Racial Identity Reflection

Throughout my childhood, I never recieved many direct messages regarding my racial identity. I was never truly exposed to the idea of racial identity until the age of around 11. The sheltered community I grew up in, Hinsdale, was 94% Caucasian when I was born. In turn, many of the male adults in Hinsdale were, and still are, in the center margin. This created a general silencing regarding race, teaching me that I am not supposed to discuss race, which is evidently false. Not only did the members of my distant community not directly or indirectly discuss race, but my parents never had a distinct conversation with me about it. My parents both work in very diverse workplace communities, and have all their lives. Therefore, they never brought home andy biases. As a child, I persistently heard them talk positively about other coworkers who might have had last names that weren’t very common in Hinsdale such as Dr. Patel, Dr. Lopez, Mr. Wong, just to name a few examples. This indirect influence taught me that although others might have different last names and origins, they were all doing similar jobs in a communal workplace, sending a positive message about racial identities in general. Consequently, my parents also taught the importance of equality as a strong moral in our household. From the age of 3, I was enrolled in a very diverse preschool. However, I never noticed differences in race at the time. At 3, it was all a matter of storytime, singing, and dancing. The demographics of my preschool were

On the other hand, I have also learned about others racial identity, which is crucial in 2017. Because the Parker administration enforces diversity, we have access to many speakers along with Morning Ex’s surrounding racial identity. From this, I’ve learned about others’ experiences and in turn I can further realize my racial identity in our