“Don’t worry about them, they are only staring because I have the two prettiest girls in the world” rings my mother’s voice as we walk through the airport terminal. This phrase is one that my sister and I have heard countless times before; normally when my sister or I catch someone staring at my family. They might be curious about the sizable amount of luggage that we have, but other times the blunt judgment on their face is obvious; the eyes roaming from my mother’s Puerto Rican face to my father’s Danish face, and then to my own. The confused gaze obviously reveals their thoughts; they are trying to figure out my ethnicity and they are perplexed at the sight of a mixed couple and their children. As time goes on, my sister and I have learned to deal with this ignorance. Yet, as a young child it definitely influenced my thoughts on my heritage; I became desperate to know more about both my Mom and Dad’s family. I constantly pestered my parents for information; I yearned for information on my heritage, asking for stories, names, and places. It was through the information that I was given where I found traits and values that run deep in my family. Generoso Maldonado, my maternal great-grandfather was a vital role in my family history; his decisions impacted my relatives on a large scale. Generoso lived in Ponce, Puerto Rico in the early 1900s and worked as a firefighter in the Parque de Bomba firehouse, which is famous for its red and black paint, the colors of Ponce.
Your life is changed every day and there are many points to your life. One point of my life is that family is the most important thing. Family is an important factor of everyone’s life, it’s who you are and who you have become today.
I would like you to imagine being in a country where your family has moved but you have never visited before. You do not speak the language. Every word you hear except from the small portion of your family is unfamiliar and confusing. There is no implicit definition for many of these syllables and even if there were, you would not know it, but this culture intrigues you. These people live a life like you have never seen.
This has been an eye opening experience to other people’s childhoods and family beliefs. I grew up in a prominently Scandinavian town. I didn’t have a brunette friend until I was in second grade because all the girls were blonde. It was my neighborhood’s demographic. Childhood was a wonderful time for me in my lower middle class nuclear family. I have been fortunate to not experience animosity during my lifespan. Exploring the childhood of an Indian friend and a Native American colleague has been fascinating journey.
According to the 2010 U.S census, the percentage of multiracial American children has increased almost 50%, to 4.2 million, in the last ten years. It’s interesting to think of myself as one of those statistics. While my mom and her side of the family is American, my dad and his side of the family is Puerto Rican, my brother and I ending up being half white, half Hispanic. The cultural differences of the two sides of my family are significant, whether it be food, past times, or communication/interaction, they differ.
As I walked along the shore of Masquamicut Beach, I stared at my feet, but the only thing I could focus on is their dull brownness against a backdrop of white skin. I noticed that my culture of covering up made me stand out, and the only people dressed like me were middle-aged moms. My ingrained, traditional family values put me at odds with the girls my age vacationing with their boyfriends. I
I am an international student, I arrived to the United States in January 2011 with only part of my family. For almost five years, we did not own anything we either walked or had to ask relatives for a ride. We lived in the house of several uncles, and even lived for months in our neighbors' house. My mother was the head of the family, she worked only evening and night shifts at restaurants earning only money to pay my uncles the rent. My only entertained day was on Sunday when my mom’s aunt took us to church and later went to buy a one-dollar sandwich. My father could not do anything to improve our situation, he worked as a blueprints reader and earned a low salary in Mexico. A year ago, my father became permanent resident and started working
Throughout my life there has been many things that hold me up and keep me strong. My church, this school, and all the friends I have here are just to name a few. But the one I want to show you today is one of the most important foundations of my life, and that is my family and how they have helped me enjoy the great times and persevere through the hard trials, and what a true blessing families are in all of our lives.
Provide the names, ages, and a short description of your nuclear or main family members. How you define this is up to you.
My family is deemed to be what is referenced as a nuclear family. A father, mother, and their offspring biological and adopted living together under one household. My family was of low socioeconomic status and due to this position, we were raised in a low-income neighborhood. However, that did not affect how my mother and father reared their family. I am the third child in a family of five. My role in the family was that of a helper to my mother of household duties and a caretaker of my younger siblings. My parents did a wonderful job of nurturing my siblings and I by providing a faith based structure that gave each of us a solid foundation. My parents ingrained strong ethics, values and traditions in my
I have been feeling a combination of emotions after hearing some very interesting news from my family. I feel is confusion of being shocked, upset and excitement which I share with my siblings or my wife. I wonder, is this true? How could it be? We were one big happy family, but now I don’t understand. My siblings and my wife all have provided me comfort, which has been very helpful. I was the youngest of seven; with five sisters and one brother. Now, I find out I have two brothers. I grew up being bullied, pushed around and always getting the hand-me-downs of everything in his family. Growing up, I always felt like I lived a normal life, with great parents, a roof over my head, attended a Catholic School and even had the opportunity to
Ever since I was born into this world I knew that God placed me with the perfect family. My parents and my older brother mean the world to me. We were all so close and comfortable with one another and that’s how a true and understanding family is supposed to be. It was the summer of my sophomore year and I was so excited to be able to spend it with the people I loved most. As the summer went on I began to realize that my parents were hardly speaking to one another. My brother and I just assumed that they had gotten into a fight and they were just taking time apart. A few weeks on and they still weren't communicating with one another. At this point I realized that something was wrong. The family that I once loved and looked forward to seeing was growing apart. They never kissed, or hugged or even simply talked to one another. It was near the end of summer when my mom told me news that would change my life forever. She sat me down and told me that she was filing for an immediate divorce. I was so devastated and furious at both of them. I couldn't understand why they let their relationship get to this point. As weeks went on I noticed that my mom was always on the phone, and whenever I would ask who it was she would simply ignore me.I soon began to realize that the reason why my mom was becoming so distant is because she was having an affair. I felt like my world was turned upside but this was only the beginning of the struggle I've been facing with my parents.
I must have been about 4 years old when my family and I came across a cat, he was black and white in color and dirty from being outside. He was standing in the middle of a dirt road and froze in fear when our car pulled up to him. My mother, seeing as she is rather courageous, decided she wanted to save him. My grandmother was very much against this idea, what if he's sick, what if he has rabies? This is one of my earliest memories so my recollection of this is like a dream, just bits and pieces crocheted into one mishmash of a story. I say this because after that point the next thing I remember is being at home with this cat and they had put him in the sink to wash him. He looked rather young and was thin, I couldn't tell you if that was because he was outside or if that was because he was wet, maybe both. I also couldn't tell you if they took him to the vet and got him checked out, and as sure as I am that they are responsible enough to do that, I couldn't tell you for sure. They later named him Gus. Yes, like an old man, I wonder how my younger self felt about it, I kind of like it now.
Many of us have had that one pet, or one family member that we are close to, whether we bonded well with them or we feel like we can tell them anything and they will never tell anyone. This experience for me has been my dog, Lucas, a chocolate and tan dachshund, his story isn’t well known or known by many, but to me he is my fighter and my best friend.
”No one is ever born into Life alone. Everyone has shared the bond of family, at least at birth, and for many people it is a bond that will follow them throughout life. For many people it is the most important bond of all.”
Throughout my life, I have lived fatherless in my family of girls. And the only time I would come to interact with another guy would always be at school. Growing up all my life like this was definitely a hardship that I didn 't know how I would be able to overcome as a little kid. I would never know what it would be like to live with a person encouraging me to be righteous and courteous. I would never know what it would be like to be pushed to be tough. I would never know what it would be like to take responsibility and learn how to be independent. I would never grow up the same kid as I have without a father. All this drove me out to grow up differently as it is. And for the majority of my life growing up, I thought it was all my fault for being different. However the only time I felt like a guy would be when I would be with my friends who would always immerse me in how it 's like to be a guy, and more importantly, to be an American. So I continuously craved to go to school not only to learn, but to learn to be normal. Yet, it was still difficult for me to juggle my different lifestyles between both school and home. And I knew that it would eventually come back to hit me, but I didn 't know when or how to handle it. However, I decided to hold this indifference to myself which resulted me to be shy and very quiet. This held true to me my entire life all the way up through sophomore year. And then it suddenly hit me. I knew that growing older and older with this issue would