Personal Narrative: Exploring My Ethnic Roots

Exploring your ethnic roots will enhance your understanding of how your background has shaped you. I am a 24-year-old heterosexual Hispanic woman that was raised in Fresno, California in a Catholic family. As an able-bodied citizen, I considered my social class to be middle class because I always had the necessary resources growing up. Being raised within the Mexican culture has helped me identify with myself. I seek information from my parents to determine their experiences in the United States and how that has affected me today. Before diving into the conversation with my parents about their past in the United States, I knew several things. I knew that my parents had immigrated to the United States before any of my grandparents did. From

in the 90’s as a legal resident because my uncle had become a citizen and was able to make both my maternal grandparents legal residents. Although my maternal grandmother had the proper legal documentation to enter the U.S., she stayed in Mexico because she was pregnant and raising the rest of her children. Years later, my uncle wanted to bring my grandmother and her youngest daughter, or my aunt, into the U.S. so they could be reunited with my grandfather but the youngest was not documented. My uncle was going to hire a “coyote” to smuggle her in but my grandparents denied it because they did not trust the “coyote” considering their daughter was barely a preteen. My uncle made the executive decision to smuggle her in himself. He used one of my cousin’s birth certificate from the U.S. because she was the same age as her and presented that to the officials when crossing the border. My aunt did not know any English in case the officials asked her questions. In order to eliminate the possibility of getting caught, my uncle bought a CD player with headphones and had her put the headphones on while they crossed the border to make her look like a typical American teenager solely focused on her music. It was a major risk and could have gotten him in jail but it was so easy to cross the border before that it all went by smoothly and