My Cultural Identity: Modern American Teenage Girl

Every single day, society tries to define my cultural identity. I struggle trying to set myself apart from the norm but, being a modern American teenage girl, I find myself being influenced by what is considered “cool.” It attempts to make me the “perfect” version of myself. But I am not what society wants me to be. I suppose you could call me an average American fifteen year old girl. I wear skinny jeans and t-shirts on the regular, I enjoy wearing makeup and I love anything with sparkles. But through my adolescent years, I have asked myself, why do I wear what all the other girls wear? I slowly began to understand why: my cultural identity is influenced by my group of friends at school, what I see in the magazines I read and the celebrities

I have gone through periods of my life when I finally break out of my shell and gain the confidence to be who I am. But, an incident has always come up that put me right back in my lonely and unhappy shell. It is like a rollercoaster: the high points are when I am confident and the low parts are when I am sad. But along the ride, I have found what I value most. I value leadership and I aspire to be a leader, a role model, for my peers and even for people who have no idea who I am. I want to start my own cultural identity, my own path, far away from society. I also value achievement, so you better believe I will reach this

I have a very personal connection with sports. In fact, sports are one of the things that changed my life. When I was ten, I struggled with my weight. I know this sounds young to be dealing with weight problems, but they started young for me. Being one of the tallest kids in my grade, and the only tall girl, I already stood out like a sore thumb. Adding my weight into the equation made me stick out even more. I will be the first to admit that I did not eat the best food; I have always loved sweets and grew up in a family that is quite fond of dessert. So all of that unhealthy food made me rather chubby. I was bullied by many people in my grade for my weight. When I turned twelve, I started really getting into soccer, basketball and softball. I watched my weight slowly, but surely, drop and my body matched the other athletes I played with. My height suddenly became my advantage, I was the tallest on my basketball team and was needed under the hoop to score. Plus, the bond with a team is like no other. I can easily say that joining sports was one of the best decisions of my