Personal Narrative: Living In The Rio Grande Valley

I was born in Modesto ,CA on August 17, 2003 in Modesto hospital . I lived in Atwater ,CA most of my life ,but then I moved to Merced this year. Places that I have visited that feel like home is Watsonville and Santa Cruz. I have been in the same school for 8 years . Also, I have had a separate year in preschool. When I was in preschool I went to a school near Winton ,CA. During my magical 8 years I stayed in Bellevue since kindergarden through 8th grade.

San Luis, Colorado is the oldest town in Colorado. The Rio Culebra winds through the valley, surrounded by majestic mountains. It is one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen. My family along with many others have been here for generations. The beauty of the land is only accentuated by the beauty of our tight-knit families and culture. To counteract of all the physical and cultural beauty, there is social and economic strife everywhere around me. I live in the poorest county in Colorado and being impoverished is a challenge my community faces because of a lack of education and job deficit. As I have delved into community and family history, I have better understanding that the fact the that while many things like our support and love for family and culture have remain unchanged and untainted, so has the fact that our community struggles

I was born and raised in the small but growing city of Perris, CA. This isn’t the best city out there but it tends to grow on you, and you begin to truly love it for what it is. The people, however, not so much. The community can vary from which part of the city you’re in. That’s because there’s diversity here in Perris. I’m a product of this diversity, being half Mexican and half African American. My parents fell in love after high school and later on began a family. I am the youngest of five. I have two older brothers, an older sister, and an older cousin who lives with us. The order is boy, girl, boy, boy, girl with my cousin being included in there too. We all live in the same house with my parents and are quite close with each other. They all seem to have raised me growing up due to the fact that my parents were busy trying to provide for us. This was a challenge by itself, resulting in lots of house moving and my father being unemployed for six years after losing his job. I never complained about moving because I knew that my parents were doing their absolute best and were working with all that they had and then some. This unquestionably made me adaptable to new environments and gave me a

I grew up in a city named Colorado City, TX – the city is located in Central West Texas. I had a really good friend, that I became best friends with, named Daniel. We went riding our bikes everywhere around this little town, scraping our knees on concrete and crashing our bikes on practically everything (since there was practically nothing to do in this town – this was before the 3M Palace Theatre was reopened).

My mind will often wander to all the places I've lived in and all those I would love to travel to, or visit again. I think of the streets of Santa Fe, how fresh it would be compared to the over 100 degree temperature of were I am now, the hot dry heat of El Paso, Texas, a place I often come back to, the soil were my roots are permanently ingrained. El Paso has grown significantly in the past 10 years alone and is now the sixth most populous city in Texas (World Population Reviw). It's far from it's days when it was widely known as “El Chuco,” or “ChucoTown,” nicknames whose origins and meaning have long been debated, but no matter how much of the new generation is unfamiliar with these terms the history lives on through the streets and current

I am not from San Antonio. I am not from Texas. I’m from California. Where no one twangs, or drawls, or even says hi to the stranger standing in line at the grocery store. Texas, half way across the U.S and what seems like a whole other country compared to California. It is a completely different place that I could have ever imagined living and calling home. I came to Texas to find myself. I didn’t know that when I came here, but it is what ended up happening.

I was born in El Paso, Texas to Mexican immigrant parents who did their best to raise me and my three siblings. Growing up in El Paso I never even saw myself applying to college, but then my dad made a bold choice to start a career in homeland security and that was when we moved to the DFW area. Ever since we moved to DFW every grade in junior high, i was talked to about college: how to get there, how to pay for it, and how to make it a reality. The thought of going to college never even crossed my mind before coming here. Now as a Senior in high school I'am doing everything in my abilities to make my dreams come true, to go to college and graduate to make my parents proud and prove to them that all their sacrifices haven't gone by without

I've been abandoned all alone in a trailer park in Gallup, New Mexico. I just received a phone saying i was dead and my mom was in the hospital.

Having lived in the southern coastal region of Texas I have seen many of the beauties that nature offers, but many of these beauties also bring complicated needs to those they effect. I've discovered the power and magnitude of lightning storms I've been entranced by the soft crashing of the waves on the coast but the most beautiful and perhaps the most devastating phenomena I have ever viewed are hurricanes. Hurricanes have swept through my home front on many occasions, these powerful giants drift through towns decimating all in their paths breaking trees, ripping roofs off houses, and bringing with them a flood like no other. The high water and gale force winds that comprise these natural wrecking balls can cripple families and in my community

The environment I was raised in when I was a youth child was a bit rural. I grew up in Reynosa before moving to Hidalgo, Texas when I was about six years old. The activities people relish there differed the way citizens in Hidalgo had an enjoyable time, however the main difference came down to communication, morals, and attitudes.

I live in a nice house with all of my familia , i have lots of brothers and sisters my dad has 11 kids in all but im the youngest girl so i live with all guys but it's not that bad. I have 3 dogs which are a pitbull, black lab, and a belgium melewa . Also i love basketball and football me and my brothers always play these sports.Another thing is that i love to cook i can cook lots of stuff like green chili, chicken on white,spaghetti,pincedegio,and pasta salad ,etc. . I love mexican music and rap music.

At some point of our lives, we have all felt that feeling of what to do next, and mine would have to be the time I had to move from different cities. I was born and raised in McAllen, Texas. Throughout the years I was able to create and cherish many memories. Everyone around the neighborhood knew me as the shy, sweet, and kind Emily. My life was made in the valley until I got the announcement from my parents that we were moving to a new city named “Laredo.” At that moment my world had paused, so many questions were running through my head. What am I going to do? Where will I live? , and how will I adapt to this new town? So many mixed emotions were created, but I tried to hide them.

I was just a small town girl living in Grants, New Mexico. There is a saying that if you blink you will miss it driving down the highway. I was born and raised in Milan; it was just a little portion of Grants. My entire mom’s side of the family lived close by us and my dad’s side of the family was in Espanola, except for my grandma Yolie my dad’s mom. I grew up knowing almost everyone in that small town. The challenge in living in Grants was there were no available jobs. My parents had to drive back and forth to and from Albuquerque. As I was in kindergarten through second grade I would stay at my auntie’s house early in the morning or with my grandma while both my parents were in Albuquerque. Family was everything to me or at least what I

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.

The short answer to my race is white, but the truth is I am Swedish, Irish, English, Swiss and, of course, American. Race especially plays a part in my physical appearance which became apparent when I moved to El Paso. My physical identity in El Paso feels much different than where I was born and raised; Tampa, Florida. In El Paso, people constantly ask where I am from or if I am in the military. The way I speak has even converged to match the way people speak here. I love my adopted city and my identity continues to evolve with my changing environment.