Personal Narrative: I Am The Product Of American Culture

Studying in a foreign country is an interesting experience of an individual lifetime. One tends to learn a number of things relating to ways of life in a foreign land. Social, political and economic values and aspects are usually different from one region to another. Therefore, through studying abroad one is able to learn different issues about another society such as gender and sexuality issues, social class and race/ethnicity issues. Having come from a developing country studying in the U.S.A has been a great experience personally. This paper will attempt to provide a reflection of my personal experience on studying in the U.S by comparing the history of Angola and the U.S.

Johnnie, Veronica, Frank et al. do me a solid with all your “knowledge” and “wokeness” step outside your educational privilege and support systems for a minute. I in no place in my post said anything about America being perfect so what you did was hijack a status about the solidarity I feel for the people in my life and in this country who very much will struggle with an intensified troubling life experience in the country to PROVE you have some kind of exceptional wokeness or understanding of America. MISS me with it. No America was not safe for everyone but we just did was extend the people who it was unsafe for. If that’s cool with you then carry on with your bullshit. I have NEVER EVER said it’s a safe place for everyone. I have NEVER

Growing up in America, I have always been surrounded by many cultures and different ethnic groups. Many of those cultures differ from my own traditionally. For the first half of my life, I was raised in detroit, a predominantly black city - I had always assumed. My family eventually moved out of Detroit and we moved to Inkster. Inkster was a much smaller city, but it was also a predominantly black city. In 2011, my family moved from Inkster, Michigan to Canton, Michigan. Although the two cities are less than a half hour apart - the cultural and ethnic groups are extremely diverse. While attending my freshman year of high school in Canton I realized, I was a minority there. More than half of the student body, more than half of the community

Some people may be confused in what responsibility even means. Does it mean be nice, make good decisions, and do what you're told? I've been taught many responsibilities throughout my life and the most important one is to try my hardest to walk in the light of Jesus. To do this I try to learn from my mistakes, treat others the way I want to be treated. Whenever I get the opportunity I bring God into the subject to try to show every one what a loving and caring father he his no matter how many mistakes you've made. I want people to know that no matter what they do or say to me, I will never deny my beliefs for God I will always shine my light and try to impact as many lives as I can. We are one Nation under God and I believe that's our responsibility to keep it that way.

Growing up in America, the majority of people are never worried about where their next meal is coming from or how it was prepared. I have personally been spoiled throughout my life always having an abundant supply of food along with a mother that cooked every meal for me. I dreaded waking up at 5am every morning to head off to the chicken house and pick up, at times, hundreds of dead chickens. Taking Food Science 1000 this semester, I now have a wealth of knowledge about food and food science. I now have a greater appreciation for farmers worldwide as their hard work provides billions of families with food. It has shown me that even small family operations, like my family's, still make a huge impact on the world. Before this class I never really

As I stepped off the plane, the frigid air sliced through my face, just as the cold, harsh reality hit me: I’m an American now.

I was raised in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. I am an U.S. Citizen, and I was born in Fort Myers, Florida, but my whole life I lived in Mexico. I was raised with my two brothers in my grandparents’ house, because my mom was a single mom, and always worked hard to bring money for all of us. My neighborhood was one of the worst, or that is why people said. I never felt in any kind of danger living there, because I knew almost all the neighbors, and also I never like going out to much. My community was not always very unified, because everyone were on their own issues, but every time someone pass out or any inconvenience happened, everyone were there. That was the good thing of my surroundings.

“Where are you from?” has been the defining question of my life, mainly because I do not have an answer for it. Growing up, this question brought me anxiety and frustration, and constantly being the new kid meant that I had to answer it frequently. I learned to assess the situation to see what answer was most appropriate. “I am from America” worked when talking to locals or non-American classmates; “I am from Colorado” was used for Americans who wanted more detail; “I’ve moved around a lot” was saved for people who expressed genuine interest, but I gave my truest answer the least even though it meant the most: “A lot of places.”

I remember grouping myself as only American thinking it was my birthright, and told my parents things like: "You should let me live like the other kids and give me allowance! It's not fair I just want to do normal things!" I looked different from the other kids at school but the cultural aspect was bigger than the racial aspect to me. I was too young to really grasp the implications then, and no one really talked about it to me. My grandparents lived with me for a while as a young child, and I grew up speaking Chinese at home. At preschool I started speaking English outside of home, and around this time they went back to China. In Kindergarten and later, I steadily spoke less and less Chinese at home - I had little incentive to keep learning due to lack of relatives who only spoke Chinese - and I felt the best way to develop and fit in at school was to learn English well.

I have been born and brought up in America, therefore, I identify with the American culture. The American culture borrows heavily from different cultures across the globe. The neighborhood I was brought up in was instrumental in the definition of and formation of my culture and the norms that I surrounded myself with and came to identify with. My parents taught me the value of education, as in American culture education is one of the most highly valuable attributed. I have also taken up Christianity as a religion to identify with as I have learned from the people in my surroundings.

Somebody’s opinion on what it means to be American, can change over time based on what generation they were a part of and what they did or experienced during their lifetime. In my generation, American identity doesn’t consist of a certain ethnicity or religion, but everyone should exercise their rights and be successful in school. To prove that opinions change over different time periods, I interviewed my two grandparents and my parents who have experienced many interesting things throughout their lives. My grandfather has served in the air force and my grandmother was born during the time of World War II. Furthermore, my mother moved to America when she was fifteen, from the Philippines while my father lived here and in a few other countries throughout his life. By interviewing my family of different generations, I hope to find that historic events and experiences will alter what they think of our home country.

On February 12th, 2015 I left America for the holy land. After we got on the plane I felt excited, I had not been to Israel in many years. I was thinking wow I’m about to have a great experience and make some great friends. After the long flight we arrived and the first thing I felt was the warm Israel breeze on my face. After waiting for one of the other kids to find their luggage which got lost we rode to Jerusalem. The views I saw outside the window were truly magnificent, from wild animals to construction workers to plants of crazy color. After finally getting to the Youth hostel we enjoyed dinner rice and potatoes. Then we walked to the kotel and took a late night tour of the Jewish, Armenian, and Muslim quarter. When I walked up to the wall I started

Yes, the day was finally here I was going to America. Of course though it was only about one in the morning, but I was only twelve, I didn't know that. I made sure I had all of my stuff packed, but I didn't, so I packed, and then, me being me, I ran through the house screaming “Yay, we're going to America.” I had done it then, I had turned around and there stood my mom and dad. They were angry at me, and as I expected, next thing I knew they were yelling at me almost simultaneously “Amadeo Ambrogio get back to bed this minute or you won't be going anywhere. Yea, so that was pretty much my luck as a twelve year old Italian boy. I was laying in bed thinking “Oh great, now I'm never going to Ameri-,” I stopped mid-sentence because I thought someone was coming downstairs, but it was just my dog, Fido. I loved Fido, he was a golden retriever that I found on the side of the road.

The last day of summer vacation, I said goodbye to my mother and my cute three-year-old little sister, then left for the capital of china––Beijing. At that time, when I left my hometown, a small quiet beautiful city lied in the south of China, I did not feel very sad or any sense of reluctance to part from my mother. (But after living in US for just two weeks, I miss her very much.) And I didn’t feel very excited, either. It’s maybe a little strange, but it was true. My Father took me to Beijing Capital International Airport and waited until I have to board. I kept looking back at him when I went to the boarding gate, seeing him waving hands to me all the time.

When I left my hometown in Hungary to live with my dad in America, a lot of things were different for me. The language was different, the people were different, the culture was different, and the schools were different. I don’t think it took long for me to adjust to living here, the duration of my summer was me figuring out how different things were here and going along with it.