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Cultural Autobiography
CULTURAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Each and every person in the world has their own unique lens that they
look through in their life. Their experiences from the day theyre born on
changes the way that lens affects how they view everything, whether it be a
place they visit, a movie they watch, or a person they meet. The things that
create a persons lens, or viewpoint, are shaped by their individual
differences. Investigating the individuality Ive gained from my own cultural
identity, development, and past experiences has helped me learn a lot about
my perspective and the lens Ive created myself through my 20 years of
existence.
Personally, I identify as a straight white female in the middle class with
no religious affiliation. I live in a suburb of Chicago called Roselle. I dont
consider myself as someone who falls in the minority category much.
Although many people of the majority tend to have some of the strongest
biases towards or against others, Im confident in my ability to stop my
biases from affecting my education and eventually my career. Growing up, I
never had many developmental factors that made me stand out from my
peers. I was always on track with my physical and social/emotional
development, and the only real difference in school was that I was pulled out
of class for more advanced classes sometimes, which helped me grow
confidence in my intellectual skills. Now, a little more about how my
development created some of these biases and why I feel they wont
negatively affect me:
CULTURAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
CULTURAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
because someone isnt exactly like me, it doesnt mean that theyre bad; it
just means that theyre different.
High school opened my eyes to all new sorts of people. I went Lake
Park High School, which had students from 5 different towns in my area.
Although still primarily white, there was much greater diversity compared to
my previous district. I finally saw people who identified very differently than
me: student of color, ethnic students, special needs students, low-income
students, and even students of religions I didnt know much about. Seeing so
many people my age from completely different backgrounds allowed me to
learn a lot more about people, and even about myself. Having the chance to
befriend and get to know different people gave me the opportunity to widen
my perspective of how our society views people who arent like me: white,
straight, perfectly abled and healthy, and middle-class. Additionally, I had
many great teachers, classes, and programs that introduced me to global
perspectives on history, literature, world issues, and much more. Overall, I
feel that my experiences in high school let me learn more about people
different than myself and I feel that Im able to apply that to help reduce any
bias I could have towards or against people who are or arent similar to me.
According to the bias tests we took in class, my results stated that I
have a moderate automatic preference towards white people and a slight
association of male with career and female with family. I think the bias tests
gave me very reasonable results. Theres no denying that I was raised in a
CULTURAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I cant deny the fact that Im someone who fits into the majority of our
society in many aspects, but I truly feel that Im a very conscious individual
and that Ive been aware of that for a while now. Im always mentally
reevaluating my judgements of people and thinking about all the different
aspects of their life that led them to be that same person today. I try to keep
my bias and stereotyping in check as often as I can, because to use them to
make a judgement isnt fair at all. I see the effect that those things can
cause in someones social and professional lives and its not usually a great
one. If theres one thing Ive learned in the past 20 years about interacting
with other people, its to take on differences as a learning experience, not
CULTURAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY