My multicultural experiences, like my global ones, have greatly
influenced my life. I can divide
these experiences into three main categories.
First, I have learned much from growing up in a mobile home park.
Second, I have been able to have exposure to Native Americans, and
finally tutoring Hispanic students.
I grew up in a mobile home park, which was not in the best part of town.
A number of the people that live in the park are low-income families.
Unfortunately, there have been a number of problems, including fights and
possible murders. My family has
lived in there for almost twenty years. Growing
up in the park there were some hard times, but compared to some of my neighbors
I am lucky. When I come back to my
parent’s house I still see the same people I grew up with. Sadly, most of them have not even graduated from high school.
Growing up I saw ethnic backgrounds from African-Americans to
Asian-Americans to. At first it was
hard to relate with them, but as time went on you saw that they were the same as
you. It was hard to get use to a
different culture, since I had not been expose to it before. Most of the families were in the same position as my
own, trying to make it in the world and the only place that they could afford
was the park.
I have spent a lot of time up north with relatives in the heart of Native
American land. They live on the
edge of many reservations and spending time with them I have met a lot of Native
Americans. While visiting these
relatives, I would play with their neighbor kids, who were Native American.
My relatives had a prejudice against Native Americans, and at first that
was the opinion I held as well. However,
through my later experiences and education I have changed that bias opinion.
Now I can take what I have learned and put it to use in my classroom
teaching. When someone says
something about Native Americans I can now explain why or tell them that they
are wrong and try to make them see what I see.
The last experience that I want to bring up is the fact that I am doing
tutoring at St. James High School with Hispanic students.
I have only met with them once so far, but I am really looking forward to
it. I first thought that I
wouldn’t enjoy doing it, being that I was giving up a Friday to go there and
work with them. I was proved
completely wrong after my first session with them.
I really enjoy working with the students that I was set up with.
They are great students and they really don’t even need my help.
I think that they only need a little push in the right direction and they
will be fine. I am really looking
forward to working with them and the school district.
I think that I am going to be able to take a lot away from this
experience.