Personal Narrative: What Exactly Do You Come From

“Where are you from?” is a common question people ask if you look ethnically mysterious. Being a different race with unique facial features shows you are, not what they call in the United States “American”. Evelyn Alsultany was born and raised in New York City. Her ethnicity is Arab from her father's side and Cuban from her mother's side. She describes the social issue, she confronts the way people approach her creating assumptions, consequently making her feel excluded from her cultural background.

The struggle of language barriers play a huge role in my life. Once I became proficient in my second language, English, I automatically

I did eventually teach myself enough sign language to get by. I had some friends when I younger, their parents could speak very little English. I can remember the oldest daughter doing as Amy had to do with her mother. Rosie would make all the ‘adult’ phone calls for her mother and the son spoke for his dad when needed. I grew up in southern California, they have a language all their own.

Through most of my life I grew up not caring much about my heritage and background. I was told by my father that our heritage was primarily German and Native American. Since I was young around that time I did not think much of my heritage. However, as time progressed I grew curious of who I actually was. One day I asked my father the same question I did several years ago.

Life being Bilingual When my family came to the United States from Laos, I was four years old. At that age, I had no idea that English would be the primary language taught and spoken in America. I did not understand it until my parents registered me for Kindergarten. I only spoke my native language, no one in my family knew how to speak English. It was a difficult time in my life because I couldn’t understand what everyone was saying at school or when I was being talked to, I also wasn’t sure how to ask or respond to my teacher and classmates.

At this time of year, I begin to look back at my life after 12 hard years of schooling. Throughout the course of my life, there have been many ups and downs, but these up and downs is what made me who I am today. These influences have shaped my values, attitudes and beliefs towards life. There have been many important people and events that has impacted my life. One of which is family and the media.

You Are What You Speak Language is an important part of our lives; it’s a gift which lets us communicate, expose our thoughts and feelings. It’s something that is inseparable from our culture and life styles. In language we find both truth and beauty. Being human we tend to use it to come across the agreement what is true. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaladua claims, “Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity-

When people ask where I was born, for example. And as soon as I say I was born in Russia, I somehow lose my German citizenship and become Russian. I lived in Russia for 1 and a half year, my mother tongue is German, I have a German ID, I am German. But still, I’m Russian to them. And that comes with a set of prejudices.

Spanish was my first language and neither one of my parents knew english. I would go to school and just listen and try to learn every little thing I could get my hands

As I began to learn to love my intersectionality of these two cultures. I began to love myself. I now speak more Creole than ever before. I may not have the best accent, and I do tend to revert by to English but i constantly try to improve and better myself.

I started learning foreign languages in my spare time, since my school didn't offer a way to teach fluency. The foreign language classes were taught as just a basic-requirement class. I've been studying Japanese for two years, Korean for one, and recently, Norwegian. I dedicated myself to learning them, while roping a few of my friends into studying with me. I carried around bundled up flash cards, and when I finished my class work, studied them.

"Where are you From?" This question has plagued me ever since I was five years old and I came to America. I was born in a country in the Middle East known as Lebanon. I have no fear in admitting it now, but I had a hard time admitting that growing up. I did not want to be different than the others.

Introduction: It is estimated that the number of people that make up the minorities of Finland is one of the lowest in the entirety of Europe. In fact in 2010 there were fewer than 250,000 people, but of course the situation could be developing. Examples of minorities living in the country include the Sámi, Russians, Roma, Jews, Swedish-speaking Finns and Tatars. To explore the religion, numbers, integration, language and situation of the Tatars (also known as Finnish Turks) in Finland, one must first study their history.

This was a question that always seemed to constantly pester me, because I could never seem to decide which nationality I truly belonged to, but sitting here today, I just had a huge revelation, because I found out what I along with every single one of my friends shared in common; we are all 1st generation and that is the category where I know I know I fit in the best in. Although, living life as a 1st generation American had not always been easy, especially with making friends, which proved to be rather difficult to me as a young kid. Only few kids in my grade, including my twin sister, understood the burden of trying to fit it but taking the risk of becoming an “nkata” or an Americanized black person as my parents would say. As I grew older, I began to notice how the two cultures seemed to clash ,especially when it came to the way I wore my hair. My parents preferred and said I looked prettier in tight braids, while my natural hair was “nappy” and “messy”, but some classmates had began to wear their hair natural, and enjoyed it.

Up until now, I have had very little cross-cultural experience in the course of my life. Beginning with the fact that both of my parents are Dutch and the fact that I grew up here, made me a fully Dutch citizen, both in terms of origin and education. I am born and raised in a small village in the Netherlands, called Bodegraven. My parents have not provided me with a cross-cultural background as they both grew up on Dutch farms. However, they took me on holidays to several countries in Europe and to Canada and America once.