Personal Narrative: My Cultural Identity

Words: 947
Pages: 4

I am Lauren Noelle Williams. When I describe myself my culture/race/ethnicity is not something I necessarily list and if I do it’s far down on the list because while it is a part of who I am it doesn’t define me. I am a mother, a daughter, an aunt, a teacher, and a student. I often list character traits I identify with also; I am giving, loving, a hard worker and fiercely independent. Even if I were to describe my physical attributes, on paper this describes many things about who I am, but leaves out a specific and perhaps important detail; my race/culture/ethnicity. I am African American, I proudly identify as Black. I am the granddaughter of sharecroppers whose parents were the grandchildren of slaves. I have visited Lauren’s County Clinton, South Carolina where we are from, seen structures listing our family name of Williams and even seen slave quarters similar to the ones my Great-Great Grandparents may have been born in. My cultural identity has been shaped and formed by a balance of exposure to my culture as …show more content…
They usually surrounded my hair, my skin color and the food we did or did not eat. While this helped shape my personal cultural identity it didn’t have a poor impact on my interactions with other cultures because I make it a point not to let it; one person does not define the attitudes of an entire culture. As I have gotten older my view of what it means to be Black culturally evolved. Growing up in a predominantly White school shifts ones mannerisms, slang and common interests to those of the dominant culture. I grew up eating tomato pie, listening to Hanson and watching 7th Heaven. Thus the first step to culturally appropriate practices is recognizing your own idiosyncrasies within your own self-identified culture. There is no one-way to be