From as early as I could remember I noticed I was not like the others kids. I had an interest for things most kids would not be interested in. I liked interacting with people, knowing about people and their life stories; I wanted to help in anyway that I could when I would hear everyone’s problems. I thought outside the box throughout my whole childhood and I wanted to make the most out of my knowledge. I told myself that I was going to dedicate my life to helping my community. To me it 's not about expecting something in return or a prize; it 's about the sense of Fulfillment which overtakes you when you realize that such a small gesture can change someone 's day or life. In the future I want to become an immigration lawyer, growing up in a Latino community. I saw people living in fear that one day they might just get deported. Not knowing how they were going to sustain their family if they were gone. The fear overtook me I imagined a kid having to grow up without a …show more content…
My mom came to the United States with no money to her name. She came here in search for a better life. No one helped her, she did it all on her own. Not speaking the language or being educated it wasn 't easy raising a child in a place which is so unknown to you but she raised me the best she could. I didn 't have the nicest things but I had the necessities which she could provide me with. My mother is what sparked the flame which drives me to want to help families in need. I don 't just want to help families in need, I want to help single mothers I want to build a shelter which helps single mothers on their feet. Im going to continue setting my standards high in hopes that I inspire someone to pursue their dreams. I hope to leave a long lasting impact on my community. The pressure of first generation children of immigrants isn 't easy but that 's why ill continue to work hard to prove all my mothers sacrifices being worth it. I want to make sure kids live in no fear of loosing their parents
In Clara E. Rodriguez essay of, "What It Means to Be Latino," she writes about how Latinos are the fastest growing population group in United States. Within the Latino population, Latinos define their own racial and ethnic identity within the term, Hispanic and Latino and how they refuse to define themselves. In the Latino culture there are many small ethnic groups so there aren't much of other terms to use towards them. The Latino and Hispanic term may be interchangeable, there still a difference between these two terms. The term Hispanic was adopted around 1970 census by the government, which is the universal term being used, in order to find an affiliated term that included people that came from or had parents from Spanish-speaking
I was sitting in the tattoo parlor with my head resting on the black leather chair staring at my mom from the corner of my eye. I could not tell if she wanted to curse everyone in the room or cry, I came to the conclusion that it was it was probably both. In my mom’s words, I was getting a hole drilled into my nose. In my words, it was a nose piercing. This was the biggest fight I’ve ever had with my mom.
At the age of two I was put in the arms of a woman to reunite with my parents. My heart full of sorrow knew I had to follow the steps of many other children and leave my grandparents behind. After about a seventeen hour drive we stopped at a bus stop, my heart began to ache and tears rolled down my cheeks. I faintly heard my name within the crowd and saw my parents; we were once again reunited. Regardless of the challenges immigrants-such as myself-may face, they are willing to risk their lives in order to come into the land of opportunity.
As a member of a working class community, my life has been a struggle between resources and opportunities available for me. Having sparse resources has lead me to the constant push of working towards the things I’ve achieved. Social identities have become a guidance for my future goals and abilities. Being working class Latina, raised in a Catholic family has created many barriers and pathways into the future I wish to hold. Furthermore, taking all the social identities I have grew into have become the bases for my educational goals and identity.
There were rice plants on my left and farm animals on my right. I grew up in New York City, so you can imagine the millions of questions that were running through my head. I’d never been to the countryside of the Dominican Republic before, but when I finally did, I couldn’t be more ecstatic, despite the scorching Caribbean sun burning down on my brown skin. I hadn’t visited the Dominican Republic since I was four years old. All I had was vague memories of my grandmother’s boisterous laugh and the chickens in the backyard I loved chasing after.
Being a child of immigrant parents has taught me so much. For example, being able to work hard for what you want. At school, I always strive to get A’s. My parent’s have taught me to never settle for anything less than a B. They know that in order for me to go to college and be successful, I not only have to get good grades but work hard to get there.
Although I, my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and previous generations were born in the United States; being an involuntary immigrant is something that has always crossed my mind since I was a young child. I always wondered what life would be like now if our ancestors were never taken from our home and brought to “America”, but what African American hasn’t. Growing up a young African American female with sickle cell anemia I’ve encountered several socio-cultural dynamic situations. As a child, my parents somewhat sheltered me from the reality and negativity of the world, partly because I would be too young to understand, and because they wanted me to make my own decisions. I went to an elementary school that was predominantly black,
and I have also seen the struggles individuals go through after deportation. On my way back to the U.S. from Mexico I encountered an individual who was asking for change so he could buy himself something to eat and gather enough money so he could go back to his family, who lived further south in Mexico, because he had just been deported from the United States. A person close to my family risked his visa so he could work here in America and receive a better wage than what he gets in Mexico. In Mexico, a person’s wage in a month is equivalent to an individual’s wage in a week in America. Many individuals take these risks because they want to provide a better lifestyle for their
I have blond hair and pale skin. On the color wheel, my father is a rich mocha, my sister is a warm copper, and my mother is a perfectly tanned caramel; I am somewhere between cream and eggshell on the opposite end of the spectrum. Being stereotypically white can be difficult when you’re African American. The beginning of high school was when I first began to feel that my fair complexion hid my true identity.
I plan to be able to stay active in my community and help others acknowledge differences and embrace diversity, not only in opinions but in race as well. Having diverse backgrounds is important so that questions can be answered. Bringing awareness to others is important or else they are left in the dark about problems and will live in a naive world until the problem is already integrated into society's mind. Volunteering in my community is also important, in my community, there is a food pantry that I volunteer at. The food pantry only accepts members of the community which allows me to encounter people I know.
The first time that I interact with people whose beliefs differ from mines was when I was in Mexico. In that time my family was thinking of moving to Florida, because in that time the situation in Mexico was going through a very difficult situation that was the drug trade, when we lived in Mexico it was very difficult for my family because sometimes you could not go for a walk to the park or somewhere else because of the drug dealers. My parents began to think that my brother and I needed a place where we could be a little free and the family of my mother at that time was living in Florida then my parents decided that we would move to Florida. The day my parents decided to talk to my brother and me was very difficult because we all thought
People from all over the world come to this country to achieve the American dream, which is a hard task to do. We have the ability to work hard for what we want. My aunt, from my mom's side, came to this country when she was just seven years old. She didn’t speak or understand English at all. With hard work and dedication, she was able to speak and understand English.
I identify as Black. Growing up as a minority in America has shaped my identity by making me a creative, hard working, and understanding individual. By being Black in America I realized that there is this stigma that Black kids can’t excel in certain areas of education because the majority of our neighborhood and public schools lack the proper resources for us to do so. While this stigma holds truth, I refuse to let this stigma handicap me. Growing up with less resources allowed me to be creative.
The next morning could 've gone better in retrospect. I woke up to an alarm ringing feverishly in my ear. When I sluggishly smacked it, rather than it successfully turning off, it fell of my desk, hit the floor, and continued ringing, just as loud, if not louder. I looked to the ceiling in disdain. Following the rude awakening was the realization I would have to go to school.
My new identity as a 17-30, gay, Latino is very different from my own personal identity. When I Googled “gay, Hispanic, young adult,” you can expect what came up. I had to alter my search terms to find what I needed. When I Googled, “Being a Gay Latino” and “Gay Latinos in the United States,” I got more acceptable results than just pages and pages of porn. My first portrayal of being a gay Latino came from a video on Huffington Post.