Growing Up African-American: A Reflection on Family, Temperament, and Cultural Identity

Abstract

Reflection: Ethno-Racial Autobiography Growing up as an African American is advantageous and stressing at the same time regardless of gender. Being an African American is a privilege because it hardens many people as they learn to coexist with a society that perceives them as inferior. On the other hand, it is stressing as it exposes many to unbearable racially coined situations grounded on inequalities hampering their development. Growing up as an African-American woman has shaped my person in a great manner. My family unlike what the society may think of the African-American ethnic group helped understand the meaning of family through values and beliefs that shaped our coexistence as people of the same blood. Valuing family is paramount as it enhances peaceful coexistence at all times. It is an aspect that I received from my family helping me understand why we should always be there for each other as a family in good and bad times. I value my great-parents, parents, siblings, offspring’s and spouse as with them I have a family that understand and loves me regardless of what the rest of the world think about my ethnic group. According to Sharafutdinova (2021), temperament is seen as a reflection of character and behavior. It is an important aspect that defines a person to the outside world. However, family relationships among other external factors like the neighborhoods a child grows in are potentially able to influence ones temperament. Such influences becomes effective since temperament becomes shaped starting at a tender age thus any exposure to either positive or negative influences have the potentials of shaping a child’s temperament as they develop from one phase to the other. To this effect, I can argue that having a supportive family has played a significant role in shaping my emotional individuality. I am an introvert living with introverted family members whose urge to make everyone feel comfortable within these family ties remains well defined. I value family gatherings, not because we talk so much upon meeting but because it is a value my family taught me to embrace since childhood shaping my character and behavior in a special manner. I do not ignore the fact that my family remained supportive during childhood teaching me the relevance of love, care and support towards any family member which proves a strong force that shapes my relationship with family members and the outside world. I have grown understanding the relevance of loyalty, discipline and responsibility since childhood which has helped me develop strong and long lasting relationship with family and in my social life. I am able to live in harmony and coexist peacefully within a society that perceives my culture from a very negative point of view; thanks to my supportive family for shaping my character when I had no control over any happenings within my life. While borrowing from a sociological approach, it is clear that for families of color, family encompasses their location, function that each relationship provides, the values each relationship brings and upholds, affiliation connections and deep connections that come from blood ties helping one understand their identity (Sociological forum, 1995). I can confirm that having a supportive family is not only a blessing but a great pathway to understanding my identity and culture. What would I be like if I encountered hatred and neglect during my childhood development? Such an experience would have negatively affected my attitude toward life making me perceive African-American culture as evil and inhumane. Fortunately, the strong attachments with my family members especially my paternal grandparents, my parents and siblings helped me understand who I am as an African-American woman and what it takes to live responsibly regardless of what the world thinks about my ethnic-group. It is through the strong family relationships since childhood that shaped my discipline and my loyal being making me find sense in life and manage to co-exist within different social circles comprising of people from my and other cultures without expressing any signs of denial or inferiority therein. Value for all humans is a virtue I associate with my strong family relationships giving me insights on why I should treasure each member of my family and extend such values to the outside world. In a video “Me or We? Cultural Difference between East and West”, it is open that people perceive race from differing perceptions with most people in America among other western countries demanding individuals to take responsibility of themselves with collective responsibilities extended to family relationships before extensions to the society and the outside world (1:17-27). However, regardless of my supportive family and nurturing environment during childhood, I still became exposed to understanding race as a strong identify among Americans at a very tender age. At the age of four, my loving parents exposed me to the world as I had to join a pre-school. It is at this point of life that I noted how different people looked which in a way compromised my understanding of humans only to later rectify it through proper understanding of race. Due to the strong connections I had with my family, I did not feel any signs of denial for my look and skin color implying that I accepted my race way back during childhood. For this reason, I came to understand that different people have different physical characteristics and it is imperative to identify with ones race and embrace it regardless of all odds. Skin color is among the physical identifiers that people associate with race (Noe-Bustamante et al., 2021). However, with my skin color, I have become more and more in love with the black culture as I realized some things happen naturally and humans got no control over them. My skin color, hair and eye color has enabled me to appreciate other races noting that every human deserves respect and value regardless of the physical characteristics. Regardless of whether people share the same race, they may differ in their ways of perceiving racial identity. To me race is nothing subjective but my family members’ thinks otherwise citing that my hair and the color of my eyes can further define me and subject me to another race as my identifier. I agree that my hair and eyes differ from other family members of even some people from the larger African-American ethnic group but that does not stop me from being an African-American. The fact that I grew up in an African-American family, I remain certain that I grew up identifying myself with this ethnic group and not even the differing physical characteristics can change that simple fact. My grandfather is my inspiration when it comes understanding value for humanity as an aspect for all regardless of skin color. As I mentioned earlier, I have grown in a family of introverted characters shaping my introversion temperament. However, even though there were little talks during family gatherings, my grandfather made it clear...