My Cultural Identities by Jade Meyer

Vietnamese American

jmeyer77_1 — 2025-03-08 02:26:16 UTC

My grandparents immigrated here sometime during the Vietnam war. I only grew up with my mom's side of the family, so my Vietnamese side is all that I know. I grew up with mostly everyone in the house speaking Vietnamese to me until I got into elementary school. My grandparents had a very strong influence on me growing up because I spent a large portion of my time with them. They always taught me to be very proud of my culture, and very confident in who I am. I think my culture is beautiful, the food, the art, the holidays and the way we celebrate, the clothing, I think all of it is so unique and beautiful. I appreciate everything I was taught about my culture and how much of it I get to experience. My family worked very hard to get where they are today and to give me as many opportunities as possible, and I will be forever grateful for that, so I work as hard as possible to one day pay that back.

Nature person

jmeyer77_1 — 2025-03-08 02:34:25 UTC

I have a deep love for the Earth. I've always been the kind of person who would rather be outside and around animals rather than inside and talking to people. I have family in California that we used to visit quite often, and it was on our first trip there that I discovered my love for the ocean. I love how peaceful being in the water is and how everything below the surface is just absolutely beautiful and it's like its own world. But my love for the outdoors doesn't just stop with the ocean I love all animals and since I live in Utah of course I also love the mountains and to go hiking or paddleboarding at a lake. I find the world and all its creatures to be fascinating. I've always felt we should preserve it as much as possible, and in the future, I hope to be helping preserve it somehow.

Athlete

jmeyer77_1 — 2025-03-08 02:41:43 UTC

Growing up I played a lot of different sports but the ones that really stuck with me were gymnastics and wrestling. They both taught me a lot about hard work and discipline. They have greatly shaped the person who I am today. I started gymnastics when I was around 8 and stuck with it until I was about 13-14 and covid hit. Gymnastics taught me that hard work, dedication, and discipline truly do pay off, and it taught me that teamwork is very important, but it also taught me that you can't always rely on others and your mistakes are your own. And both gymnastics and wrestling taught me never to be scared of failure because in the end it's just another lesson. Wrestling can be scary sometimes because it is a contact sport but just because something is scary doesn't mean it should stop you from doing it. Wrestling taught me a lot about sportsmanship and being respectful and humble whether you win or lose. Both sports taught me a lot of valuable life lessons and 100% made me the person I am today.

Book Lover

jmeyer77_1 — 2025-03-08 02:53:42 UTC

When I was younger, I wasn't a big fan of reading because it was just something I wasn't very good at, but as a got older I started to really love it. It was a way that I could kind of pretend to be someone I wasn't. When I hit probably the 6th grade I started reading Harry Potter and started to really fall in love with reading because I liked to imagine there really was a fun magical place like that out there. Then I started reading Percy Jackson and I fell in love with Greek mythology and always imagined demigods were just somewhere out there. And then I hit high school and started reading a bunch of romance books and eventually became a hopeless romantic. I love reading stories about other people's fictional lives because I love to believe one day I'll find that same thing.

Animal Lover

jmeyer77_1 — 2025-03-08 03:03:21 UTC

I've always cared a lot about animals because unlike us they can't speak for themselves. And my love for animals ties in with my love for nature, I think that we should do a better job on protecting wildlife. There are so many unique animals out there with such interesting characteristics that are just so amazing to learn about. And getting to see every animal's different personality is such a great experience because they're kind of like people but they just can't talk to you.