Personal Narrative: My Relationship With Vastly Diverse Groups

The majority of my family comes from Africa and has been very divided since I was born so that probably really affects the way I am now. Such as how parents put a very strong emphasizes on education, religion, and other more traditional things which can be both good and bad. For example, sometimes when I tell my mother my feeling towards something she finds it disrespectful that I would even bring it up if it goes against her views. Probably due to her belief that you must respect your elders, and to her me having an opinoun contrary to her is disrespectful. I thinik thats the reason why I have problems being vulnerable emotionally with others, which is what i’ve been trying to work on changing. I’ve for the most part had the same friends

What is identity? The definition as a person’s own sense of whom they are, which their past define them. Identity is very important in our society, no matter your social status. I can attach identity to belonging to something or place. As human race, we feel the need to belong to a group or place. Because belonging to a group or place, give us the sense of identity.

Identity is a complex ideal that everyone struggles with. Consequently, people often will not act as who they are due to a fear of being ridiculed. To me this is such a ridiculous time waster, instead this time people waste on being someone else could be used for much more meaningful memories. Society makes people feel like they have to fit a mold, yet I personally have learned from my dad that it is a necessity of life to accept who you are.

“Don’t let the Arab play dodgeball with us. He might try killing us.” As I looked around exasperatedly for the origin of this voice, I was greeted with a barrage of laughter. I did not have the cultural or linguistic qualifications to be deemed Arabic. Nor could my long, spindly arms cause harm. Yet, slowly, and in unison, each of my new sixth-grade classmates turned to stare at me. “Hey Arab, wipe that target off your forehead,” someone called out. I quickly realized my verbal assailant had mistakenly connected my tilak chandlo, a distinct Hindu forehead marking, with his own misinformed understanding of “Arab-ness.” My first lunch period ended with a bloody nose and a seat in the principal’s office. From that point forward, my future in middle school and high school appeared rather grim. The prospect of re-educating my peers seemed daunting and unmanageable.

Culture and identity are inextricably linked concepts. Identity is formed by your culture and in turn your identity shapes the respective cultures of the groups you identify with. I belong to many different cultural groups, and my identity is a complex web of competing and conflicting beliefs, experiences, and characteristics. My identity is not only complex, but also dynamic, as the experiences I have change who I am.

In retrospect, my high school career could have been described as culturally enriching, and diverse. My four years of high school enabled me to develop a fair amount of close relationships with many students of diverse ethnicities, and backgrounds. My group of friends, many of whom were foreign exchange students at my school, were natives of Spain, Chile, Germany, China, Liberia, South Korea, Turkey, Switzerland, and France. Befriending people from other cultures was an engaging experience that subsequently alters one's outlook on life. In many instances, I was able to assist my new found friends in helping them adapt to life at a tiny American high school. Occasions would arise where many of them would be in need of a study partner or a translator and ultimately studying became more of a relational and cultural “question and answer” exchange among our group of friends.

In fact, the global mindset is an individual thought to help the global leader understand the current global situation. Thinking globally is not just having international experience. It is more likely to help people enter globalization. The GMI report reflects everyone status of global mindset. In my report, the passion for diversity is lower than the average score. It means my passion for diversity in global mindset needs to improve. In my opinion, passion for diversity is means accept different global culture, ideology and behavior habit. I think I am very happy to accept them, but I lack long-time live in other countries, and depths understand human value. If I stay new countries for a long time, I feel panic. However, I enjoy travel other

The key to creating a harmony is incorporating and embracing the uniqueness of the individual notes. As a pianist and a ballet dancer, I am quite familiar with this concept in its literal sense. In regard to my personal interpretation of this concept, I believe that I was able to find harmony in my identity by embracing my cultural diversity. As a proud daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, I have chosen to embrace the aspects of both American and Ghanaian culture that I value the most to serve as the foundation of my identity.

Despite growing up in rural Oregon, I have had numerous opportunities to experience diversity. In the small town of Dallas, Oregon, people are accustomed to close-knit groups. It is a town where everyone knows their neighbor, and where each individual has the same values as the next. At a young age, I never had the chance to realize the sheltered life that I was living.

Identity. Who we are. How we define ourselves. Imagine taking away something that defines you. You’re left feeling “who am I?”

Who has a cultural identity? Only people who lead big lives or do crazy things have things that are interesting to them, right? As it turns out, this is not true at all. Everyone has a cultural identity, and it is made of many things that might fly over our heads and seem normal to us, but completely foreign to others. Only recently have I started to delve into my identity and really started to appreciate how different I am to others, my specialties and experiences and even how I view basic life and others around me. There are thousands of factors that contribute into making you into you and me into me, and as you could go on for a very long time venturing into them, I only needed to reflect on a few to find out

The majority of people find it natural to separate what they believe from who they are as an individual. They are able to draw conclusions from what they believe to be true about the world and have separate experiences that they allow to define them. However, I am very intentional about not allowing experiences to define what I believe to be true or allow it to carry much weight in defining me as an individual. In a perfect world, I would rather allow my experiences to be an expression of what I believe.

How many different “hats” do we each wear on a daily bases. From our careers, to our family and friends we all have different identities that we claim and live out day to day. These identities help us define who we are. “When we identify ourselves, we draw on a host of different characteristics associated with various social groups to which we belong” (King 2012, pg. 429). My ornament is explaining the social identity through a snow-women and her many hats.

My family is very diverse. Therefore, growing up I have had the ability to experience people from different races, ethnic groups, and sexuality. I have family members that are black, white, native American, Hawaiian, West Indian, and Hispanic. So my cultural background affected my views of other ethnic groups as no different than myself. Although, we are all Christians I was never taught or persuaded to view people who don’t believe as I do, different. I view black people as people who are misunderstood by most races that aren’t their own. I view them as a part of me, in neither a positive or negative way. Being that my family is so diverse I wasn’t given any negative messages towards people from other backgrounds.

Identifying my role in group took about several hours to determine over the course of several weeks with countless snack breaks in between. In the initial sessions of the school year, I recall sharing how “being more intentional” with my sharing is a goal I’d like to work towards. I needed to be confident in my sharing and confront honest versus artificial feelings. I wasn’t exactly how sure that was going to play out throughout the course of the semester, but I believe I grasped opportunities when presented to challenge myself and establish an effective role in the group. With that, in combination of feedback from group members and self-reflections, I determined my role in the group was “the premeditator”.