My heritage is a little mixture of just about everything. On my mom’s side, my grandmas family is mainly German, but also there is Swedish, Irish, and a little bit of Cherokee Indian. On my grandpa’s side there is mainly English, we even have two relatives that came over on the Mayflower, there is also German and Welsh mixed in. On my dads side there is German, Dutch, and American Indian. The only way I identify myself is being an American. I am Caucasian, but I did not even know what that meant until I had to fill out forms that asked for my ethnicity.
I cannot pinpoint a time when I became aware of race or ethnicity. In either the 70’s or 80’s my grandparents on my mom’s side sponsored two different refugee Laotian families. The second family stayed in contact with my family throughout the years. Ever sense I was a baby I have been around them. When I was little I can remember playing with Laotian children. I never once thought that there was something different about them. Obviously now that I’m older I understand differences between ethnicity and races, but I do not think that it makes any difference.
I also was never directly taught or told anything about ethnicity or race from my parents. I had indirect lessons, such as the fact that it does not matter what color a person is. Once I got old enough to understand what my grandparents did for both those families I felt pride. I guess that was a certain lesson, that it does not matter who or what a person is, but if you have the ability to help people in need, that you should.
My views of ethnicity and race have not changed overtime. I still do not see a color or beliefs as a reason to dislike or discriminate. Two of my best friends are Mexican, and I never see them that way. In all honesty I always forget that they are of another race, the only time I think of it, is when someone brings it up. As I have gotten older I understand even less how people can discriminate. How people feel they have the right to put down other humans. I do not understand how people can put such emphasis on race and ethnicity when people are just people. Yea there are differences, but I do not think they matter.
Yes I have witnessed instances of racism. Two of my best friends, are twins, but they are also Mexican. We went to high school together and were in the same grade. In our graduating class, we had some male students who were to put in nicely ignorant, and extremely racist. I remember one time during a class one of the students began talking about Mexicans in derogatory terms, and made my friend upset. It got so bad, that I finally had to say something to the student talking to get him to stop, and my friend left the class in tears. Later on the teacher found out what happened, and told the student that if he heard of him speaking like that again he would be kicked out. This is not the only instances that my friends have been hurt by derogatory terms. I know they had classes with the male students that were the worse, and they would straight out call my friends names.
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