Personal Narrative: Who Am I

Who am I? This question is posed by almost every person at some time during their lives. Who we are defines our experiences, impacts familial and social relationships, characterizes our expectations of ourselves and others, and governs our values both learned and perceived. A difficult task for any person evaluating this question is being honest with ourselves about our own prejudices concerning factors such as ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, and country of origin among many more underlying differences that distinguish ourselves from other minority groups. As such, I will attempt to honestly identify and address my core values, prejudices, and attitudes that are the result from my own cultural history as compared and

I knew from a very early age that I did not approve of these comments and knew they were wrong. I somehow understood that people should not be judged by physiognomies and other cultural/ethnic stereotypes that do not define who they truly are. I truly enjoyed and still enjoy getting to know people for who they are inside and deep down. Getting to know someone to me is like piecing together a puzzle that is unlike any other puzzle in the world. A puzzle of individual characteristics that you get from truly knowing a person a long time and using known attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to build a picture of that person. The one thing my puzzles lack is stereotypes, preconceived notions from others, and/or prejudices because to me I cannot know a person based on inaccurate perceptions. So therefore, I know that I have prejudices toward people who judge others based on religion, sexual orientation, nationality, race, socio-economic status,

I strive every day to instill in them respect and appreciation for all living things as this is one of my core values. I teach and encourage them to be open-minded and to find the beauty in the unique differences in others. I am mindful to not tell them their wives will be annoyed with them when they get married if they continue to leave their socks in the floor. Instead, I tell them their significant other will be annoyed, as I do want my children to think their sexual orientation should affect how others relate to them. I encourage them to like/love no matter nationality, race, sexual orientation, etc. so they know that these characteristics are superficial and in no way define who a person is on the inside. I reassure them almost every day that I love them no matter what and that I have no preconceived notions of who they will grow up to be because watching them become their own person is amazing to