My Cultural Exhibit by Lili Miner

My mothers side of the family

liliminer1225 — 2024-09-15 22:01:40 UTC

One huge part of my identity is that i am half Mexican and half white. I wanted to bring this cultural aspect into light because I sometimes don't feel Mexican enough for the Mexicans and not white enough for the whites. I hate that society has put multiracial people into these categories in regards to race. None the less i am proud of my Mexican heritage. My grandfather Mario Lopez exposed me to many different aspects of chicano culture. He was very proud of our heritage. Some of my earliest memories is watching my grandfather work on 1964 Impala. For me this played a significant role in my life.

Music

liliminer1225 — 2024-09-15 22:09:08 UTC

Music is another huge part of my identity. My mother forced piano upon me at a very early age. For many years up until i was 14 i didn't have much of passion for music until i bought my very own Gibson acoustic guitar. I am self taught with guitar however am very dedicated to both practicing guitar piano and exploring music theory. I enjoy the aspects of song writing and i think i always will. For me this form of self expression can be very personal at time and i carry it very close to my heart.

My Faith

liliminer1225 — 2024-09-15 22:22:57 UTC

Another significant part of my identity is my faith. I was raised in the Catholic church for a large majority of my upbringing. Unfortunately as i entered my teen years my family started going to Mass less and less each year. It got to the point where we started only attending Mass for Christmas and Easter. My families faith became very lukewarm but a near death experience when i was 19 would change my life forever. I started using painkillers in my teen years and it turned into a full blown season of suffering for many years. I overdosed and almost lost my life to drugs. I was only 19. I eventually entered a 12 step program that shared the Gospel with me. I was reintroduced to Christ in a new born again way and i am so happy to be able to share my story with this assignment.

Poetry

liliminer1225 — 2024-09-15 22:37:17 UTC

Poetry is a significant part of my life. My love for poetry began because of the movie Dead Poets Society. My mom took notice in this and showed my fathers journals. My dad who at the time had been dead for 15 years and i never knew that he enjoyed writing. He wrote beautiful poems in themes of existentialism. This began my creative spark for reading and writing poetry about topics that are going around today. For me writing is a way for me to escape to safe place. Poetry also helped me learn how to write songs and rhymes. I think that learning how to write poems definitely helped with my abilities to story tell with music lyrics.