Personal Narrative: Growing Up In Greenville South Carolina

Though I spent my entire life living in North Carolina I never thought of myself as a Southerner. My understanding of the Southern lifestyle was quite limited; there is an emphasis on family solidarity, and self-sufficiency with an agricultural backdrop that is part of their essence. The South is not simply a location, manners or customs it is a way of life. Hearing the childhood details of a favorite professor allowed me to envision a picture perfect life under the shade of a magnolia tree and little southern girl who grew up to be a Sandhills Community College professor, Mrs. Cole.

Growing up in Southern California, I was surrounded by coastal culture, which has influenced me in many ways. No matter whether I lived in San Diego or Ventura county, I was never more than ten minutes away from the beach. Every weekend, it seemed, my dad would take us to the beach as family so we could play in the water, build sandcastles, catch hermit crabs, see the tide pools, and most of all, spend time together. I was enchanted by all the beach had to offer. Every sandcastle built was a palace for a hermit crab and every tide pool a thriving community. Whenever I stepped into the water, my imagination would run wild. Despite how often we went, I always enjoyed our days at the beach.

This year’s family vacation was one for the books. With my aunt living in Tennessee, we do not get together as often as we would like so my family decided to go to Nashville, Tennessee. When we started our trip, it was 6 a.m. and it was nothing short of fun and laughter along the way. Never having been to Tennessee before, I figured I’d enjoy the eight-hour ride of sight-seeing and laughter with my family. When we were a few miles into the trip, the mountains of Georgia were breathtaking. While I was enjoying the scenery, another thing that I found enjoyable about this trip was the conversation that I had with my family. We went on talking about life in general, all the struggles, and childhood memories that we had. We even talked about years

Growing up in rural North Carolina was both a blessing and a curse. My hometown, Fallston, North Carolina, is a tiny town way off the beaten path. Most people speak with a southern accent, are devout christians, vote Republican, think camouflage is a normal fashion pattern, and adore country music. But while I was a child, none of these things were a problem. I never realized how close-minded everyone was or how there were no opportunities for success; I was too concerned with the three most important events of the year: the Fallston FunFest, the Belwood Tractor Pull, and the Cleveland County Fair. However, as I grew older, zeal wore off and reality set in. I started to realize how conservative and restrictive it was. What little Fallston offered,

The greasy scent of cheap burgers and fries wafted into the car as we pulled into the parking lot of a Wendy’s, right in the heart of who-knows-where, East Tennessee. I couldn’t contain my excitement as I rushed my 12-year-old self out of the minivan and into the palace of grease. Clad in ratty sweatpants and a t-shirt with my hair pressed down from my prolonged use of headphones, it was evident that I spent long hours sitting in a car, asking “if we’re there yet” too many times to count. In this moment, however, carving up Snowshoe Mountain on my snowboard didn’t seem as exciting as the machine that stood across the room. Standing tall, shiny, and red, the Coca-Cola Freestyle soda fountains were in the early stages of being released, and

The only state I have ever known as home is North Carolina. I was born and raised in Charlotte and the only time I have ever moved away was last year to start a new chapter of my life as a college student. Growing up in Charlotte has had such an impact on what I plan to do with my future. As a young child I always thought of Charlotte as the next best thing to New York City. I shortly realized after visiting that was not quite the case. New York City introduced me to a new world of opportunity.

I am a spoiled rich kid. I live in an upper middle class town located in one of the prosperous countries in the world. I attend to a competitive school with qualified teachers who care about their students. I have seemingly endless opportunity to participate in my community or gain experience in a job. I have fair skin, living in a world where is being Caucasian is advantageous.

When I think of America, I think of one sole word: determination. Our history is a medley of spectacular accomplishments and now-realized mistakes. We’ve struggled with issues that appear to be simple, yet the effects of past hardships can still be felt today. For example, we thought we had ended racism by making African-Americans equal under law, after the civil rights movement, but this same issue has merely developed into social discrimination. Despite the problems that remain and evolve with us through time, the most defining attribute every American has is their will-power to achieve their dreams. To many, these dreams are to end racial, gender, or sexual orientation discrimination. To many, these dreams may even be as seemingly simple

It was 2:30 school just got out me and Tayler where going to leave as I realis I forgot my book in the classroom so we ran back to the classroom and when we got there was a mysterious door in the back of the classroom. There were no teachers in site so I decided to go over to the door and open it. There was a very bright light coming from the door. Tayler and I took one step in the door and then it slam shut behind us. We took a few more step closer to the light. But now we were in some other town named Brownard County, Florida. I saw the sign that said the name of the town.

These had cause me to be cold toward men. I also grow up in a straight community where being different is a taboo and it is often not appreciated by the society. I remember a short dark skin man with a low income who used to live in the same neighborhood as my grandmother, he is gay, many people laughed at him but the way he dress, talks and walks. As a future teacher have to ask me what I will do if a boy come to class wearing a dress, I know many kids are going to laugh and call him names, others are going to bullying him. As the adult I'm going to need to do something to stop it and to help every kid in the class that everyone not feel constable dressing or acting like the society wants. Growing up I don't believe that my parents would had let me be friends with gays and lesbian, they might though it would had influence me in my sexual orientation. Today I have friend that are gay. That have been a challenge to me because of what a was tough. It does not shock me any more like it did when I first came to the U.S. and found out that some of my friend did not felt comfortable being male or

I never thought a white woman from North Carolina could make a change. Back then, everywhere I went I can feel the town's eyes follow. You don't grow up thinking that your beliefs could/would change. Hell, you grow up thinking much of nothing down here. In North Carolina, the only thing you have time for is making money. So you can buy more time.

So my first two weeks at Florida Southern have been exhausting to say the least. One does not really know how flipped their sleep schedule is until they have to wake up early to drive to 8 am classes every other day. The bright side to these days, however, is that I end up making it home by about 11:00 am, where, beforehand, I might have even woken up at this time. I honestly don’t know what I expected from college, but I knew that the college that I planned on attending had a very beautiful campus. Living in the area, you always hear people talking about how world class architecture is located within the city. Florida Southern, along with Publix, and the location between Orlando and Tampa were the reasons everybody talked about

Imagine the news headlines filled with nothing but people like you - same hair, skin, defining features - except all the headlines are filled with death. Death at the hands of people we are all taught to trust with our safety. This is how my 2015 summer had been. Days upon days of headlines with black people being killed by “peace” officers. As the list of names grew longer, it became apparent that there was no intention to protect the black community, instead, the public was being “protected” from us. Growing up in a community of minorities, I had come to believe that there was a sense of solidarity in our struggles. I was wrong in thinking our shared status meant unity. At the core of every marginalized community, is a sense of anti-blackness. This harsh realization happened during a class discussion when everyone was throwing into my face that ultimately my feelings and thoughts did matter. I was reminded that I was an other and I stood alone in this fight for my community.

It’s the year 2020, and it seems like the world hasn’t changed much since 2014. I mean, we still haven’t invented time travel, cancer is still big and bad, and we still don’t know what all that grey matter in space is. And the world is still turning without so much as a mention of global warming or apocalyptica. I guess you could say the earth is still “peaches n’ cream.” Well, actually, that’s not totally true. It’s South Carolina that’s all peaches n’ cream, and the rest of the world has its’ own flavors too. I mean, nowadays you can step out of any building in Wisconsin and get the distinct taste of brie cheese, or go to Florida and get a face full of oranges like Tropicana just sucker punched your nostrils. And all the other states have their own distinct tastes as well. I guess, the only thing that’s changed the most is that all oxygen is now flavored. As in, whenever you walk outside, and you take a breath of whatever your state decided would be its state flavor… that’s what you taste.

I observed the atmosphere and looked to see who inhabited the assembly. People sat together with their group of friends, they all were yelling and enjoying their time although, there were a few people who chose to sit alone and enjoy their quiet, secluded time. They did activities in there that related to LGBT people,but my friend said that they hardly do any activities, but on that day the chose to do one. The activity they were doing was to create a person, where their heart, brain, and “private parts” didn’t matter, the person either thought and in their heart felt like they were male, but had a woman’s genitalia, or they thought and felt in their heart that they were female but, had a male genitalia.They asked the crowed what the person should want to be identified generally, but one boy yelled out “Can he be identified as a Pigeon?” which was very amusing, he kept on insisting that we was identified as a Pigeon. The classroom was interesting, walls had posters and flags that showed history, psychology topics, and even a rainbow flag. That made me feel extremely optimistic because most teachers don’t put up items that relate to LGBT people. It shows that Mrs. Lahey, the teacher that thought in room 35, strongly believes in the LGBT Movement and she wants to subtly show her students that they should also treat LGBT students equally and to not make fun of their