Race and Ethnicity Paper.

Essay by amazing_mmHigh School, 12th gradeA+, September 2003

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Race and Ethnicity Paper

I was born and raised in China. I would come to self - identify with the Chinese people. My roots allow me to be classified as Asian. Mandarin and Cantonese are languages I have learned to speak and read. These languages also help to identify me as Chinese.

What is race? Race defines who we are. We look at people and experiences through race and culture. Both of my parents are introverted in personalities. They are soft spoken because they once lived under the fears of Communism. They taught me not to speak inappropriate things to other people. This prevented much trouble from occurring. I have been taught by the spoken and unspoken ways of my parents and teachers to utilize my race as the social lens through which I can value people and experiences. My parents shaped me early on life to not speak out about Chinese Politics.

They taught me that Chinese plays a role in my cultural identification. Through generations of racial modeling, my parents passed on these oppressive limitations. What make me Chinese? What are the characteristic of a Chinese person? I really don't know.

Other identifying me as a Chinese by my skin color, hair, eyes, height, other appearance features, and the language I speak, and where I come from. I'm a quiet person in school, and when I have questions or I need help on my subjects, I hesitate to raise my hand. Since my freshman year I have been like this. I'm represented as a workaholic Chinese. I turn in every assignment and on time, for this reason, they identified me as an Asian, because of the stereotypes placed on Asians my behavior and attitude contributed to people's reasoning.

My ethnic identification exposed me to a cultural clash.