Did you attend elementary school in the US?
To attend kindergarten in California, you need to be vaccinated for polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatisis B, chickenpox.
To attend 7th grade in California, you need to be vaccinated again for tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis and chickenpox.
Did you attend college in the US?
Many states (not California) require you to be vaccinated against meningitis before attending freshman year.
The specific requirements depend on where you live and attend school [1].
The "normal lives" that we have been able to lead (pre-covid) are in part because of these requirements -- we don't have outbreaks of 50,000 polio cases a year like we did in 1952.