Personal Narrative: The Color Of Their Skin

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 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

I am an African American. You must be wondering what’s my name since im “black”, you might be thinking that its ghetto, right? No need to know where I came from, you must think that I come from the projects right? It’s not like it’s important to you. You probably think that my future plans are that I won’t finished high school and that I will become pregnant. One look at the color of my skin is all it takes. Right? Look again.

The worker contacted Misty Black who is a friend of Brittany Hardin. Mrs. Black stated “Brittany was in a situation where her ex (well she told me they were already broken up at the time) had assaulted her. Brittany had called me after Ronita Grady had hit her so I immediately called the police and made my way to Brittany. When I arrived the OCPD were already there speaking to Brittany. The officers also spoke to me and I told him I was the one who called them. After the police left Brittany and the boys stayed with me for a couple days because Brittany was still shaken up. The boys all seemed okay, I don’t think they really knew what had just happened. Brittany thanked me for helping her, because at the time we weren’t really speaking to

Every day in our society, people continue to be discriminated against because of the color of their skin. We, as a society, like to believe that oppression and discrimination ended long ago, thanks to the Civil Rights movement. However, there continues to be a misunderstanding about the differences we possess in our skin color and, unfortunately, the belief that we are separated by race, continues to stratify mankind.

I am a spoiled rich kid. I live in an upper middle class town located in one of the prosperous countries in the world. I attend to a competitive school with qualified teachers who care about their students. I have seemingly endless opportunity to participate in my community or gain experience in a job. I have fair skin, living in a world where is being Caucasian is advantageous.

I interviewed an African American male in his 50s. This means he is in the middle adulthood stage of life. One of the biggest challenges that he faces is being black in America. He seemed to have a whole lot to say about this concept and struggle that he faces. Every day, all over the country, criminal activity is happening at a seemingly higher and higher rate. The evil that inhabits the globe can never be ended. There are few people, still, who choose to try. The police, the government, the news teams, all of these groups of people are supposedly dedicated to awareness and driven to push crime down to a minimum by alerting the people and keeping the peace. A self-governing species as they are, humans are prone to error, fallibility, and imperfection,

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.

Every person identity with their known heritage. For myself, I identity myself as African American or black because that is what I have been told for a young age I should identity with. I am envious of everyone who can trace their heritage back and proudly pronounce their ethnic group instead of using a generic term for their racial group. For example, my supervisor is Spanish and German but raised in France. The scenic designer is Portuguese and English. Lastly, an assistant stage manager is British but was raised in American.

I have been taken by rival a tribe from my homeland and since sold to outsider white men. I have done no wrongs in my lifetime. I have served an honest life doing my upmost to provide for my family and tribe. Now, I find myself restrained in this horrific place. I am laying in not only my own feces, but the feces of nearly 100 others. I am restrained to the floor of this boat with many others that look very similar to me, yet I cannot understand them. The man to my left will not stop sobbing and speaking in what sounds like gibberish to me. Every so often he gets so enthusiastic with his sorrows that one of the white men comes down and beats him within an inch of his life, he too yelling in a language I do not

Starting on my mother’s side of the family, I will start with her mother background. My great grandmother, was black, and as far as we know he parents were black as well. However, my great-great grandmother, the mother of my great grandfather was Panamanian and my great-great grandfathers, the father of my great grandfather had a Panamanian mom and a Spanish Indian and Jamaican father. My great grandfather however called himself a British subject, he was born in Panama however lived in the British west indies. My great grandfather followed his aunt to Boston because allegedly his mother died giving birth to a younger sibling and his father remarried and the step mother and my great grandfather were unable to get along. Therefore, my grandmother would be considered

My first recollection of race was daycare. I remember seeing many different skin and eye colors but didn’t understand how they were so much more different than me. I recall asking my mother why I didn’t have green eyes and how my skin color was different. She explained everyone is made differently that’s what makes them unique. My first recollection of racism was in third grade. The nurse came to the classroom to check the classroom for lice. Myself and a few other classmates weren’t checked properly because she didn’t want to touch our hair. Instead of bringing us out individually she called us by a group which made me feel different. Also, I was told it’s impossible to get lice because of the hair products used.

While looking for studies for this literature review, it was found that there are not many peer reviewed journals on narrative identity and race. There were only about 150 studies that have the same basis as this study and this illustrates that this topic is still a relatively new idea and needs more research to break ground on narrative identity and race identity. In a similar research study, oral and written race narratives were collected from 80 self-identified Black and Multiracial students at a historically Black university using the Guided Race Autobiography and the Race Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire (Mangum 2011). Race narratives (N = 447) were coded for narrative structure, race thematic content, and emotional tone, while descriptive

Someone else may not come to terms with their racial identity through the exact stages that I have but, I have gone through most of the stages and that has helped to shape who I am right now. Although I am still going through the last couple stages, these realizations are helping me fully come to terms with being a Mexican American in a mainly white dominated society. The day I met my biological father was the day I learned that I was Mexican.

As a kid, it was not uncommon for the neighborhood children to migrate to my house during the summer. Activities constantly involved king or queen of the treehouse, go-kart rides, hide-and-go-seek in the woods, eight ball on the pool-table, horseback rides, clay fights in the fishpond, and drinking mother's one-of-a-kind sweet tea. My mother was constantly introduced to new kids each week. Therefore, I didn't understand my mother's reaction to my new friends as I was showing them the same hospitality I have shown all my friends. Her tone became stern as she glared at me and said, "I told you no visitors today. Your room is a mess and you are behind on your chores." Sifting through my memories for recollection and coming