Personal Narrative: My Heritage

I am a Native American born and raised in Jamestown, Virginia. It was always just my father and I, my mother passed away when I was an infant, so my father raised me to be an independent woman. My father is the head commander of the tribe. He only allowed me to go to the village near our tents. I never went further than the village, till this one day that I was feeling so curious about what was out there, so I decided to walk beyond the village to see what there is to explore.

Much to my own embarrassment, my Hispanic heritage had been a thing I hardly thought of. My Father left my family when I was young, and with him went the hopeful wisps I had of learning about myself. It’s not to say that I wasn’t aware that I was Hispanic, but rather, growing up in a mainly white household I didn’t think I had any right to claim my ethnicity. However, the more I look around me and learn about the community Hispanics have grown accustomed to, the more I find that I understand where I came from. To me, being Hispanic isn’t about what you were told when you were younger, or the traditions you grew up with. Rather, being Hispanic is about learning where you come from, and learning about those who share your same heritage. ‘Hispanic’

The artifact represents personal objects and meaningful moments, person influence on our own life. This is one of the assignment in our program to share our artifacts toward our colleagues and professors. This will take in more about different culture, uniqueness, identity and values of our schoolmates and how they reflected in their life.

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

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, I barely heard the early 2000’s hits blasting from the car radio; instead, Marc Anthony would always serenade us. Growing up, Christmas day didn’t begin Christmas morning; instead Christmas day began Christmas Eve night. Growing up, I didn’t dismiss my heritage; instead, I embraced it. My Latino background defines who I am. Surging throughout my body, my Puerto Rican and Salvadoran heritage has shaped me into the person I am today.

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

Within Hispanic cultures it is very common to view other races as outsiders. I am often viewed this way within my Spanish family, they view me as a “half-bred” because I am half white. While most are conducted using a joking manner, it might not always be the case. It’s pretty easy to feel like any outsider in some situations, however I know they are my family and I know the still love

All things considered, from a young age I was taught all about my background, which happened to be Guatemalan. Both my parents were born and raised in Guatemala along with my four older siblings. My family left Guatemala in the early 1980s as it was unsafe to continue their life there. As a result, both my brother and I were fortunate to be born in Canada. Growing up, both my parents included their traditional customs in our everyday lives. In other words, we then adopted their customs, beliefs, language and learned about our roots. Immigrating from another country, my family found it extremely difficult to accustom themselves to new customs and most importantly norms. At an early, I lost my father and my mother then became a widow who had

The first time my writing was published in the Heritage newspaper, The Structure, was my eighth grade year. I was the only middle school student to be published in the high school paper that year. Since the day my first article was published, the journalism room has been my second home.

My History: This is the story about me, and my family’s heritage. From my mom’s side of the family they are from Germany. From my dad’s side of the family they came from Holland. I was born on December 29 1997 at around 3:00 a.m. My dad’s parents moved to the U.S. because he was deployed. My Mom’s parents moved because of the same reason. My dad was born in California in a city located just outside of Las Angeles. My mom was born in Lawton, Oklahoma. I am currently an 11th grade student at Eisenhower high school at 5202 West Gore Blvd. Lawton, Ok 73505. I am currently working on getting my high school degree. If I don’t go to college then I will be

You could ask anyone who knows me personally to tell you one thing about me and I know they will all answer with the same thing. Allison is Irish. Really, really Irish. My Irish heritage is what makes me who I am. From my curly hair to my pale skin and all the freckles in between. Being Irish has always been something that I am proud of. Throughout my life, I have continuously been interested in foreign languages and the history of European countries. I have even begun trying to learn some conversational Gaelic in my spare time. This trip would be the adventure of a lifetime for someone like me who enjoys travel and learning about the world around them.

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.

I think of my food heritage as second-hand heritage. I never had a rich food heritage growing up, but my parents did. They both grew up on farms in rural Romania. They raised their own chickens, cows, and pigs. They knew, and on a daily basis did, milk cows, collect eggs, kill and pluck a chicken to cook, and made do with the grains and produce they grew themselves. My mother told me the story of how she was a teenager when she tried coffee for the first time. I, on the other hand, grew up in Florida about fifteen years after my parents moved to America. My mother still cooked the same food that she was taught to make and eat when she was growing up in Romania, but she went grocery shopping a few blocks away for her chicken and flour instead

Our history is what defines us, shapes us, it is what we have done but doesn't necessarily mean what we are going to do. I was born in Southern California into a Mormon family and I love my life. The moving trucks came when I was five and off we went to the smack-dab-middle of the USA: Kansas City, Missouri. Instead of the ocean we now had corn fields and cows. What a trade! I grew up in the country, which was a dream come true for an adventurous kid like me. I could ride my dirt bike as far as I could see. Wrestling was big in my small town, so at a young age I joined a club team. It is now a near useless sport that I did for ten years. You see, no ones goes to the church tuesday nights to wrestle, but I did lean hard work, patience, and perseverance