Personal Narrative: Transitioning From Junior High To High School

That comment on the first day of school was a turning point for me. I learned quickly to embrace all my weirdness and that being Blasian (black/Asian) is fantastic. I have two completely different stories to tell when I talk about my family. I have proven to myself and to my peers that I don't have fit a particular stereotype, I’m good at science, and I can run quickly. High school has been tough, but I’ll leave more resilient and mature than I was three years

Through my time growing up in Corona Queens as a kid I had come to realize something, I was beginning to get shorter as time progressed, the odd part was that I was the tallest in my class, standing at 5,10 in the 7th grade I was considered tall for a kid my age, in addition to only being 12 but regardless as I kept on coming home, I only felt as if I'm getting shorter. one day returning from the library and my reading session about the book Nature I was still in shock about what Henry David Thoreau has said about "sucking the marrow of life", and as I was attempting to think of how I can accomplish what he said, I fell and nearly broke my skull. it was then that I realized that what seemed like a footstep to walk into my home was a 10ft fall.

Going through high school the days were all the same, except for game days. There was just something different about the culture of the school. You could almost feel the excitement in the air. Every “Good luck tonight,” that was received made it feel like the whole school was rooting for me. This was my senior year and tonight was an especially big game. The game that night would decide if we made playoffs and if I could step on the court as a Hawk again.

My transition into high school was as easy as taking a breath. I had always found school quiet easy and I never had to put much effort into getting promising grades. Before high school I had my whole life figured out, or at least I thought I did. I had planned that I would attend a law school or major in English. After a while of being in high school I started to realize many things. My parents did not have the financial stability to send me to a law school, I was not as smart as all the other kids, little by little I began struggling with a negative mentality about myself and my future. I slowly let go of my dream of becoming a lawyer and decided to join the Health Careers Academy. Soon enough, I began to have a deep interest in the medical field but then again I continued to have the same question; how can I afford going to a medical school? I did not know much about college or what it took to get into college. I assumed I just had to have a pretty transcript and that was all it took. My self confidence began to lower as I saw how other students cruised through their high school years so effortlessly. I never wanted to ask for help because I did not want to seem “dumb”. I would bite my tongue and hold in all the unanswered questions I had. My junior year, I was having a very difficult time. I had a tight schedule which consisted of almost all AP or honors courses. I slowly began to give up because I did not believe that I could do it. I let my grades slip failing almost

When I was young I didn’t really realize the impact of being African-American until high school. I went to a predominately white school for elementary and middle school. I was just like any other youth. I had my group of friends who were white; I was active in school activities and clubs. I was a student athlete and I got along well with my teachers. Everyone saw me as an upbeat person with a bubbly personality. Surprisingly, race was never brought up it wasn’t an issue for me during that period of my life. However, as I got older I realize there was a difference. As an adult I could really see the prejudice in others. I recall working a on a special project for the

From Kindergarten up to my sophomore year of High School I attended a private school. My elementary school and high school were slightly diverse. The majority of the student body was Caucasian and the rest were made up of several other races. My school environment was very structured and controlled. I had some great teachers and one or two bad teachers. Around fifth grade I started to notice the way teachers perceived me and the challenges I would deal with due to the color of my skin. There were

Entering the white privileged school the students gave me the first impression. They had huge potty mouths and no respect for others. They were the ones who taught me my first cuss words and taught me how to give others “the bird”. As well as the teachers, they had work ethic… sorta. I remember how my teacher was reading to our class and one of the characters in the book was named “Mrs. Hussy” and another teacher misheard her. Everyone in class laughed but me. I didn’t understand like they did. I learned new things everyday because of these people. Going through all this, I held onto my culture. Why my culture you may ask? Well it’s because within my culture respect is the most important thing. I dealt with all the hooligans in a respectful manner. I had to represent my family in a way to where it shows that my parents have and are currently raising me

Walking the halls at school was an overall awkward situation as I attended a predominantly white private school. It was not uncommon for my peers to make jests and snide comments about the oddity of our relationship. I vividly remember the stunned expressions on the faces of my parents and siblings as I explained that my new boyfriend was not white. While my family was accepting of the news, I was warned to not mention my new relationship to my grandfather who would not be quite as understanding as he would only be blinded by his outdated and old fashioned state of mind. Meeting my boyfriend's parents for the first time was unnerving to say the least. I felt like an exhibit at a museum, being observed and analyzed by a group of people who no doubt had already made their own assumptions of my character. I could see from the skeptical look in their eyes that I was nothing more than a vapid and privileged white girl to them. All of these outward opposing forces undoubtedly created friction within the relationship. I found myself questioning if our racial differences were forcing a wedge between our families and friends or if the relationship was worth the criticism we faced. A few short months later, we called it quits, although not entirely due to the racial

Growing up in America, I have always been surrounded by many cultures and different ethnic groups. Many of those cultures differ from my own traditionally. For the first half of my life, I was raised in detroit, a predominantly black city - I had always assumed. My family eventually moved out of Detroit and we moved to Inkster. Inkster was a much smaller city, but it was also a predominantly black city. In 2011, my family moved from Inkster, Michigan to Canton, Michigan. Although the two cities are less than a half hour apart - the cultural and ethnic groups are extremely diverse. While attending my freshman year of high school in Canton I realized, I was a minority there. More than half of the student body, more than half of the community

Starting high school was a challenge. There are new surroundings and new people to please and impress. Classes were difficult, not because the work was hard but because there was nothing that was the same. New school, new teachers, and new faces to try to please were to much to handle when everything was falling apart at home As time went on, the smile face mask I had to wear everyday got thicker and thicker and it was getting more difficult to put on every morning. The only thing I would do when I got home was do my homework, read a book, maybe watch a little TV, nibble on dinner then go to bed. That was my life and that was my routine for 2 years. When I did go out with friends I would be home way to early and nothing really happened to make

It was the first time me, a black girl from the heart of north philly went to a school like that. It was culture shock for sure. I wasn't used to being around suburban white kids who weren’t exposed to the things I was exposed to. So quite naturally, there were times when the two environmental differences would clash. One day in fifth grade I was in history class and we were presenting projects. The projects were about our heritage and family's immigration to America. Thinking back to what I said earlier, I went to a predominantly white school so of course they'd know when and how their family's came to America. Me being an African-American I don't have the luxury of knowing since Africans were stolen from their land and enslaved. Us being 10 year-olds knew about slavery but didn't think of it that way. I was kind of upset not being able to go in depth about where my family was from and how they immigrated to the U.S. So as it was my turn to go, I told about how my grandmother moved from Georgia to Philadelphia. A boy yelled out that I didn't do the project right so I froze. I then got into an argument with him about it and my teacher pulled us out of

My educational experience with other races had been limited before high school. I can count on one hand the number of classmates from elementary and middle school that were not caucasian. Even in my church there are only a couple of families of color. Entering high school was quite a learning experience for me. Suddenly I was thrust into the world of Joliet West where only a third of the students are white. Entering this new world was like discovering mythical creatures, created by the stories from movies and my older sister, were real. Based on the myths I heard, I found myself questioning if any of the Hispanic students in my classes were illegal immigrants. I encountered loud black girls that intimidated me with their larger than life personalities.

For a short period of time or what would I say my high school years I was interested in law. I wanted to become a lawyer to fight both cases that impacted my life. When I moved to Pennsylvania and went to school where I was one of the few minorities, I realized that it was different. People’s views were very different. I was able to choose the classes I had wished to take. When learned about this I was more interested in school since this was a chance to experience and get taught subjects I found to be most interesting. Law was in fact my favorite subject. Lucky for me there were multiple classes offered for it. Since my freshman year to my senior year I had ended up taking a total of three Law classes. During this time of my life I had started to feel out of place in the school I had attended. Things that I had said or the way I had dressed was just not what they accepted, for example if I was not on the basketball team there should be no reason for me to be wearing certain brands of sneakers. Diversity never seemed to be accepted. I had the need to balance the culture in my life if that could ever make sense to the person that reads this. When trying to integrate my friends together, it never seemed to end well. My friends in white bodies would constantly talk down to my friends in colored bodies. They would always say negative comments about them. What they considered as

After sitting at the same desk for three years, I figured I was beyond seeing anything new. I was wrong. After that third year I saw a lot more than I thought I would. I went up to high school and everything was so much different. The grades were harder, the assignments were harder and the teachers were harder.

When I was at Tad Gormley watching the Blue Jays and realized I couldn’t stand, I learned not everything goes as planned. My parents were helping my sister move into college, so I was attending the Jesuit football game with a babysitter. During the celebration following a score, I knocked my water bottle onto the track; so, in order to retrieve it, I decided to jump over the fence that separates the field and the stands. It didn’t seem like a monumental task as I had jumped over that same four-foot fence multiple times that game alone. Unfortunately, I was standing at a poorly patched area in the fence and as I jumped my foot barely caught the edge of it. Consequently, I fell awkwardly, but I rotated my body to avoid hitting my head and ended