Reflection On Race And Ethnicity

Do you ever wonder how people label you? I would always think myself as a Latina; I never knew there was a difference between Latino and Hispanic. Now I know I’m Hispanic, a Spanish speaker. I consider myself Mexican-America; i believe that being Mexican doesn't come from a place of belonging to some predetermined cultural / ethnic/ racial category. It comes from a huge family and feeling at home. It comes from my mother freshly fried pinto beans and homemade tortilla. From my father stories when he was young .Instead of playing pin the tail on the donkey I destroy piñatas and play musical chairs.

“Culture is fluid. Culture is smoke. You breathe it. You eat it. You cant help but hearing it… I am in favor of assimilation. I am not in favor of assimilation. I recognize assimilation” (Rodriguez 143). All in all, I am accepting of the labels society may put on me, for now. I'm growing up in a community that values peoples differences and accepts that we are all American in our own way. Being racially identified is not important to me, I don’t believe it makes me, or anybody else, who there are today.

Growing up in a Hispanic household has taught me many things. I have learned to see things as an optimistic person, and that it doesn’t matter where you come from as long as you work hard for what you want anything is possible. My family has always implemented the values of life that lead me to perceive what it was about to throw at me.

My Hispanic identity and heritage is an important part of my identity because it has shaped my journey as student and guided me in discovering my passion in life. I strongly believe being the daughter of immigrant parents has pushed me to work harder as a student and has motivated me to search for ways to help my Hispanic community. Since my parents and the majority of my family are immigrants from Mexico, this unique position has exposed me to the reality of thousands of people who come to the country looking for the American Dream, but also the difficult obstacles they face in their daily lives. As a child, I witnessed how my Hispanic community lived in the shadows and were afraid to speak up when injustices occurred because of the inability to speak English and the lack of knowledge

It appears to be that the discussion of race and class in America has become amplified, especially in the last couple of years. For many, it is a touchy subject that hits close to home. With the presence of social media and news that feeds off of racial tension in America, the issues are polarizing and difficult to productively discuss. America’s handling of race and class relations is generally not something to be proud of, and there exists a long history of issues with race. It is clear that there is a lack of understanding and empathy of what others experience toward those who are oppressed. So often it is too easy to dismiss another human’s experiences as reality if one has had no prior encounter with the same challenges. Race is easy to sweep under the rug, but we must address the problem, and it is not a one size fits all solution. It is a problem that has been years in the making and continues to have an enormous impact on our human capital from an economic standpoint. And most of the time, there is a correlation between race and class.

Growing up in a Hispanic household has its ups and downs. As a first generation Latina, I have family members that are always encouraging me, wanting the best for me, and pushing me to succeed in life so that I don't go through the same hardships that they went through. I have seen struggles my parents have gone through to get to where they are now, but giving it their all to giving my siblings and I the best.

Being Hispanic is being able to enjoy and demolish your mom’s tamales at Christmas. Being Hispanic is also being able to explain horchata to your friends and watch soccer games with your family. It’s being able to be proud of your culture and roots. However, being Hispanic is living in fear. Being Hispanic means sometimes you don’t know if your parents will come home from work. It’s being petrified that your dad may get pulled over because he is driving without a license. Being Hispanic is seeing your mom come home, tired from a low paying job, because she could not pursue an education. Hispanic means working hard in life to make your parents proud, to make all the looks of discrimination worth it. Being Hispanic is also being told “no” repeatedly,

It school we identified our self as Hispanic, not Mexican, or Salvadorian. Friendships were build by what you like to play, not where you were born. Food was good not matter what. I spend my childhood living in South Central surround by African Americans and other Hispanic. My identity took an impact in adulthood, when I need to define my self on who I was. In fact, as adult people think I am Mexican because I do not look or sound like Salvadorian. What that means? My skin color is not dark like most Salvadorian, the way I talk do not include “vos”, “sipote”, or “chupa”. Most of my life, I have been identify as Mexican then Salvadorian. Now that I live in East Los Angeles, people automatically think I am Mexican with no doubt. Its when I say, yes I am Salvadoran and live in East L.A, not Pico

Upon entering the class I was anxious, curious, and also oblivious to the ideas I would be encountering. Like other students who had not previously spent time discussing topics of race and ethnicity, I myself had nervous tendencies in assuming that such a class may not strengthen my understanding of ethnic and race relations. I realized I knew little about race or ethnicity, and even the possible similarities or differences. However, I welcomed the opportunity to further discover the possibilities of the class. My understanding of race was concentrated in a definition that could be understood as different skin colors. My limited conception of ethnicity applied to people’s origin or where they lived. It seemed as though my lack of

Being from a Hispanic heritage means everything to me, but it does not define me. I come from a culture of hard workers, which means I will do as much as I need to in order to achieve the goals I have set for myself. I was raised to respect those around me because they are the reason why I have what I have. I believe being a Hispanic comes with the responsibility of putting others before me, but I know that it means I should never believe that I am less than the person next to me. My self-worth is not determined by how or where I was raised, it is determined by me. I may have more obstacles to overcome because I am a minority, but it makes me want to work harder towards a future that will pave the way for all those who will come after me.

Growing up I believed that being Hispanic meant being a particular shade of brown that had to be just right. I had no concept of colorism during my childhood and adolescents and had a meager understanding of racism and how it looked like to be discriminated against. Furthermore, less of understanding was diluted even further by my struggle with accepting my romantic and sexual orientation. The nuance of those identities and my many others left me exploring those intersections within myself than exploring the greater picture of social discourse. This all ignoring my lack access to information only found in higher education. Once I had access to this information and meet others that were like me and different than me, I starting learning that what it means to be Hispanic is vastly different than what I thought.

As I reflect about my own perspectives of race and ethnicity, I realize also how and why life has allowing me to interact not only with my own race, but also with different people from different ethnicity backgrounds and race. Another perspective came to mind while constructing this paper, the fact that certain attitudes towards the “other” people and prejudice are still install in my way of thinking. This part of my reflection allowed me to identified the racial attitudes and beliefs that my own experiences in life have informed me about this matter. As a consequence, my level of interactions with members of other racial groups have directly been influenced by my background and the way I was educated about race in general. Although all these reflections have expanded my awareness of how and why I think about the way I act, think or speak about other people, my own story of race has help me to expand my social horizons

Racial injustices are what have made America the powerful nation it is today. America was founded on the genocide of Native Americans and built on the backs of African slaves. In modern day America, strides have been made to provide all Americans equal opportunities to ensure assimilation and success in society however there is still significant work to be to ensure equality. In this paper I have researched the anthropological perspectives on race and ethnicity globally. I have also compared and contrasted varying researcher’s works to ensure I have a thorough understanding of this topic

While I believe that this multicultural class is great class for future counselors I also believe this class would be good for everybody to take in general no matter of what field of study you are going into. This multicultural class was one of my favorite classes that I have ever taken at Gardner Webb University because of how it challenges the way you think about certain issues and how it makes you look at you bias that you never knew you even had. While in my past I never really looked at cultural differences when it came to why certain people acted differently than others and why others reacted differently to similar situations.

I have seen this video a few times and my initial reaction was not this documentary again. After watching this video again, I remembered the importance of it. For me, it is an eye opener because every time I watch it I am in awe of this conversation being more than 20 years old and still relatable to today. I also think it would be valuable to film another documentary like this again today to see what changes have been made in our society. I felt that this documentary lines up with the section we are reading for class currently. I would love to be a part of a documentary like this and think it would be beneficial to also have women in the group.