Personal Narrative: My Growing Up In American Culture

Growing up, I always thought of myself as an American Girl — until I walked into an American Girl Doll store. As the 7 year old daughter of an Art professor who spent an unusual amount of time listening to her mother ramble about artists such as Monet at art museums, I never had the opportunity to explore an American girl doll store until one of my book club friends offered to take me there. So when that happened, I gathered up my life assets of exactly $13.22 and determined that I was going to make an American girl doll, that looked like myself, the first ever purchase purely of my own.

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.

Growing up in Ghana, I had heard a lot of things about the U.S. This was a country I had always wanted to visit; my prayer was answered when I got the opportunity to travel there. Arriving in a new environment came with many experiences. Adjusting with food, language and the weather was not easy. With the passage of time, however I have been able to0 adjust and fit it. This write-up therefore is to elaborate on my experiences since coming to U.S.

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

Growing up in the United States, popular culture has always threatened some part of my cultural identity. In this sense, I can sympathize with a legion of other youths in the same situation. In order to assimilate into American culture, it becomes almost absolute to lose some part of ethnic heritage. Although I still spoke and understood the language, it was progressively harder for me to communicate to my immigrant parents.

Walking, walking, and more walking. Today is the day that we begin traveling to Fiume to board a steamship to this place called America. My family doesn't have a lot of money so we can't afford a ride to the port. I only have one pair of shoes and they have many holes in them. We've walked for what seems like an eternity or at least to me. Today is very bittersweet. We're leaving the only place I've ever called home to live in a place we've never seen before. IM not ready to leave. I love Italy but I know it is no longer safe for me, my mom, and my dad. I'm only six years old but I'm old enough to know this could be all a lie. What if America isn't so amazing? What if we done make it? What if we get sent back? So many questions and not

Living in America gives us many freedoms and many blessings. I started my life in the Ukraine. This situation or circumstances I do not know. I came to America when I was 18 months old. A nice family, who lived in America, changed my life by adopting me. Being an

I was born in Havana, Cuba and lived there for ten years. If I am honest I cannot remember much about Cuba unlike my mother; however even though I cannot remember much I always used to think that Cuba was home regardless of how long we stayed in America. Similar to most children I took after the actions of my parents while growing up. If my mother and grandmother spoke about Cuba or any topic related to it I would listen to them and then I tried to have the same conversation with my uncle as if to let them know that I was thinking about Cuba as well. I used to believe that when we flew over to America we brought Cuba with us and that was a normal thing; however my thinking was changed over the course of only one year in America.

An anonymous poet once said “ABC and NBC do not weep” and “as blood drips from my television screen onto my living room floor, but I walk around it.” This powerfully speaks to the desensitization of the American society, and to twenty-first-century society as a conglomeration. Every night's millions of us sit down to watch some crime series such as Criminal Minds or NCIS. These shows give society a fractured, disjointed account of the justice system and law enforcement, but they also cause us to become comfortable with the idea of murder and a broken justice in a way, “[the] blood drips from [our] television screen onto [our] living room floor[s], but [we] walk around it,” masking the horror and rationalizing it. I have fallen victim to this

America’s gift to my generation is freedom. Freedom is the right to do what one wants, lives where he/she wants, eat what they want, and choose the religion in which he or she believes in without ignoring or harming other people’s rights. Freedom is an important gift. Freedom allows schools, buildings, and public places to have many types of people; gays, lesbians, Asians, African Americans, girls, and boys. Back when Martin Luther King Jr was alive, their schools were segregated; meaning Caucasian people couldn’t go to school with African Americans. Some of my best friends are not the same race or religion as me. Well I, had the gift of freedom to choose my friends. I have one best friend since the second grade who isn’t the same race or religion

On my first day of pre-kindergarten, I entered the classroom slowly placing one foot onto the ground after another gripping onto my Strawberry Shortcake backpack tightly seeking protection. I arrived at the classroom door and noticed something. The children frolicking around the room playing tag were different. The other children had skin the color of snow and chocolate, while mine resembled that of caramel. Of course, I had encountered those of other races or ethnicities, however it was overwhelming and quite sudden for me, for some reason. Perhaps I had expected all the other children to look similar to me. I had not realized at the time that my town had had very few Indians at the time, and had a white and black majority. I had been quite

What do you want to be when you grow up? When I was four, I wanted to be a princess, like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty; except, without the evil step-family and the vengeful evil queen hunting me. I wanted the pretty dress; and let’s be honest, I wanted the handsome prince. By the time I was nine, I was convinced I would be country star. I wanted to be the best of the best, and stardom seemed like the way to do it. With Taylor Swift as my idol there was no way my plan could go awry. Thirteen hit me and I decided I was too grown up for such childish desires, and my plans changed to becoming a neurosurgeon. Today, if you were to ask me who I want to be when I grow up, my reply would be that I have no clue. I can only tell you three things I want to do; the same three things I have to do. I have to remain hopeful, become the best version of me that I can possibly be, and most importantly, I have to pursue my dreams. These are my responsibilities to America.

Life in the United States for us had been unkind. My father and I lived in a really beaten up trailer home in NE Portland. We had no money and were on the verge of being homeless. Too poor to buy food from the grocery store, we survived on nearly spoiled food from local food banks and the extra food I’d bring from school. Our trailer, with poor 1970’s insulation and paper thin aluminum tin exterior was an icebox that accumulated all that winter could give. We had no heating, nor electricity, so much of my of time, I spent at my high school, which kept me warm and fed me Monday through Friday. Conditions had been so severe that few times we just abandoned our lives the United States altogether lived in different countries such as Bolivia,

When I came to America I experienced generalization about American culture because here different culture and people behave differently. At the beginning it was hard for me to adapt to host culture but overtime I stared to acquire American culture. However, I still remember my own culture because my background plays big role. I think the same idea applies to the werewolves because now they started to know more about host culture but they think that their culture is better. It's hard for girls to generalize host culture because they don't want to change their

In Middle Eastern culture, the process is often more important than accomplishing the goal. Manner and style are extremely important, along with showing respect to co-workers and even opposing individuals when negotiations are involved. It is my family tradition to consider each human being to have infinite worth and so to be treated with ultimate respect, dignity and concern for the preservation of one’s self image. Yet being born in America and reared in Pennsylvania and California, I am the product of American culture. In America, time and money are often considered more important than the feelings of people. This can be metaphorically detailed when comparing American football to bullfighting in Spain. In football, when the end is running out for a pass like a beautiful gazelle, the ball is thrown, and he is cut in half by the defensive player, thus he does not score and the crowd rooting for the other