Personal Narrative-Racism, Race, And The Team

When I glance towards him, I give him a reassuring nod and start to pick it up. My heart started pounding faster than It has ever pounded before. I could hear the crowd cheering and saying, “You can do it”, “Keep going”, or my favorite, “Go faster”. Zoey started to pull away from me second by second and I knew that If I just kept going faster I would win. Once I reached 200m to go I started sprinting for my life. Now everyone was cheering and yelling at me (in a good way) for me to finish. As I started to stare at the finish line my eyes started to water until, finally I passed the finish line. My heart was racing, my legs and arms were burning, and I felt like I was about to faint. I was so happy and a little light headed, but mostly happy. When everyone finished I congratulated and hugged my three friends, Zoey, Bella, and Sydney, who finished right after me.

During lunch at the campus cafeteria, Mildred noticed the dirty tables, the overworked cashiers and the exorbitant price for a watery soda.

My Race is Caucasian. My Ethnicity is a German- American. My father was adopted from southern Germany at age of two, into an Italian military family. My mother’s parents came from southern Germany, after world War two. I grew up going to a German afterschool program, where I learned the German language and culture. I am able to speak, write, and understand a fair amount of German. I also danced and was part of a German-Bavarian club until age 12. My sex is female. I believe that my social class would be upper middle class, however, on the lower side of upper middle class. I technically live in Mount Kisco NY, however I went to Chappaqua schools. I spent all of my time in Mount Kisco, my best friend in high school, also was not from Chappaqua

All the time and hard work spent had to pay off for something. I was also determined to beat my biggest rival on the team. She wouldn't hesitate to smear my face in it if she got a faster time than me. We stepped up to the 200 meter starting line and I tried to push the nervous thoughts out of my head. It felt like butterflies were bouncing off the walls of my stomach. We got into the start position and our coach began counting down from 5. It was only 5 seconds but it felt like an eternity. The four of us took off in unison and I could tell I was going to have to give this race everything I had. There was no way I was going to let the others defeat me. I heard the pounding of my feet against the track as I ran the curve. That's when I realized I was already in front of the rest and I began sprinting with every ounce of energy I had left. There were nearly 100 meters to the finish line and my legs were moving so fast it felt as if I was flying. I kept thinking about how much I had been working towards this and how I would not let myself down. Bolting through the finish line I could tell that was one of the best races I've ever run. My lungs felt heavy, legs aching from exhaustion and my eyes were watering from the frigid wind. As my coach was recording my time on his clipboard he revealed how many seconds faster I had been. Not only had I beaten my own personal best, but I had gotten the fastest sub varsity time.

I am a 17 year old Hispanic female who was born in Denver, Co. I now live in the northern part of Denver. I attend an Apostolic church and participate in many of their activities.

I straightened up and saw Adrianna bounding forward in my peripheral vision. Something about someone to catch up to makes me run better. My feet were barely touching the ground as I ran faster than I have before. Just before the finish line I ducked my head forward slightly to gain that extra millisecond. I hopped onto the mat to stop and stood still, waiting for two officials to confirm our lane and school. I was out of breath and my legs hurt but I was satisfied. I congratulated the girls on either side of me for a good race and made my way to get water. I saw Adrianna ran for 7.42 seconds, a personal best even for her. Patricia Adesanya from Lowell Catholic ran 7.70 seconds, another personal best. My name popped up in third, and I was proud of myself even before I saw the time. Along with earning my team a precious six points towards TCLs, I qualified for states with a personal best of 7.90 seconds!

Racial Inequality Situation : A black man in jail thinking about the unfair society I had a pencil the year I came to jail It wore out in a week from writing Penning down my thoughts for all I can Crying in the jail cell counting the bars I sat down on the cold floor with many scars I was all alone No family, no friends, separated from home

I’d like to say I’m a very unique person. Not because of my hair, the way I dress, or how I look, but because of the unique things I bring with the person I am. All my life I’ve been the minority. From my preschool, to my church, my elementary and high school. Being black is something I embrace. I love my melanin skin tone, my nappy hair and I love teaching others about being a young black educated women. It hasn’t always been like that though. For majority of my life I use to try and fit in with the crowd. I use to always wear my hair straight so I could look like the girl standing next to me. My natural hair was beautiful too my mom and everyone else around me, but I felt like I had to step up and wear my hair straight everyday just to feel

I have this fear of being demoted because the way I look. I’m in a constant battle with the questions, am I white or am I mexican? I have an identity crisis on my hands, and growing up those questions weren’t any of my concerns. During the duration of my experiences involving race I have been placed into stereotypes that deceive who I really am. I would look too “mexican” to wear that outfit or I would sound too “white” to learn Spanish. Racial categories are both confusing and senseless, yet is a significant part in our society.

The area I live in offers few opportunities for improving race relations; in fact, there is very little racial diversity in my region. Nevertheless, I am ready to promote better race relations at every chance. Yes, the scale on which I work is small, but it still helps to push our society to become more accepting. I have never participated in a large event or social rights movement, but I still try to make my mark.

Truth to be told: I don’t particularly pay attention to national events or issues. My family is also incapable of comprehending national issues, especially my parents who do not have any level of proficiency in English. My family lives in a world where we go with the flow, but there are issues that I contemplate whether or not I should be involved in, particularly race inequality. Considering the amount of tension between policemen and African-American around the nation, the race to equal treatment is still ongoing.

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 personally don’t feel that I’m prejudice towards a certain race. However, there are some opinions that I hold towards certain ethnic groups and things that I dislike about them. I couldn’t think of one specific ethnic group so I thought of three.

At this meet, instead of a gun, they fire a cannon. The cannon fired and we were off. I felt super slow this meet. I was mad I thought I was going to get a worse time than Bob Schul again. I ran through the race passing people, letting the energy from the crowd keep me going because hearing someone yell for me when I’m running I feel so much better. Eventually I got down this small hill and I saw the finish line about 200 meters ahead. The clock was in the 17’s and I got really excited because for me, this was really good. I was sprinting as fast as my legs could go. I thought I was going to fall on my face because I couldn’t control my legs anymore. I ended up with a time of 18:08. A PR by a minute and a half, that would stand most of the season. No matter how slow I was, and how much my speed was made fun of at practice, I still got high-fives and congratulations after a meet. The rest of the meet was fun because we all hung out, waiting for the award and eating the really good buttered parmesan pasta. Greenville was not death, it was the best.

This was the last race of my high school cross country career, but if our team did well enough, we would advance to the state meet. Our team had never made it that far. Consequently, as one of our team’s top runners, it was important that I race. This presented a challenge though, due to my incurring an unknown injury a few weeks before. My coach trusted me as captain to make the right decision for the team’s success and my health. In the end, I decided to run. However, quickly my decision to compete became complicated. With the start of the race, my injury, which I later found out was a hairline stress fracture on my fibula, evolved to a more severe stress fracture. At this point it was quite painful to run despite the adrenaline rush. I