Personal Narrative: My Family Tree Project

For the past seventeen years of my life minus a few months, I have lived in the United States. I grew up skiing and bicycling in Grand Rapids, Michigan, until my family decided to move all the way out west to Flagstaff, Arizona. Many eleven-year-olds might become stubborn and defensive in response to such a massive, life-changing move, but I remember embracing it because I was with my family, and I was ready to face any obstacle that unveiled itself to me because I knew that my late comedic father, my worrisome mother, and my troublesome brother would be right by my side. As we made the two-day drive from Michigan to Arizona in our SUV together, we watched the numbers on the odometer crawl up more and more until there were 2,000 more miles on the car than there were when we started, and we

My family has lived here in Oregon since the before the war between the states, and family tells us stories of the good times before all these japs started taking over. Around the turn of the century or so it started to seem like these people were everywhere. It all started with the building of the railroad. The companies brought in those people to build the railroad, and now that the railroad is completed they will not leave. To make matters even worse there is an effort by their leaders to get them to strike for the same pay as us white people that work for the railroad. There has been extremely little or no effort on their part to become like us Americans. I was walking through town the other day and what did I see, there was a huge Buddha statue in front of a new Buddhist temple. They can't even go to church like regular people.

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 was awesome in my household even though my family and I would do extravagant activities. I was automatically a American citizen when I was born because my father is retired from the US Navy. When I was about three years old, we all moved to the United States of American. The first state that we lived was San Diego, California. We spent almost fours year in California before moving to La Porte, Indiana. It was easier for me to adapt and make friends in California because a lot of the people in that state are diverse in ethnicity. Also the Filipinos has a high living population in California, especially in San Diego. Most of my friends when I lived in California were my classmates in Mason Elementary School. It was not rare for me to find Filipinos in San Diego but, when I moved to Indiana it felt like a surprise when I encounter a Filipino here in Indiana. The only real friend that I had in California were my cousins. We would always come to each others homes every day. Most of the times we were together we would spend most of the time playing outdoor activities. One of our favorite outdoor activity is playing basketball or baseball.

There is an old African saying, “When an elder dies, it is as if an entire library has burned to the ground.” This happens to be the case when it comes to my family history. Unfortunately, my grandparents' on both sides of my family have passed away and the rest live across the world which can be difficult to contact. My parent’s are going to be my sources for this assignment. They both have provided me with information about their childhood and the lives of my grandparent’s. By using the stories provided from Deborah A. Miranda’s book Bad Indians, I will compare and contrast the lives of my family to hers.

There is an old African saying, “when an elder dies, it is as if an entire library has burned to the ground.” This happens to be the case when it comes to my family history. Unfortunately, my grandparents on both sides of my family have past away and the rest live across the world which can be difficult to contact. My parent’s are going to be my sources for this assignment. They both have provided me with information about their childhood and the lives of my grandparent’s. By using the stories provided from Deborah A. Miranda’s book Bad Indians, I will compare and contrast the lives of my family to hers.

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

First, lets start with my family. There are a lot of things to know. For example, I am the oldest child in my family, as far as my mom, my dad, and my sister. On my mom’s side of my family, I have 3 younger cousins, 2 older cousins, 4 uncles, 1 aunt, my grandparents, and my nana. There are a lot more down in my family tree, but for this essay there are too many, some that have passed away, some that I have never meet, and some that I can’t remember. Lets begin with my cousins. My 3 younger cousins, in order by oldest to youngest, are Clayton, Madelyn, and Rowen. My 2 older cousins are Hannah, and Matthew. There is a story that goes along with

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.

Family of origin work begins by having an individual or couple drawing up a "Genogram," a three generational map of family relationships graphically depicting such things as births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and sibling order. The rationale for working directly with patients in this manner is described by prominent family therapist John Framo. "The client, by having sessions with his or her family of origin, takes the problem to where they began, thereby making available a direct route to etiological factions. Dealing with the real external parental figures is designed to loosen the grip of the internal representatives of these figures and expose them to reality considerations and their live derivatives. Having gone backward in time, the

Growing up, my parents or grandparents never told stories about where they came from. Unlike a lot of people, my family has been around for quite some time. My mother’s side has been around longer than my fathers, but both still go back quite a few generations. There are some unknowns and gaps of information from my mom’s side that no one today in my family even knows because of how far back this story goes.

My research family consists of five family members. Tanya is a 45-year-old African American woman; who works as a homemaker and provides beauty assistance to her local neighbors, such as being a make-up artist and a hair beautician. Tanya was raised in Louisiana in a single parent household, she has no recollection of her father nor did her mother ever mention his name. Her mother had a gambling problem, Tanya remembered her mother once gambling her brand new silver necklace her grandmother bought for her as a gift. At 17 Tanya went to live with her grandmother and refused to speak to her mother again. Mrs. Bell (Tanya’s grandmother) was on a fixed income and taking care of Tanya only added stress to the situation. “I couldn’t be a burden

What is culture? According to Dr. Dennis O’Neil from the Behavioral Sciences Department at Palomar College in San Marcos, CA, “ culture is the full range of learned human behavior” and includes morals, traditions, and beliefs (1). First morals could be opinions rather than facts. Opinions on what is right and wrong, L.G.B.T ( Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender), and abortion. Many people have different perspectives on morals. Not everyone agrees with others peoples opinion on these certain perspectives. Next, every culture has some sort of tradition. In America, a huge celebration would be the Super Bowl. Families and friends gather together to watch the largest football game of the year, and to barbecue. Lastly many people

I am a first generation child to have been born in my family, the first generation who is about to graduate high school and the first generation to go to a college and succeed in life.

Family history is very important to an individual. By knowing where you come from, you can have a better perspective of your life. Having a clear understanding of your family background allows you to better appreciate the things that you would normally take for granted. The house, the car, and the average clothing may look better when one sees the sacrifices their family has made. They will see that their family has worked very hard just so their family can experience the better things in life. A persons roots and origin is one of the most important things to explore. It alone can bring you closer to self-discovery.