral, an aunt told Mark that he might have a sister somewhere out there but didn't elaborate. He was grieving and didn't think much of it. Then, about 20 years later, his wife and daughter pressured him into taking a 23-and-me test. That's when Trini's profile popped up.

Despite the shock of it all, Trini said she's actually grateful for the timing. If she'd learned that she was adopted before home DNA kits existed, she would have never met her brothers or have the answers she so desperately wanted. If my sister had told me when I was 18 or 25 or when I was trying to have a baby and had all these questions, I wouldn't have known any of this information. I wouldn't have any backstory. And I think it just would have haunted me a little bit. After their first meeting, Mark and Trini introduced their families to each other.

Immediately we're gabbing, we're sharing stories, and I'm just taking it all in and eating it up and asking about childhood and what they did. Because, you know, we've got 50-some years to catch up on our stories. And when we left that dinner, my husband was like, oh, wow. So he's seeing that Mark and I have some like similar hand gestures and how we kind of pause and the kids. Hayden, it's like, which is also very wild to think about, right? Is that genetic? You know, you have to wonder. Exactly.

It has to be right. It's just, that is just wild to me, but also, like, kind of cool. And then we eventually, not too long after brought all of our families together. And it's just all of us jumping in. We're excited and also like, yikes, you know, like a family reunion, we didn't know what we were going to have. But when they left, my sister looked at me. She said, we have brothers. again. And that's how she refers to him, too. If they refer to her as the, how's her sister doing?

And because she'll say, have you heard from the brothers lately? What are they doing? It's not like, oh, how are your brothers doing? You know, we're just all melted together, you know. Trini is one of the lucky, rare cases of a DNA test reuniting long-lost family members. But while Trini and her brothers were catching up and merging their families, 23 and me, as a company, has had some serious problems. So when I did the 23 and me, I never even considered, oh yeah, I could be like super compromised. Hi, here's my sample. Like, you know, but never thought of it. And then, of course, it brought so much joy when it happened. Again, I didn't really think of it. But Mark said he would have never done it if it hadn't been for the bullying, no, for the encouragement of my sister-in-law

and his daughter. He said, I never, that's not his jam. And Sean 100% hell no. Like he was like absolutely not. And he is super aware of things that can go sideways, things that be used against you, things that can bring you down. And he's not wrong. Okay. What's going on with 23 and me? We'll dive into that mess in a new tab.

But first, a quick break. Support for KQED podcasts comes from Star One Credit Union. Give your savings account the love it deserves. When you keep your money with Star 1, you keep more of your money. Star 1 Credit Union in your best interest. So good, so good, so good. Everything you want for summer is at Nordstrom Rack stores now and up to 60% off. Stock up and save on the brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Frame and Free People.

Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Okay, we're back to talk about 23 and Me, their legal issues, bankruptcy, and the big question. What are they doing with all that data? New tab. 23 and Me, privacy nightmare.

We're diving into this with Anya Prince, who's a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. She researches genetic privacy and technology. discrimination. Before we get into the privacy questions, we need to set the scene. About 10 years ago, 23 and Me was super hot and trendy. I think 23 and Me held a lot of promise and marketed itself as this fun, quirky thing, but also part of a larger goal. Right. So when 23 and Me first launched, they literally had spit parties where they invited, you know, famous people to come to parties and spit in tubes and learn about themselves. So it was the sort of really fun thing. It wasn't necessarily about health back then. It was more about like,

you know, you learn whether or not you can, you know, curl your tongue or whatever quirky genetic traits learned about your ancestry, learn about where you came from. And it's really grown to have more health testing. And also this research side. I think while it's not the main focus, I think 23 and me did sell itself as like you can be part of something bigger by opting into. do research as well. Can you talk more about that goal they had of like helping with this grand plan to develop new treatments and special drugs? Yeah, it's a really fascinating goal. Right. So on the one hand, we could think that this is really beneficial, right? That here's this good company that's saying like not only we're going to provide this interesting service where we tell

people about their ancestry, but also we're going to build this database that can advanced science and, you know, be for community go. And I think that's one version of the story that has a lot of truth to it. But I think there's another version of the story that has a lot of truth to it, too. And that is the business model, right? Here is a company that took money from people to give them that information. And that was one side of their business model and had a second business model where they've then sold that information to pharmaceutical companies and the like. or did their own research with it and applied for patents, which then brings in money as well. And so a less charitable version of the story is that it's a really fascinating business model

where you're making money both on the consumer side and then selling their data, and then possibly making, you know, cures or drugs that could help ameliorate some of the original customer's diseases and then charging them for it again. And so, you know, I think both sides of that story have some truth to it. Right. When it comes to genetic data specifically, what's the difference between getting tested in a clinical setting, like a doctor's office, and submitting a test through an at-home direct-to-consumer company like 23 and me? So in our health care setting, we start with the premise that health information, including genetic information, is private, and it can only be shared if it meets certain exceptions or requirements. And the direct-to-consumer testing, studying at least at the federal level, we start with the presumption that the data can be shared as widely as the privacy policy lets it be shared. 23 and me did allow customers to opt out of sharing and storing their genetic information.

And to their credit, they also let customers fully delete their accounts and all the data associated with it. And this is important because all that data has been a huge concern in recent years. So there was a data breach where millions of customers' data was leaked onto the dark web, essentially. And eventually this came out. And one of the pieces that came out with that is that it seemed like the hackers were particularly targeting individuals that had Ashkenazi Jewish descent or Chinese ancestry. And so there's concerns of like, why those groups, what was their aim that I think, I haven't seen really that those questions have been answered. Do you remember, like, when you first heard about it, what were your, what was your first

reaction as a privacy expert who literally specializes in genetic privacy? In terms of a privacy perspective, like, these hacks happen all the time. Not that they should, right? But it does happen. But then you do worry, like, okay, now that's out there. Like, if it's a credit card breach, right? So many people have made this analogy, right? But you can change your credit card.

You can, you know, change your email address, but you can't update and get a new version of your DNA. So once it's out there, it's out there. And I think that is one of the more concerning sides. Let's talk about the bankruptcy. So this data breach resulted in a $30 million class action lawsuits. Last year, the company filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to sell its assets, including all of that customer DNA information. Why does that raise red flags for privacy advocates? Because there's very few federal restrictions in who could buy that data. There were so many open questions. Could a pharmaceutical

company purchase this data? Could somebody like a company affiliated with law enforcement purchase this data? Could a foreign nation purchase this data? And the answers were really any of those for the most part. There are some restrictions on so-called countries of concern. But for the most part, under federal law, it goes to whoever has the most money and wants to bid on it. And so all of a sudden, people were in the position where their most sensitive genetic data, arguably, you know, the most immutable data that they have out there is for sale to the highest bidder. And that was well within the privacy policy, right? The privacy policy of the 23 and me stated that this data could be sold in bankruptcy. but I think most, most, many customers, I don't know, at most, never really sat down and thought,

oh, my genetic data all of a sudden is an asset of this company and not just unassad, like the most valuable asset that this company has. And so there have been plenty of other bankruptcies where private data has been an asset, but I can, you know, not one in the same volume and to the extent where that's like the main sort of business model and the most sensitive of data. A few months ago, a judge approved the sale of 23 and Me, and all of its data, back to one of its co-founders, or really, T-TAM, a nonprofit research institute led by one of the company's co-founders. T-TAM, by the way, is an acronym for 23 and Me. Initially, privacy advocates

were concerned about who would end up in possession of 23 and Me's data if the company sold. But a few of the states suing 23 and me backed off once that sale to T-Town was approved. And in some ways, that makes a lot of sense, right? People trusted 23 and me. They said, okay, here's this company. I believe in their ethos. I like that they're doing research. I trust their security, you know, at least maybe before the hack.

And so I'm going to give my information to them. And we do this all the time as customers, right? We don't read the privacy policies. But we generally think, okay, here's like a well-known, good company, and we're going to trust that they're going to be good stewards of the data. And so if that was the reason that you chose 23 and me to give your genetic data to you, then there's probably a sigh of relief that T.TAM is the buyer. Because they have, you know, they'll have a very similar ethos. They are keeping basically the same employees, same structure. And so we think, oh, good, it wasn't a, you know, a big bag of pharmaceutical company or it wasn't.

a law enforcement company or it wasn't, you know, some other country that now has a bunch of Americans data. But I think it's a missed opportunity to breathe such a sigh of relief that we don't reflect upon the real true gaps in genetic privacy law that this example really exposed or highlighted. There isn't really anything to stop the next company that has fewer privacy protections in their privacy policy to begin with from being sold. with much less press and it just goes under the radar, but the same privacy concerns exist. A lot of people believe that even though this country doesn't have robust protections for data privacy, their health information at least is safe. That's not always true, though.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, only protects sensitive health information when it's collected in a health care setting, like insurance or a doctor's office. But outside of that setting, a lot of your private data is fair game. Your fitness watch tracking your heart rate, the Femtech apps tracking menstrual cycles, the vitamins you buy using your credit card. All of this information is health information that can be collected and sold to the highest bidder. Why is that so concerning? Let's open a new tab. What is your health data really worth?

Like we've talked about, health data isn't regulated or particularly. What are other ways that this information has been mishandled or exploited? Yeah, I mean, so one of the big ones I think with health data in particular is the potential use by advertisers. So, you know, if you think about times in your life where your purchasing habits have changed, a change in health status is one of those, right? you need a new insulin pump, you need a new brace for your knee, you need any number of things, right? And so our health data can be really of interest to advertisers who say, yeah, like, if I can find out, you know, that Mrs. Smith needs, you know, is pre-diabetic. Let me start to market to her, you know, healthy foods or insulin or, you know, whatever else it is, and hope that she purchases my product instead of competitor. Yeah. And I think for some people that's good, right? Maybe they find the product that's

really going to help them. And I think for others, it could be exploitative or lead them to a choice of product that wasn't the best for them because it's not within a clinical setting decision. And so there's, you know, both pros and cons to it. The concern is not just about advertisers getting a hold of your personal health data. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, reproductive rights advocates raise concerns over how this kind of information could be used to criminalize people who had abortions or even miscarriages. HIPAA doesn't apply to most healthcare apps or at-home tests. And when it comes to DNA information, the lack of privacy regulation is pretty troubling. What would stop law enforcement from mining DNA test results? The Golden State Killer, one of California's

most notorious serial killers, was caught through a relative's DNA test. Obviously, that's extreme example, and 23 and me says they don't let law enforcement into their databases. But here's why you should probably care. I think some of the concerns I have with it are, one, you're going to start to use it in, like, the serial killer case, and that's great. It's good to catch serial killers. But what I worry about is the slippery slope, right? Where, okay, then it's used in, you know, an assault case, and then it's used in this. And, like, how far down the slippery slope do you go to where it's just really common to use this anytime there's DNA available for crime. And our

constitutional protections would not let the police just set up a stop on a street corner and do genetic testing of every single person in the hopes of finding somebody related to the perpetrator. So why would we treat a genetic database any different? I think the other privacy concern with law enforcement is that they're not just logging onto the database and finding the suspect, right, for the most part. What's happening more often is they find what's called a partial match. And so they say, oh, we have this genetic sample from the crime scene, and then we found this sample that like 15% of it matches. Well, that means that it's a relative. But it's not like a brother's sister. It's not a parent-s-s-siblings. It's like too far removed. So then they have to start

building family trees and they can build like backwards up to the you know great great grandpa and then downwards and so there's a lot of people that are investigated not as suspects but as linked to suspects and so all of a sudden you might have police knocking on somebody's door to say could you give a confirmatory sample so that we can then try to figure out like if you're related to the person and if you're the brother who's you know who's family tree this is part of and so i i worry just potentially even more about the privacy and the respect for the non-suspects who are also implicated in these investigations than the suspect themselves. In this story, we're also hearing from someone who found her long-lost family members

through a 23-and-Me test. It seems like there's a significant trade-off here. You know, to find this part of yourself, you have to risk your privacy. If someone did choose to take an at-home DNA test, what precautions would you recommend? So first I'd say, like, absolutely, it's a trade-off. I mean, you know, as I'm sure many of your listeners know, every time we share data out there, whether it's with one, you know, our friend or individual or a company, we are making tradeoffs about confidentiality and privacy. And I think it's a completely normal and rational tradeoff to participate in something like 23 and me, whether it's to learn about health risks, whether it's to learn about family members, whether it's to learn about, you know, your ancestry. I'm a really private person, so I haven't made that tradeoff because that's not something that, you know,

that feels comfortable for me. But I also, I'm not surprised that millions of people have made that trade-off. And for most people, it's fine, right? They don't have a privacy risk. My hope, though, would be that law and policy catch up a little bit, right, where the data is more protected so that there can't be misuse, right, where we have more robust genetic anti-discrimination laws, where we have more structures in place for how and when law enforcement could access this data, and that we have more rules about how companies that collect this data have to care for it, you know, as stewards of this data and not just have it be, you know, profit-making endeavor. Thanks so much for joining us and for just sharing all of this information. I'm going to go delete everything from everything online.

Trini, for one, was pretty freaked out about the 23 and Me data breach, and then bankrupt. And then sale. As she watched the headlines roll in, she decided to deactivate her account and permanently delete her data. I got my info. I got my win with my brothers. And I really don't need. And now I really am concerned, like, who is this going to go to now?

There were a few more distant family members that popped up as matches, but Trini wasn't too pressed about connecting with them, especially not through 23 and me. I'm like, I'm fine with that. I don't really need, like, more unless they want to come to us and gather. Like, that's good. But I don't need to do it through this platform anymore. I think it's hard for me not to have my little rose-colored glasses on, which is how I often view the world, especially now I really need them,

because mine was so joyful. So, yeah, I would probably say, yeah, take a beat, investigate the bejibas out of whatever thing you think, going to go through and do, you know, kind of thing. But for me, I mean, lucky. Worth it for you? Yeah, 100. Despite learning that she is, in fact, Filipino and Irish, Trini still identifies as 100% Mexican. I clearly raise Mexican, you know, have the heart of it. So I can't un-Mexican myself.

She did have a small crisis when she renewed her driver's license and had to decide whether to check the box for Hispanic. Honestly, I cried for like two minutes. And then I was like, no? Question mark. Then I found Filipino and then I moved on because, you know, that's just a form. You know, when I'm asked, I say I'm Mexican. A DNA test can reveal a lot about our backgrounds,

but ultimately, it can't decide who we are. Okay, now let's close all these tabs. Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios. and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Close All Tap's producer is Maya Kueva. Chris Agusa is our senior editor. Additional editing by Chris Hambrick and Jen Cheon, who is KQED's director of podcasts.

Original music, including our theme song and credits, by Chris Agusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sinod. Katie Springer is our podcast operations manager, and Ethan Tobin Lindsay is our editor-in-chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team

are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local. Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink, dust silver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gatoron Red switches. Okay, and I know it's a podcast cliche, but if you like these deep dives and want us to keep making more, it would really help us out if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And if you really like Close All Tabs and want to support public media,

go to donate.kweed.org slash podcasts. Thanks for listening. Support for a key QBD podcast comes from Xfinity. Thanks to the Xfinity five-year price guarantee, you're guaranteed five years of reliable Wi-Fi with our best equipment, no annual contracts, and no fees. Plus, get online in minutes with same-day Wi-Fi. Lock in your price and unlock the possibilities. Xfinity, imagine that.

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