Personal Narrative: My Life As A Young White Girl

Hi, Julie. I had never thought about the white culture. It took me awhile to look at everything as a whole and to point out what I believe is white culture. For example, July 4th, Thanksgiving, hamburgers, hot dogs, baseball, and football. Although I am half Hispanic, my father raised me in a white American culture. Granted part of my personal white culture included traditions from my Irish and English heritage. I began to celebrate my Hispanic heritage in my early 20's.

Growing up as an african american male it was hard to identify my character throughout my educational career. At a very young age my dad alway wanted me to succeed in life, but in the back of my mind I always thought “ Am I really cut out to becoming successful”. I grew up in a culturally diverse suburban area. Growing up in the suburban area I made unbreakable bonds that will forever exist.

All throughout time people have been “the other.” Pratt refers to the other as being “Someone who is perceived by the dominant culture as not belonging, as they have been

I'm a student from another school the main school I went to was Potomac State College in West Virginia. It's a predominally white school and it was a couple of African Americans and greater part whites. The sum prejudice I continued at that school was sufficient for me to go to HBCU. I got shot at and called a wide range of names because of the shade of my skin. I wasn't generally glad where I inhabited as well. It was nation situated; the closes store was 1 hour away. It takes a while to go anyplace. It simply wasn't the spot for a city young lady like me.

Too black for the White kids, yet somehow too white for the Black kids, oh the perils of a cappuccino mixed race kid. But it’s true. My life since I was young, at least younger than my eighteen year old self, has been about which group do I most fit in with. Between the four school changes over the course of twelve years, all in white suburban towns I’ve molded myself into an array of characters.

“I was born a poor black child” on the Gulf coast of Mississippi in Biloxi, Harrison county. It was the eleventh day of February 1961. I was delivered in the hospital at Keesler Air Force Base where my father was a lieutenant going through pilot training. My mom was now an even busier homemaker with the arrival of child number three in just 27 months.

It all began in the year 1955. This was the year that so many great things shook the foundation of America that will never be forgotten for years and years to come. My name is Joyce Norman I was a military brat that was born and raised in the small town of Fayetteville, North Carolina along with one brother and four sisters. To show a little humor, this is another place like Texas that has bipolar weather from sunny skies with a hint of rain to a giant blizzard that’ll give you a death of pneumonia. Throughout, the years of my life as an African American we heard songs of change, we were insured and inspired in church that change would come some way or another either in the community or in our nation. As the world continued to change I

When my mother decided to quit her accounting job to homeschool me (and the other future siblings that were not in existence at this point) it was hard. Being a homeschooled black family was even more isolating since it was rare to find another black family that homeschooled. At this point in our lives, she had never been surrounded with diversity so stepping outside of her comfort zone and joining an all-white homeschooled group was a brave step. But little did she know that her hopes of a positive experience would be crushed due to prejudice. I was too young to recognize all of the prejudice that the other moms held against her, but I can only accept it as a bigoted reality that some may choose to live in.

Life was to challenging for a young African American boy like me. My mother always yelling at me, “Jonathan stay inside, you are more safe in here!” People tell me I am different in a bad way. But when I try to enjoy my life, I am told to leave. I can not go to many places, as they have many signs saying, “No Negroes Allowed” Or when I am able to live a normal life, I am separated and put into a certain spot. Life was very challenging, but as life went on and I went to school, I gained more knowledge on what was really happening. The whites were being biased on African Americans. They thought they were better than us, and we were the minorities. This was very unconstitutional of them. I realized that we did not have the equality rights of others.

I identify myself as a seventeen year old African American female. I was raised in Washington D.C. in a 5 family member household. I went to an elementary school with Latino and African American students. My mother is from Sierra Leone in West Africa and my father is from Washington D.C. Growing up i was taught to be proud of my heritage and my dark skin tone. My parents taught me that black is beautiful .Contrary in television ads and TV shows they only portray caucasian females as beautiful and smart and African American females as lower class , unintelligent and urban ghetto. While growing up I’ve learned that black features like having a big nose or big lips were seen as unappealing and badlooking but recently there have been trends

It was a foggy day around my neighborhood so I thought it wasn’t a good idea to go out.The paper boy threw a newspaper in front of my house so I went out to get it.I see some white boys in a truck in the distance they have something in there hand, they get closer and I see they have rocks in their hand I run home while they were bombarding me with rocks.I made home and I'm bleeding from my head, I clean myself up and I see it left a gash on my head.I went downstairs and heard the phone ring up stairs I pick up the phone and find out that I have been accepted in an all white school, the first thing I hope for is that those white boys are not at that school to.

In my own experience, race has never been an issue and hasn’t restricted me in any areas. Being white, however, I may have unknowingly reaped benefits. Due to this, it is sometimes hard to wrap my mind around the obstacles other people run into based on their race. My stance on race has not evolved much from age four to seventeen. However, with information obtained through social media and in-school discussions on the topic, I have come to better understand the views of others on racial issues.

I grew up here in the U.S.A and my parents from the U.S also. I live in an ethnically diverse community that the residents show a deeper understanding of their ancestry’s culture. The term of senses that I witness is sight and audio. Since on the daily basis I hear, people speak other languages such as Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, French, and Japanese. In the term of sight, I see who are from Asian background bow to each, African American nod at each other when walking pass, and people just slight smiling at each other. From my culture since I am African American we really do not that many of greeting each other. We would slight nod or smile and make eye contact or for the males who do a doing the handshake and shoulder bump maneuver.

I am classified as a junior but really only in my second year of college so I have at least two more years to become more assured and refined in my study of Chinese. In my level 3 Chinese course, I feel that my upcoming semester in Beijing will vastly improve my speaking and listening. I hope my plan to follow a pledge of only speaking and using Mandarin unless I’m contacting family and close friends will assist me in this challenge. I expect that my full-time language courses will also help since I will be taking twenty class hours per week focusing on comprehension, speaking, listening, and reading. I predict that being fully immersed in class and going to as many tutoring and group events will help me grow in my understanding and use of Chinese.

White, that’s what I notice when I opened my eyes. I searched the area around myself, and the only item I can observe is just a white area. There were no people, buildings, plants, or animals; just a blank canvas world. At first, I didn’t know what to do, until I started to call out to hear if someone is here. I called out three times, and the only sound I can hear is my voice echoing.