Personal Narrative: My Multicultural America

My Multicultural America Learning about race and ethnicity the past couple of weeks has been very eye opening for me. I am a middle class Caucasian girl that has never really had to deal with or even think about any of the things that many other people in American have influence their lives every single day. As much as we want to believe that racism is dead and there is no discrimination anymore, that just isn’t true. I don’t really feel like I can even talk about race and ethnicity because I have always been in a very homogenous environment. There weren’t very many kids of other ethnicities or races in my school and that was basically the only place I interacted with other kids my age besides church but because it was such a small town …show more content…
She was born in the United States and English is her first language but because she was quiet as a child she was put into a dual immersion program. They thought that she couldn’t speak English just because she looked Asian. Throughout her childhood she interacted with the other kids that were white and didn’t even realize that anything was different. But then there came a moment when she recognized that she didn’t look the same as all the white kids, it was in this moment that she started realizing the little ways that people treated her differently. Kids would just assume that she did well in school and ask her to be part of their group projects just because she looked Asian. It seemed to me that it wasn’t any big event that happened to show racism but a lot of little remarks or assumptions by kids or adults that really show people’s true …show more content…
Even when people are fully assimilated into the “American” culture, if they look aren’t white, they are constantly being judged, even if it is unconscious. This scientific racism is totally based on looks and where someone is perceived to be from (Conley). People of color are called African Americans even if they can’t even trace their ancestors to Africa and not every person from Africa is black. Hannah had a one person racialization when she realized that she was Asian and began understanding her new racial identity. Being Asian became her master status and everyone, including her, began to make her heritage define her life (Conley). We talked in class about how being Caucasian is never the first thing that is noticed about a white person and it is almost never a master status. I’ve never had to realize that I am different because I am in the majority and every place that I have lived has been mostly white people. I still feel like I don’t fully grasp the reality of racism because I have never really seen or experienced it firsthand. Everyone I meet just assumes that I know English. A white child would never be put in a dual language school because they think that they don’t know English. There are a hundred other privileges that I have just because I am white