Personal Narrative: A Southern Sudanese Family

Moving from the South to the Midwest was a huge change in my life. For my whole life I grew up to the southern hospitality and the tang of salt in the air since the beach was always less than 5 minutes away wherever I lived. Now I moved to a place where they flip you off to say hi, and the closest thing to an ocean is a sea of grass that seems to go on forever. Although I am now adapted to the change for the most part, it took me awhile to break in to the social norms of an average Midwest kids.

There was absolutely nothing that could set me apart from the sea of designer purses, overly expensive shoes, and cherry flavored lip glosses. In high school, it seems if you weren’t marginalized into a group or follow the status quo you were seen as the misfit. One day, I experienced an epiphany in the back of my Government class, I wasn’t content with the illusion of the perfect teen. I had acceptable grades, I was well liked by most of my student body; however, I couldn’t come to the terms that I neglected what really mattered to me. At home my family would describe me with words such as: “eclectic, unique and remarkable.”, but at school I conformed into a person with a lackluster personality. I reckon that college is a place where each student is not the same and has the ability to be their true selves without being judged. This being, another reason why I respect your institution on the importance of accepting different cultures and

Growing up I lived in the small town of Duncan, Oklahoma; although, not nearly as small as the town I currently reside in. Throughout my adolescence, I attended Mark Twain Elementary School and as I was ending the third grade, my parents decided that we should move to Fox, Oklahoma to be closer to my grandparents. Moving would bring big changes my way such as a smaller school, living in the middle of nowhere, and new ways of entertainment. Living in the country has its pros and cons, but I can tell you the only thing I could think of the night we moved out there was the cons. Eventually, I had grown accustomed to the silence, lack of traffic, and having nothing to do. Looking back I feel that if we had not moved to the country then I would

I have moved to five different states throughout my life. The first few moves were easy because I was younger, but as I got older it became more and more difficult to say goodbye to friends and everything I knew. The most difficult move I experienced was right before my freshman year of high school. I had lived in Utah for seven years and I did not want to move to Idaho right before I started high school. I have never gone to Rexburg before we moved there. It is a smaller town with many people who have lived in Rexburg for most of their life. It was hard to fit in at school and become friends with people who had known each other their entire life. Finally after making the effort to meet many new people I felt like I fit in. I realize that students

Until I was thirteen years old, I had lived in the same area, mostly Healdton, Oklahoma. After my parents divorced, my mother, sister, and I left my father and moved to Healdton. After a couple of years, both of my parents remarried. Soon conflicts arose between all sides. After several violent confrontations and threats on

When humans reflect on their lives they often categorize things by their location at the time of the event, grouping their college experience separately from their hometown high school experiences. This association with place causes us to view an unwanted movement as an attack on our personal way of living. I first experienced such an affront when I was in the first grade, my family and I moved to a small town about three hours away from San Angelo. My father wanted to be closer to his aunt and uncle so he seemingly forced me and to tag along for the experience. I didn’t want to move away from my grandparents or my friends, the thought alone would cause me to cry. I had to leave behind all my friends, my family I

Leaving high school I was consistently in the majority: I co-captained my basketball team and was always welcome to play. In my Bronx experience overall, I often felt racist, close-minded, and self-centered because of the reactions that I was having internally with this new environment. And even more I felt ashamed for this. I quickly wanted to escape back to Ann Arbor to be back in the majority, but I didn’t want anybody to feel bad for me. I knew that what I was thinking was mostly wrong, but I also felt it was human. Large paradigm shifts in one’s life often come with large sentiments, both good and bad. Also, I felt that my experience in the Bronx became easier and easier as I integrated and adjusted. As the shock to my system eased my feelings eased, too. I eventually began to feel extremely connected to the Bronx, the differing cultures, and even my almost omnipresent

It was pouring rain the day I moved to Tennessee, which reflected exactly how I felt on the inside. One week before my Junior year of high school, my parents decided to relocate the family six hours away from where I’d lived my entire life—a decision that was not supported by all those involved.

When my high school years rolled around, I made a few Liberian friends. By my sophomore year, I was not ashamed to be seen with them. Slowly, I started saying I’m Liberian when people asked me my ethnicity. No more of, “My dad is black, and my mom is Liberian.” I started telling people that my favorite food was rice with stew and pepper chicken. To a young mind, it was quite liberating, but it was not full-fledged by any means. I still hung on to my Black associations. I would still hang around my Black friends, most of the time. Even though I was making progress with accepting my heritage, I was still attached to the Black community. I mean, I grew up in North Minneapolis; the Black epicenter in Minnesota. Growing up in the rougher neighborhood

Canton, Georgia was the city where I was raised from the time I was seven years old. The quiet neighborhood was where most of my friendships were developed. The majority of my friends rarely left Canton. We attended the same elementary, middle and high schools and played on the same sports teams. My upbringing is what most would consider a normal, American childhood. During the summer before my sophomore year in high school, we were given the opportunity to move to the city of Chicago for one year due to my father’s job which required relocation. That August we moved to Lincoln Park, a neighborhood in the city. Moving to Chicago was a new opportunity to live in a metropolitan city. Since I never lived outside of the suburbs, I was not sure what to expect. Jones College Prep, a highly

Growing up in a very little town in Illinois was a lot different than growing up in Houston, Texas. When I was in the fourth grade I found many things to have changed about my surroundings, I currently lived in a place where, the people thought and acted differently. I know now reading about it and understanding more that some of those changes were for the good and some were not. Small town living has its advantages such as, very close friendships, close approximately to may things, and friendly people. Looking back, I also realized that there were a lot of disadvantages such as lack of transportation, affects of a poor education, no opportunities for growth, crime, no diversity, and low paying jobs and housing. Now that I am older, and aware of the affects of living in a small town, I can see how these many things affected my life and will continue affect it in the future.

I spent the first 15 years of my young life split between two culturally different families, my father’s side of the family lived in San Francisco, and my mother’s side lived on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, Trinity-Klamath, CA. I had to spend 6 moths in San Francisco and 6 months on the reservation, I was either beginning school in San Francisco and ending school on the reservation, or vice versa.

For four long years I felt as if my high school was in a different world in of itself. I had spent that time interacting with an extensive amount of groups, or “cliques”, and getting to know what they do. Through my experiences, I had begun to realize what made this “subculture” high school of sorts run like it did. High school is an incredibly dynamic time for people, and I had changed as a person dramatically from my freshman to senior year. Like many, my freshman year was quite awkward, as remnants of my middle school self remained with me. As time went on, how, I talked to more people and grew out of my passive and shy personality. This did not just randomly happen without reason though. I began to learn and realize who I was and whom I enjoyed talking to in school, which explained why I spent so much time socializing with multiple kinds and groups of people. Everyone’s concept of “normal” was different, and high school was where I learned that lesson and will never forget.

My family and our ancestors are all originally from Liberia. Liberia is a country on the West African coast. English is the official language.There is over 20 indigenous languages that are spoken, all belonging to different tribes that cover 95% of the country.

Most people or children in my case move when and where there parents want to move and some kids like me are not so very happy about that situation or the choice there parents are making but of course the children do not have the ability or choice to make the decisions of weather they move or not and I am pretty sure that if children did have the choice they would not move a lot.In my case I was living in Maricopa the city Pinal County for about three to four years and at my school I was getting bullied a lot and then finally in this school year in which i'm in the sixth grade I was finally starting to make a connection with the other students.I was starting to make friends and one of my friends lived just down the street and she'd come to