Personal Narrative: My Cultural Identity And Heritage

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

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.

The way I see it humans are just biotic machines where people from the first SECOND we are born to expect us to be used to be in their likeness or their standard of code. Luckily, due to a creation of identity and personality, people often never reach that likeness and become different. Cultural identity impacts us for our interests can make a person grow and gain traits. My cultural identity is made up by many factors, Mx-Bones and my mom impacted my life and guided me to be an artist and an aspiring scientist of some sort that is not confirmative and very curious.

Many people writing this essay are going to talk about their religion or what race they are. But this is my personal cultural identity essay. I don't have a religion that I talk about or a race that I care about. My cultural identity is about sports, family and everything that makes me, me.

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

Sitting on the plane alone, I wondered what the next three weeks would bring. The light hum of the plane’s engines seemed to go on forever and the dry stale air began to scratch the inside of my throat. My destination was The Netherlands, where the entirety of my family lives. Throughout my youth seeing my family was a rare occasion, once a year if we were lucky, but after my parents divorced, we stopped going altogether. It had been over eight years since I had last visited them and because of the many years of separation, I felt uneasy about it all. Throughout the flight I couldn’t help but to think to myself several questions like: What I might be able to learn and experience from these next three weeks? How I would feel when I would first arrive? And how different everything would be. Having been there only a

I was born in the summer of 1964, to lower middle class parents, my mother was divorced with having left three young sons behind with her first husband. My father owned a very popular gas station and repair shop, by birth being the result of a torrid love affair, this topic remained in the gossip pool well into my twenties. I was kept in the dark until Jr. high school, my mother was forced to tell me part of her truth, after the principal sent a note home. My mother suffered from depression and substance abuse as a coping mechanism to sooth her pain. At the age of two my mother gave birth to my sister, although, my mother loved us, I believe her pain tortured her relentlessly. Soon my father choose alcohol to numb his

How does your heritage affect you today? My English heritage doesn’t effect me, but I would like to try some traditions.Those things I would like to try is traditional foods, sports known in England, and religious holidays.

The independent cultural experience that I chose to participate in was going to dine at the Taj Palace, in Yakima, Washington. This place is very authentic. When you walk in the restaurant, it felt very traditional because they had Indian music playing, and it was well decorated. I felt very interested in doing this experience because I have an Uncle related by marriage who is from India, and I do not know very much about this culture. Although I don’t know very much about it, I am very curious and interested in learning about it. India is a place that has always intrigued me, and has been on a list of places that I would love to travel to. Learning very surface level facts about India in school has sparked

In sixth grade, one of my Caucasian friends quipped, “I’m more Chinese than you are!” after discovering that, despite my outward appearance, I couldn’t speak a word of Chinese. She had just started learning Mandarin at our middle school. While I brushed it off and rebuked that of course she couldn’t be more Chinese than I am, I couldn’t help but feel that she had a point: I didn’t feel all that connected to my ethnic identity.

My family is very diverse. Therefore, growing up I have had the ability to experience people from different races, ethnic groups, and sexuality. I have family members that are black, white, native American, Hawaiian, West Indian, and Hispanic. So my cultural background affected my views of other ethnic groups as no different than myself. Although, we are all Christians I was never taught or persuaded to view people who don’t believe as I do, different. I view black people as people who are misunderstood by most races that aren’t their own. I view them as a part of me, in neither a positive or negative way. Being that my family is so diverse I wasn’t given any negative messages towards people from other backgrounds.

Baking hot kolacky on Christmas eve going to church on Sundays,Is just a little illustration of my cultural identity. Culture can be defined in many ways for instance my culture identity is made up of little portions of my daily life and what inspires me to be who i am today. As growing up I had a very close view of culture identity. I was born in Ukraine Konstantinovka .At age 4 I moved to America.The first apartments we moved in was filled with people from different cultures and identities from Mexican ,Somalia ,American, Turkish, Thailand and many others. I would often not understand their behavior or beliefs and would often question them.But as time passed i made new friends and meet new cultures.

I am black. I know it isn't hard to see my color but can you see who i really am on the inside? I may be black but i like dubstep, rock, video games, J-pop, and junk food. My cultural identity sets me apart from the rest. First of all i don't like watermelon, i don't like chicken that much and i don't listen to rap all the time.

Everyone in my family has two names: one American, one Chinese. Even my dog, Miracle, is sometimes called “Mei-Li Gou,” which sounds like his American name when said quickly (“beautiful dog,” in English. Creative, I know).

I was born in Chicago, IL a city known for its diversity. Growing up here has given me the opportunity to meet people from various cultures. As a result of that, I concluded that by definition Hispanics are U.S citizens whose family background traces back to a Spanish-speaking country. My definition, however, is a vague representation of how my heart truly interprets being Hispanic.