Personal Narrative: My Family's Experience And Cultural History

From a very early age, I always assumed it was a part of my future to pursue an education. The American educational system engraves the importance of school at a very young age. Elementary school children are motivated through rewards when they try their hardest to reach their goals. Students are exposed to statistics and facts outlining the consequences of not getting a college degree as soon as they reach middle school. High school counselors and staff make it their priority to ensure that students apply to college. Students are conditioned to believe that education is the building block to a successful future. My cultural upbringing did not support my choice to pursue an education, however, I refused to conform to my family’s behavioral expectations because certain norms must be challenged due to progressive time periods and conflicting values.

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

Education has always been highly valued by my family but opportunities for academic achievement were not always available to every member of my immediate family. My mother was the first one in her family to go to college and get advanced degrees. My father did not pursue anything further than high school. I keep these circumstances in mind as I further my learning and strive for a better education through hard work. In doing so, I can help pave paths for future generations of students in my family. Opportunities at NCSSM and other outside sources will push me even more to gain as much knowledge as possible; ultimately leading to a higher educational career. Additionally, I have completed a majority of my education with the aid of my mother

Growing up in a less privileged household has not only offered financial and academic challenges, but has also helped me to realize the value and power of achieving a higher education.

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

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

The patient I completed my family health assessment on is a 34 years-old African American (black) female that is Gravida 6 Para 6. Her primary language spoken is English. She has a history of five vaginal deliveries and one cesarean section. This delivery was a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) with spontaneous rupture of membranes while at home. Initial progression of labor was slow until stimulation of nipples via breast pump and low, slow dosing of Pitocin.

I contemplate the American dream; what does it really mean? How is it becoming increasingly redefined? What is the role of education in the attainment process? Most of all, I reflect on my duty to others as a citizen of the United States of America who is adept in educational leadership. I hold myself accountable to helping families create an educational legacy of triumph, achieve the highest levels of personal accomplishment and engage in continuous measures of raising the academic bar. There are comprehensive issues that I would challenge in order to give students resilience bent towards

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.

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".

When I think about my cultural identity I find myself resorting to the word “normal”. I grew up in a town where everyone looked the same, everyone worshiped the same God, and everyone was in the same economic class. It’s interesting to really break down my individual cultural pieces to find that actually there are so many differences that I was simply too naïve to see. The culture that one grows up can be so different from one household the next, that there really isn’t a “normal” culture out there.

I come from a small rural farm where I was born and raised all my life and where I grew up with two loving parents and one sister. Ever since I was a young girl, religion has always been a big part of my life because I was born and raised Catholic. My mothers’ side of the family is German Catholic decent and my fathers’ race is German and Cherokee Indian. Even though they are mainly German combined I have always found it interesting that I have Native American blood running through my veins. It is obvious that my parents are both Caucasian and were middle class individuals when I was growing up. I would now classify my parents to be in the higher class because they are worth more now then twenty-five years ago. Even though my parents have more money now than what they did when growing up on the farm, a strong work ethic was important to my parents. I am thankful they instilled this within me because I have always worked hard for everything in my life and I know that this will payoff for me one day. My parents also told me that education will get me further in life and it has. I am the first of my family to graduate from college let alone getting my masters as well. So when looking

“Do you know anything about pennies in my freezer?” As an eleven-year old, the question evoked a laugh and a denial. In my defense, I truly knew nothing about the pennies; however, I could hypothesize how our poker tournament could have led to their new home.

Do you remember the first ever time you felt a connection to something in a book or movie? Was it a whole show? A character? A scene? Or perhaps just a single line? One moment I remember vividly was when my grandmother passed away. It was the first time in my life I really had to grieve and there were so many emotions I didn’t quite know how to process it all, it was then a few months later that I got to see Summer Wars for the first time and it was only then that it truly hit me. Seeing the way this enormous family functioned together, laughed together, cried together under the caring watch of a loving grandma was such an eerie reflection of my family that I held dear it resonated with me so deeply it that it actually brought out the emotions I didn’t quite know how to process before. That was the moment for me, the moment when you weren’t just watching someone else’s story on screen, you were living it, you had lived it, you wanted to live it. Part of it resonated with a fiber of your being and for a moment you felt a personal connection not to some person, but to something intangible that you were watching. After I felt that for the first time, anime ceased being something that could just entertain me but also something that could also connect to me on some unspoken level that no person has done before.