My Family Genealogy Has A Profound Influence On My Self Identity

My grandfather Frailan Sendejo’s father Gregorio Sendeja would take him to work in the fields every summer. So, just like his father, my grandfather got married and had my father Enrique Sendejo and worked in the fields every summer just like they did with him. My father said to me “My dad and I went to multiple states like North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.” (Sendejo) It was tough for my father because he never got to go to a full year of school, he had to leave during the school year and then come back late in the next school year. My father told me “Some summers were harder than others because I would go on a bus to another state and work without my parents to pick cucumbers.” (Sendejo) He also said ”I had to walk on my knees all across the fields and back to help support my family, and I would only get paid $40 for the day.” (Sendejo) When he went back to Crystal one year he went to school and met my mother Gina Sendejo. My father was going to have to leave to the fields again, so my mother decided to go with him. Though, after a few years they decided to stop migrating up North to focus on their careers and family. I never realized how difficult it was for my father to get to be the person he is today, but I’m glad that he and my mother brought me to where I am today, so I can continue to share their

The word family has changed so much in the past century. A family back in the 1950’s was probably considered a husband, wife, and one or more children. Times have changed and families have become much different. The Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others book defines family as a, “Unit made up of any number of persons who live in relationship with one another over time in a common living space who are usually, but not always, united by marriage and kinship” (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 243). Families can be broken up into five different types. The first is the traditional family, which includes a mother, father, and their biological children. Next, is the blended family which includes

In defining one’s identity, many different factors are considered; such as one’s nationality, characteristic, personality, ability, experience, religion, and etc. Especially for those people who live in America, so called country of immigration, has much more complicated identities than those Asian country people where mixed people are rarely noticed. Thinking about the concept of identity, some people easily categorized themselves as simple factors and terms which could describe their surface; white, black, Asian, European, pretty, ugly, nice, mean and so on and so forth. And that is the most point where majority people stopped to list their identities from exploring more in complicated range. However, there are many people who dig more than common people; one great example would be Denise Chavez, who is the author of the novel called Loving Pedro Infante, who kept asking herself about her identity to approach more accurate and clear ideas. In her work, reader could see the confusion of Tere, the main character of the novel, went through her life as Latin-American female in dealing with finding one’s true identity and how she accept her as who she really is. Denise Chavez, who is obviously Latin-American lady, mirror her own life experience through the character she created and introduce to readers about tough life she lived in America as Mejicana. The main character of this novel have a clear understanding and strong idea about herself throughout the novel, even if

Social science teaches that a person’s self identity is a reflection of that which other people put on the individual, in other words a person’s behavior steams more from what they see of themselves from someone else’s perspective and less from how they see themselves. In the case of the Mexicans, this concept holds true. From that, which has been studied thus far this semester, Mexicans/ Mexican Americans are good examples of this concept. Their sorted past has resulted in a new kind of Mexican American and perhaps a new kind of Mexican. Certainly the Mexicans American’s experience in this country has brought about some changes from the first generation of Mexicans who were born in this country to those who

     Through our readings of the Mexicans in the U.S. and the African-American experience modules, we begin to understand the formation of identity through the hardships minorities faced from discrimination. In this paper, I am going to compare and contrast the ideas of identity shown through the readings. These two modules exemplify the theme of identity. We see how Blacks and Latinos tried to find their identity both personally and as a culture through the forced lifestyles they had to live.

What defines you? Is it the many tiny, wriggling spiders that could potentially be inside your body, the experiences you might have had in Istanbul, your list of hobbies which may or may not include crochet, or is it something a bit more trivial, such as where you come from? Who are you? Take a moment to reflect on yourself. In an essay concerning the argument of identity, Richard Rodriguez forces his readers to analyze themselves, particularly during the high climb of immigration in America today, because with the rising amount of cultures and ethnicities finding a home in this country, there really is no “black and white” answer. The question of identity is the key idea in Rodriguez’s Blaxicans, further expanded upon by careful word choice,

Everyone has their own distinctive identity and culture which allow them an unique individual. Identity can be defined as a set of characteristics and beliefs that can be associated with a particular person or a certain group. Culture has a huge influence on one's life because it is a factor help shape one’s identity. In Muy Macho: Latino Men Confront Their Manhood, the book explores the theme cultural identity through Latino men. The theme can be seen in stories such as, “Me Macho, You Jane” where the author Gilb discusses his and others perception of him and his identity and in “The Puerto Rican Dummy and the Merciful Son” where Espada tries to educate his son about the bigotry around them. Both of these stories contain individuals whose identities are affected stereotypes, culture, and prejudices.

“’Identity has been increasingly used to refer to the social and historical make-up of a person, personality as a construct. Sometimes such identities are conceived narrowly psychological, individualist terms, as the cumulative result of personal experience and family history”

In relation to self-identity, as I was reading Kelley’s discussion of the working class whites, I couldn’t help but to think of my own family during this time. My great grandparents on my mother’s

It is strange to comprehend how all people are so different from one another. Every single person has gone through personally unique experiences and has a unique set of memories. People are the sum of their own experiences. However, people connect with others too often intertwine and have similar experiences together. In Rudolfo Anaya’s “Bless me Ultima” the young Chicano Antonio learns about the world through his own personal perspective. Since he lives with others and sees and hears similar things as they do, he is influenced similarly, but he still develops his own ideas through his own noticings. What stands out to him in his environment is the base for his ideas. Environment shapes identity because outside pressures, such as family and

A main theme in this novel is the influence of family relationships in the quest for individual identity. Our family or lack thereof, as children, ultimately influences the way we feel as adults, about ourselves and

For this project, we both interviewed two of our relatives who all share the same ethnicity, but experienced life in different ways. Isabel’s mother and grandmother were born and raised in Mexico, while Jennifer’s mother and grandmother were born in the Midwest, but lived most of their lives in California. During the interviews, we found differences as well as similar points in their transitions and ideas of adulthood.

A person’s identity may be determined by him/her family background and this is proven evident in the essay “Private and Public Language” by Rodriguez. We live in a world in which identities are determined prematurely without hesitation. This means that even without getting to know an individuals personality the first thing that is done instead is determining identities based on your physical state, family, or family background. As a culture we live in a diverse environment in which the majority of people come from a different place, and as a result many are identified differently depending on where he/she and their family are from. Today’s culture is more diverse than ever, and more and more people are migrating to different countries and settling so I feel like it

The concept of identity, although elusory, is widely understood to be as much a social construction as it is an individual one. Rites of passages parallel these traits, as they are typically social “events,” however these social events are almost always followed by, if not coinciding with, huge changes to one’s sense of self (or to put it another way, identity). These events are paradigms of one’s constantly evolving identity, and by interviewing an elder from my culture, I was able to draw connections between certain rites of passages, and her identity as I have known it since birth. For example, one of the larger rites of passage was her having a child; this was one of the main sources of her

Our autobiographical narratives also support the construction of identity, by using cultural models of self narration as well as drawing on our own experiences, who we associate with, when and where, all have an impact on how we tell our stories (Hewitt, 2007). This serves in understanding how identities are fluid and are always changing from situation to situation, an aspect which anyone from the psychosocial school of thought