Personal Narrative: Broken Heritage

Why is thanksgiving so important to me? Well, I personally think that Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday. The reason Thanksgiving is so important to me is because, I love when family comes over to our house and can sit down, and catch up with one another. My biggest reason Thanksgiving is so important to me is because my family coms over.

My biological family was a wreck. My mom and grandfather both had drinking problems and my mom had been a drug addict. I pretty much never saw my mom and even if she was around her deadbeat boyfriend wasn’t far behind. From what I could see, he was a troublemaker. I didn’t have the support, love or care that a child needs to grow up to their full potential, someone saw the danger of me and my siblings being there and removed us.

Enhancing My Roots Being Mexican-American has been such a blessing to me. Growing up I would feel embarrassed to have brown skin and to my speak my first language, which is Spanish. I would feel jealous hearing the other kids speak English so well as I struggled more and was placed in English Language Development. I would detest to get pulled out of class and get asked trivial questions like “what is this?” when it was a simple book.

Belonging is to be and feel included within a certain group, whether it’s social, political, economic, religious or cultural. Individual’s perceptions of belonging can be affected by numerous different factors, but these factors differ from person to person. John Larkin’s The Shadow Girl and Andrew Stanton’s Finding Dory are two texts that provide a different and interesting insight into how relationships and experiences shape an individual’s sense of self and where they feel they belong within themselves and the outside world. There are certain societal beliefs and expectations that people need to meet in order to ‘fit in’ or belong.

C IS FOR CALIFORNIA My mom grew up in California. Thats about all I know. She moved to Kansas after many other journeys around the world, and thats where she lives now.

The environment where you were raised can be determined on how your life is gonna planned out and how your life is gonna be like. I was raised in a good/bad environment of we moved and lived. I have lived in Kirby, east-side, and wind crest. The reason it was good because of wind crest and the bad was the east-side because the school i went to mostly made of drug dealers, and gang members. I felt like that i was going to fall under their influence

My family heritage has played a large role in the person I have decided to become. Culturally in my family the wife is suppose to follow the husband and the wife does all house tasks. I was in disagreement with this idea. I personally believe that the title in the house was divided equally for wife and husband. This all affected me academically.

“We’re staying at a hotel this week, girls.” As I heard the words sorely coming out of my father, I was hit with the reality of where I lived and the situation the city faced. Six men had been shot countless times across the street from my house. A bloody and holey reminder was left, and up to the residents to clean up. The city was Juarez, Mexico; at some point, the most unsafe city in the world.

Instead of attending the three cultural events, I chose to tutor through the OMSS MARC program. I was assigned two Hispanic, 5th grade girls named Jazmin and Priscilla. Priscilla just moved to the US from Veracruz, Mexico and spoke very little English at the beginning of our meetings. One of the women in charge had me speak in both Spanish and English to her so that she could both understand me and work on her English. Jazmin speaks mainly English, but was very helpful with translating some of the things Priscilla and I had trouble communicating.

My family history project consists of several stories from my lifetime, my parent’s lifetime, and my grandparent’s lifetime. Through these stories we can learn the impact of the event and how it can apply to our everyday lives. Additionally, this allows us to look back on our family’s lives and start to understand more of our origins. The following stories are events that someone in my family witnessed, whether they are from my parents or me. Each story shows the value of bravery and strength in hard times.

My Cultural Hat The cultural hat that represents me and that is deeply significant to me would be a mother to my four children. Some of the artifacts from my past as being a mother would be sleepless nights, baby bottles and lots of diapers. As my children have grown older and more independent. Some of the artifacts in the present would be their homework, sporting events. In the future some of the artifacts that I have to look forward to would be buying them their fist car, high school graduations and paying college tuition.