Personal Narrative: How It Relates To My Cultural Heritage

I remember the first time someone asked me if my dad owned a gas station, “get it? ‘Cause you’re Indian,” Kids have been throwing Indian stereotypes at me since I was little, but I’ve never known exactly how to react. I’ve always felt it would be strange to snap back and defend myself indignantly since in actuality I’m not Indian at all. Both my parents are Mexican which makes these “jokes” funny, but in a very different way. After so many encounters like this I’ve learned how to explain and embrace my actual culture, which is a skill I had to master on my own.

I am a Native American born and raised in Jamestown, Virginia. It was always just my father and I, my mother passed away when I was an infant, so my father raised me to be an independent woman. My father is the head commander of the tribe. He only allowed me to go to the village near our tents. I never went further than the village, till this one day that I was feeling so curious about what was out there, so I decided to walk beyond the village to see what there is to explore.

The artifact represents personal objects and meaningful moments, person influence on our own life. This is one of the assignment in our program to share our artifacts toward our colleagues and professors. This will take in more about different culture, uniqueness, identity and values of our schoolmates and how they reflected in their life.

What is culture? Culture is the idea of what is wrong or right, the concept of what is acceptable within our society. Culture serves us as a guide, taking us to the "right way" and helping us to make sense of things that surrounds us. There are many different cultures around the world. A lot of them are similar in specific ways and others are just completely different, this difference explains why we think that people from different backgrounds are "weird".

My grandmother Lynne Murphy is who I chose to interview for my heritage project. This summer at a family birthday party I was speaking short phrases in Spanish while joking around with my dad. My grandmother, sitting beside us, joined in the conversation and starting speaking fluent Spanish. I had no idea she could speak Spanish, so I asked her, “How can you speak Spanish?” Before answering my question she laughed. She went on to tell me that she lived in South America for many years as a teenager. I didn’t have the chance to learn anymore about her childhood until this project was assigned. When I learned we were to focus on a family member’s experience growing up, I immediately thought about my grandmother and the interesting life she seemed

My family’s Native American heritage has influenced me by encouraging me to assist the poverty-stricken Lumbee community that I grew up in, whether that be by volunteering my time, energy, or resources. Growing up as a member of the Lumbee community, I have witnessed firsthand the struggles that many Native American families face, including living paycheck to paycheck, being ridiculed for our heritage, and alcohol abuse in many households. My culture has instilled in me the desire to educate the youth to be proud of their heritage despite the derogatory stereotypes that people associate Native Americans with. Unlike many children I was raised with, I have the opportunity to go to college and become only the second person in my family to do

I am a true country southern bell from Georgia with roots that goes back to the Cherokee tribe. I am the daughter of Beanbug and Mann although they have real names where we are from we do not use them. Beanbug started off working at the chicken house but after gutting chicken for a couple of years she decided to get a degree. This is how I came to be. I come from a more rural area modern time and where I did not have to farm like my grandparents. I know who I am. I am come from a family that would cook Sunday dinner which include fried chicken, mac and cheese, collard greens, cornbread and many more food that sooth the soul. I am a special person that believed to see spirts at night that kept me up. One night I went to my grandmother bed and

Growing up with two different Heritages is like growing up in two different worlds, it was tough growing up being Native and Hispanic I would either get made fun of because I was Native or I was made fun of for being Hispanic. I guess you can say that I have somewhat of a different life, living with any Hispanic family but considering myself more Native, because just at home i just speak spanish, and eat amazing food made by my mother who isn’t even Hispanic who’s just Native American who didn’t consider herself Native American because she herself lived with my grandmother or she lived with a family friend who was Hispanic and showed her things about a culture that she didn’t know anything about.

My “outside” cultural influences I have: America is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world culturally. We have German-Americans speaking German, Filipino-Americans speaking Tagalog, Irish-Americans speaking Irish, Scandinavian-Americans speaking Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, etc., Welsh-Americans speaking Welsh, Japanese-Americans speaking Japanese, Iraqi-Americans speaking Arabian, Mexican-Americans speaking Spanish, and all Americans united in the common goal to create the best possible nation in accordance with our Constitution.

It's quite astonishing to believe just a few years ago I was not content with my heritage, my culture. All throughout elementary school I remember being teased about the way I dressed, the way I acted, the way I didn't celebrate certain holidays, and the way that I brought some weird mysterious food to lunch every day. It is improbable to think I detached myself from my culture so completely. I just wanted to fit in. In elementary school I started to Watch less Bollywood movies, to bring a normal sandwich for lunch every day; but despite this I still didn't fit in. During junior high tried something different, I tried to appear as though I was white not brown. I would use heavy coats of foundation two shades to like intended as a mask, a mask

Think of what you would think of on your final day of life. Sitting in your hospital bed,

My background with ethnicity is limited. My paternal grandfather is from the Netherlands and my maternal grandmother’s family is from Sweden. Other than that, I have not had any other extensive experiences with different ethnic groups. Once my family from the Netherlands came to visit in 2012, I was introduced to my great Aunt Toos. It was difficult speaking with her because of the language barrier; her English was far from clear. Although there were difficulties communicating, I was nevertheless able to learn a few Dutch phrases from her.

To me legacy means how I will be remembered in this world. Many people envision the way they want to be remembered, but truthfully I never really thought of it. Now that I have to think about it, I want people to remember me in a positive way. I feel that I have touched some lives during my short lifespan so far. I have touched the lives of my siblings due to me being the oldest. I have helped my siblings with many choices in their lives as being one of their guides. I feel that I will have touched my family and closest friends lives. Most of them have known me for a long time and hope we will all still be close for a long time.

I have always been mature for my age, growing up an only child kind of does that to you. I had to watch over my little cousins quite often and at that time in my life, I dreaded babysitting. The crying, the screaming, the tantrums; they annoyed me to no end. Olivia, being the youngest, would say, “your not the boss of me!” Umm, actually I am while your parents are away, so please just listen to what I ask of you. After two long years of babysitting, I had decided I really did not like kids, that I would never have any of my own. But when I turned fifteen, I regretted ever saying that, seeing as my family history was about to catch up to me.

As a little girl, I was ashamed to be Indian. This was due to all the negative stereotypes surrounding my race. In my childhood, I heard people say Indians were smelly, stingy, and stuck up (alliteration). In fear of being teased and misjudged, I tried to be as “normal” as possible to make everyone forget that I was Indian (pathos). As I grew older, I learned to be proud of who I am, but disregarding stereotypes is still a challenge. I am sure everyone in this room has been affected by racial stereotypes before and believe me, I know what you are going through (ethos). You may think that only bigoted and prejudiced people used stereotypes, however, recent studies have shown that everyone categorizes people on a daily basis without even realizing it. Most people think stereotypes are just jokes, yet research proves that stereotypes have serious negative effects. People should stop stereotyping because stereotypes cause “stereotype threats”, create social division, and lead to racism (parallelism).