Essay on Identity: African American Decent

Submitted By Ldmorris1993
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Pages: 3
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Identity

Discovery of who you are is one of the joys of writing and learning. There are many races and ethnicities in the United States, while we are all in the same country we have many differences. These differences are sometimes noticeable just by looking at a person. Other times, you can only find out about them by diving deeper into the person’s inner self and see their cultural differences. I’m going to give an example of race and ethnicity by presenting a profile of myself. I’m a twenty-year old African American male from Paterson, New Jersey. My grandfather is Cuban but later migrated to Jamaica. On the other hand, the rest of my family is mostly made up of Jamaicans. From what I can gather, my grandfather worked as a barrel maker in Jamaica and my grandmother as a housekeeper. As for as my forefathers, I have no idea of where they came from. But being in school, and having history as a subject I’ve been taught that our ancestors come from Africa and were traded, bought, and shipped to various places throughout the world. Making me apart of the African American decent. Another reason I know that I am African American is because my phenotype matches that of people from African decent. I was raised in the rural city of Paterson, so one could draw conclusion that my subculture derived from the environment I grew up in. I was around the whole “ghetto” culture where baggy pants, rap music, and gangs were popular and still current today. Even though I was around those things I had no urge to pick up those what some people might call, bad habits. Growing up I did adopt the local fashion and slang, but eventually I grew out of it. I never adopted the local mindset, which was gangster life. That consisted of, dealing rugs, not excelling in school, treating women badly, ready to fight at a drop of a dime, and the mindset that the police are out to get them. So instead I separated myself from that and saw life trough a different lens. My religion growing up is Apostolic. I go to church every Sunday and holidays where my parents’ and I are active members in the ministry. My fathers
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