Personal Statement On Origin Family

An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions is described as ”Families, friends, co-workers and others all are groups based on common interests and experiences” (300). A folk group that everyone is born into is their family. Familial folk groups can share values, beliefs and anecdotes, similar to other folk groups (39). However, unlike other folk groups, one does not choose their family. This leaves some people, like myself, to question their belonging within this folk group. Although I share some beliefs with my family, we disagree on others many others. The many differences between me and my family leads me to feel as if I have one foot in my folk group and another outside. The internal conflict about my sense of belonging has forced me to make decisions that have contributed to the creation of my individual identity.

My parents and grandmother are large influencers of who I am today and who I aspire to be in the future. My mother, father and grandmother couldn’t be more different from each other, but they all have one aspect in common: they’re immigrants. My parents moved to Florida in the 90s, in the hopes of providing a better life not only for themselves, but their future family. Once my sister and I were born, my grandmother moved to Florida to take care of us while my parents were working. My mother, father and grandmother have each instilled lessons of their journeys and hardships that come from being an immigrant in America. These lessons have shaped me into the person I am today.

My mother would start the mornings with a “Levantese que hay mucho que hacer”, in translation, “Wake up there is so much to do today”. Every day, the wakeup call was at 5:30 in the morning and it started with a list of chores. Occasionally, we would sleep until 7:30 in the morning on the weekends to more chores and whatever else was on the list. My mother was regimental and the “A” typical Latina mother, very old school. Not a day went by where my brother and me didn’t do chores and helped around the house. Lord forbit that she would have to repeat herself twice on our individual chores. She constantly reminded me that one day I would become a wife and would have to know how to take care of my family, “A man does not like a lazy wife and you would want to stay married to the same man you have exchanged vowels with”, she would say. Seeing that she was remarried two times already, I did not understand why she would expect it from me. None -the-less, I did what I was told and without any galivanting I accomplished every task assigned to me.

Personal, Family History and educational experiences: There have been many instances where I have seen the Lord’s hand in my life. Growing up I was very friendly, diligent, and thirsted for every opportunity I had to help others. I loved making others happy and as time went on, I realized a lot about the world around me. When I had started middle school I recognized what it felt like to have depression. Being bullied about my weight made me want to stop learning and helping others. My strength did not feel good enough. At the same time in my life, my older brothers were both alcoholics and would eventually end up in and out of rehab for a majority of my childhood. I envied my sister who was able to leave and go to college. I felt very abandoned.

Across the span of our lives, we all experience enduring hardships that shape and ascertain the person we show to the world today. At the age of three I was taken from my biological parents, based on charges of domestic violence and substance abuse, and subsequently placed in the foster care system. I was moved from home to home, in and out of the system, for nearly seven years until I was adopted in 2013. My involvement and maturity within foster care, and my adoption thereafter, have molded my personality and demeanor as of now.

There are days I spend listening to my great grandmother talk about the things she did in Cuba, along with telling her about my experiences at the hospital and my aspirations. Accordingly, I realized the good intention my grandparents had when they picked out my grammatical errors. I made peace with the times my grandparents had given me the ultimatum of speaking Spanish or remaining silent, for it was an opportunity to exploit my skills. My encounter with the Cuban elderly couple at the hospital helped animate my roots; in addition to amplifying how important it is to embrace any room for

Furthermore, not all family has to be related. People often think of their closest friends as family, especially if they have known each other for a long time. Sometimes people can relate more to their friends than their biological family. According to Grace Marguerite Williams, in an article titled “Family Does Not Have To Mean Blood Family”, “ Many times as a person becomes older, friends become family because you have more common interests with your friends than you do with your blood family” (Williams, Grace). Friends are often able to understand each other better than some family members. Consequently, we learn to rely on friends as if they were our actual family, thus we eventually begin considering them as such.

Family history is very important to an individual. By knowing where you come from, you can have a better perspective of your life and of others. Every person has a different origin, a different story to tell, and it’s up to the next generation to share the story of their ancestry to future generations. The paternal side of my family originated in Ireland, they later came over through Elis Island and resided in Waukon, Iowa. Throughout time my family moved and expanded, as generations past the McKenna name would broadened.

When I first started this project I didn’t know a lot about my family history. I was told that my mom’s side was from Germany and that my dad’s side is from Ireland and while I was able to verify that I also learned so much more. I was about to located two different 4th great grandparents on Ancestry.com and uncover over 40 relatives that I never knew about dating back until 1800. I am grateful for what I have learned in the process of writing this paper because without it I may have never learned about my true culture and the family I come from.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “where did I come from”? When did my family come to america, or were they already here? I hadn’t really until I found out I had to write this paper. Now that I do though, I’m glad I have to ask myself these questions. Everyone should learn their family 's history at one point or another, so let me tell you about mine.

The one thing that sets an individual from other individuals is the uniqueness of one’s heritage. Heritage is the essential part of a person 's life, it is the very foundation that an individual future is built from. Heritage can be based on a family values, tradition and environment. Traditions, and cultural legacies come from grandparents or older relatives, they contribute to our family values. We all take the parts of the past that means the most to us, and combine it with the new traditions. In this paper, I will discuss what heritage is, the importance of how heritage identifies an individual, or can it inhibit an individual’s self-identity, and finally look at some family tradition that makes up one’s heritage.

"In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage - to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.” –Alex Haley

I had lost all sense of feeling the moment my eyes set upon them. I could not move from the spot I was in, and my best friend, Sophia, was trying to nudge me in their direction. But it felt as though my feet were glued to the floor as I stared at the five people in front of me. That's my birth family; I thought to myself as I stared at them in slight shock. My eyes filled with tears, my cheeks stained with them; I couldn’t stop myself from crying so much. But, truthfully, I did not think that this day was ever going to happen. Not once did it cross my mind that I would meet my birth family, especially not when I was sixteen and alone, with just my best friend to comfort me. I should have been more comfortable around them. I should have. I had been talking to them since I was twelve years old, but I just was not prepared for this. They were not my family, anyways. They were strangers to me.

I derive most of my identity from my Mother’s side of the family tree, so this autobiography will be a little lopsided; much like my personality. My maternal grandmother’s family came from Sonder Stenderup of Jutland, Denmark and my maternal grandfather’s family is of German descent. The original family name was Gron, however my great grandfather change the surname to Green in order to sound more American. My mother’s grandparents came from Jutland, Denmark in 1905 and my grandmother was born in Racine in 1920. The only characteristic I inherited from that side of the family is my punctuality, my outspokenness, and my ability to drink.

As I assembled my genogram paper, I entered an interesting voyage through my family 's history. After consideration and researching my family 's history, I stumbled across a number of shared characteristics of both nature and sympathy. Doing so made unknown information instantly available to my knowledge. I was able to learn about my parents, my parents parents’, and my parents’ parents’ children.