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I honestly don't know how my family got to the lands we currently live on, my grandparents on my dad's side are adopted and my grandparents on my mom's side were born here. I have also done a DNA test that showed I was 35% Indigenous but sadly no idea of my ties. I feel its really important to know where you came from, and the culture i've been raised in has shown me to appreciate the land and connect with it.

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Impact of Culture and Community Expertise

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Impact of Culture and Community Expertise

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Culture is a huge part of my life as a whole. I love my family's history and cultural heritage because it has many traditions and taught me many valuable life lessons. I am proud of it, and yet, at the same time, it also has a few disadvantages. This mostly revolves around how women are viewed in my culture; most of the time, we are seen as having to be only mothers or stay-at-home wives because women sometimes are told they are not supposed to work. Another thing is it makes it hard for my family to understand my mental health issues because, in our culture, they do not believe in mental health issues being an actual problem or thing.

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I feel like ableism has had a very large impact on how I have grown up. I personally struggle with mental health issues that make it hard for me to stay on top of my school work or focus on one thing at a time. A lot of people who have an ableist view around me have made the assumption that my mental health problems are not real or that I am being dramatic. This had made it hard for me to talk about my issues with others because I fear they may not take me seriously. One big thing I am glad about is that I am able to get support from my Professors and have my cat as my ESA to help me with my stress and worry.

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Language has always played a large role in my life, my entire family speaks Spanish and English, but I do not know any Spanish. This is because growing up my family would constantly switch to English when speaking to me in Spanish because they knew at school we would only speak in English. I personally feel like because of American schools being so mainstream when it comes to English I lost the opportunity to learn another language that would have allowed me to better connect with my family.

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I personally feel like my race and gender have played a major role in play for me through out my upbringing. This is because my race also plays a huge role in my culture in my culture many girls aren't allowed to do what boys do, we are taught to be quiet and be a great wife. Then in my learning environments people would define my learning capabilities based off of my race and gender, They would assume because I am Hispanic and a Female I am not as smart and someone who is white or a male.

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Growing Up I never felt racism directed towards me, but I witnessed it through out my up bringing mostly in my older years as I grew a larger understanding of it. One distinct memory I have is when my mom and I had taken my youngest brother to see the doctor because he was under the weather, my brother is a lot lighter complected than me. A nurse had come out who had not interacted with my mom prior and she asked my mom if my mother could relay a message to my brothers mom, she did not ask, but assumed that my brother was not my mothers child and talked to my mother as if she were the nanny of my younger brother. My mom was absolutely shocked and I didn't know what to say. My mom then clarified that she was his mother and the nurse corrected herself, but never apologized.

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I personally feel like Agency was heavily supported throughout my upbringing. In the classroom when I was younger my teachers were always very open to hearing everyones ideas as well as doing lots of hands on activities to keep our interest. One distinct memory I can recall agency being very big in my classroom was when our teacher let us pick out the book we would read for the week, it could be on any topic and we would just have open discussions with her about the book as well as make personal connections and she would just listen for most of the day. This gave us the opportunity to control what we were learning and voice our opinions.

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I am passionate about anything I am doing.

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I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, as a Hispanic Female. I went to a school on the outskirts of my city where the school students segregated themselves somehow. I also grew up being an active member of the catholic church. My whole family speaks Spanish as well as English and is very big about our Mexican background. I personally feel this cultural background has heavily influenced my upbringing because, in my culture women are meant to take care of their husbands, cook and clean, cover up as much as possible, and never speak up and state my own opinions. My cultural background has impacted how I view myself, it has made me feel less confident in my skin, and it has tried to keep me from using my voice in saying how I feel throughout my childhood and adulthood. It also made me feel isolated when I got diagnosed with generalized anxiety; in my culture and family, mental health problems didn't exist " back in their day.." They walked to school and went through worse, everyone ignored it. Another issue I have dealt with is being a female in the city I grew up in, which has a heavy representation of trafficking. This made me unable to go anywhere alone throughout almost my entire life. This upbringing, has impacted my voice, my feelings of security, as well as my confidence.

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hope this link works it would not let me upload it on anything

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hope this link works it would not let me upload it on anything