Personal Essay: Who I Who Am I?

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Who am I?
I was born in Redwood City, California on February 28, 1994. My parents and I lived in San Mateo, California for the a few years before moving to Pleasanton, California. In Pleasanton, I completed all of my schooling and graduated from Amador Valley High School in 2012. I played on various sporting teams, completed with a competition choir group and acted in multiple plays during my time in Pleasanton Unified.

My mother and father were my two biggest influences growing up. Not only did they teach me right from wrong but they made sure that they were also involved with the activities that I wanted to be a part of. They constantly encouraged me to try new things and to always give my best in whatever I set my mind to. My parents
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Due to this, I spent most of my time after school in rehearsals or at practices. In order to play sports in high school, one must keep up a 3.0 GPA. Therefore, I used this as one of my incentives to study hard and complete homework in a timely manner. Although I always did great with homework and projects, I struggled with tests. For this reason, I received mostly B’s during my high school career.

My father is Mexican and my mother is European. As a young student, one isn’t expected to “identify” as any certain race. This was never something I thought about as a child. When I began filling out my college applications, I felt as though I identified more with my Hispanic side than my European. Percentage wise, I am mostly Mexican (and that culture was something I held more closely to my heart) therefore I felt that it was important to honor that part of my heritage. When filling out applications now, I usually mark “Mixed Race” or “Hispanic”.
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Most of the community was White, Indian or Asian. As a light skinned Hispanic child, many people assumed I was Italian. This led to an array of racial charged issues I faced during my time in Pleasanton. Throughout my schooling, I frequently heard negative speech coming from white children about their Hispanic counterparts. Since many people in my town were unaware of my background, I also felt I needed to speak up when I heard this kind of inappropriate talk. This angered me greatly because I felt very close to my Mexican side of the family and hated that children at school were so disrespectful about race. This impacted my view on how to handle intolerant people and how to respond to them when they are being degrading or hurtful towards another race. I feel as though the experiences I went through during my schooling allowed me to be more open to other cultures and to cherish my own.

View on Education
Education was always something that my family took seriously. My grandmother and aunt were both teachers and from a young age, I knew that it was the gateway to a successful life. Everyone in my family went to college and it was always expected that I would follow the same path. I always took school seriously because of this and always tried my best. Throughout my schooling, this ideal was never something that changed and I still feel the same way about it now. I attended college and was recognized as a member of the academic

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