“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it” (Maya Angelou). My grandmother, a sixty-year-old woman, with a mind-set of a thirty-year old, is one of the most intelligent, outgoing people I’ve ever met. Her ability to make everyone around her feel special amazes me because everyone loves her and so do I. My grandmother defines our family legacy as “One of a tradition and hard work. Overcoming obstacles that are faced in everyday life.” “Within a family that has values, honesty, integrity, a strong work ethic and religion.” “I was born on October 1, 1948, in Braidwood, Illinois.” I was raised in a middle class family where my father was an orphaned at age of twelve and had to help raise his siblings. As he got…show more content… There were only 2 black kids in my class and only five in the whole school. By second grade I started to pick up my grades and focus on school. I went to Reid Custer High School in Braidwood, Illinois. I had a few more good girl friends then, but never went to any proms. I used to go to shows with my friends. We would often try to catch a movie on the weekends and sometimes in the summer we would go to get away from the heat because it was much cooler in theater, than it was in my home. In school, I took college prep classes to prepare myself.” She took these classes to prepare herself for college and get an education because her family was very strict on her about exceeding because she was on one African American girl out of five in her school. In todays society our class rooms are more diverse and vary from all races. In my college classes I find people of all different ethnic backgrounds and see that there isn’t just one dominant race in each class as my grandmother experienced.
“First, I went to Joliet Junior College. I didn’t have a lot of money to go to college since I came from a working class family, so I went and graduated from there. There was some prejudice against me from other black kids because they didn’t like that I hung around with the white kids. I now have some black friends that I met there that I have been friends with for 40 years now. My grandmother felt separated form her own race because she hung around another race but she didn’t care because
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My family history
"In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage - to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.” –Alex Haley
This quote explained to me the importance of my grandparent’s legacy and their history. A long twisting family tree inspires one who does not know
My grandmother was born in Guatemala into a struggling family of seven. In Guatemala, kids are often forced to leave school and start working to help provide for their family´s food and shelter. Similarly, my grandmother was not able to complete her education. Instead, she had to take care of her siblings, providing for their basic needs. As she grew up, she had three kids, including my father, and needed to find a way to give them a better life.
Fortunately, through sheer effort and dedication,
My cultural identity has been well established by my family of origin. From my perspective, my family is one-sided because I do not spend much time with my father’s family. They have not impacted my cultural identity in the overarching way that my mother’s family has. My mother is Syrian and Spanish and my grandmother is Syrian. We have not met my mother’s father so we have never associated ourselves in terms of ethnicity as Spanish. My mother has physical characteristics that appear Spanish
It began with my grandmothers, the matriarchs of the family. At a young age, my grandmothers were raised in a traditional and patriotic society. Like many other uneducated and impoverished women, they were exploited for the physical traits and oppressed by the traditional standard of living. By the age of 15, both my grandmothers would have suffered miscarriages, pregnancy and poverty. At the age of 15, I was learning how to drive, I was reading intricate novels and I was attending my first sleepover
My grandmother was a tough lady.
At just over five feet tall, she was the kind of woman that you saw on the street and knew to move out of her way. Her demeanor was strict, her hands tied with thick blue veins, crisscrossing over her thin, frail fingers.
I remember holding her hands as a child, how delicate and soft they seemed and yet that never made them seem any less worn or sturdy. Her hands told stories of different times, of different worlds and hardships. She had grown up worlds away from
relaxation in the outdoors, social creatures who relish in the company of others, who have a deep love for our families, animals, and the environment. On these themes, we can
world.
As for my roots, my paternal great-great grandparents were born and lived in Norway over the course of their lives. My great-grandfather (my dad’s grandmother) was born in Norway from a full Norwegian family, and immigrated to California as a young man, where he met and married my great-grandmother, and my grandmother was born. She met my grandfather from the farm while he was on the road, and they moved to Ohio and took over the family farm from his family, where
wonderfully precious? I am conscious now of the value of each good moment, the importance of wasting nothing.” I have had similar feelings after the loss of my grandmother. I consider the lessons her courageous fight for life have taught me as gifts.
I remember her being at every Halloween night dressed in costume and ready to walk me door to door. I remember my swimming lessons in the safety of her arms. I remember
I can remember the first time ever stealing candy from my grandmother’s candy store. I grabbed a handful of green apple tootsie rolls, the tiny ones; my grandmother only charged two cents for. I had enough to last me all day at school at least I thought I did. The elution of having all of eight green apple tootsie rolls in the palm of my tiny hand excited me about the rest of the day. My grandmother would yell from her room, “hurry up and get ready before you miss breakfast at school” little did
influence in my life has been from my mother. She has nurtured, raised, and guided me through all of my ups and downs. She has been a rock for my family, and always shines her sunshine into our lives. My mom is someone I have always looked up to and who I strive to live my life like. She has always persevered through her challenges and had endurance while striving to achieve her goals. I have been inspired by my mom’s legacy of determination and resilience, and hope to create a similar legacy for others