Week 7 Race

I am a multi-racial and multi-culture person. I am half Pakistani and the other half is a mixture of Hispanic and Native American. My dad was born and raised in Pakistan and my mom was born in Pasadena and moved to San Jose. Therefore both of my parents have very different cultural backgrounds.

I was born in San Jose and have lived there my whole life. I can honestly say that I did not become aware of the different races I was until about seventh grade. Before seventh grade the majority of my friends were of Hispanic background so when people asked what race I was I tended to identify with that. Plus kids would always assume that I was Hispanic anyways. Since almost everyone was Hispanic at my school I would not say that I was exactly aware of my race.

Then in seventh grade the 9/11 attacks happened. In one of my classes we had a substitue teacher. I used to always dread roll call when we had a sub in one of my classes because it meant that I was going to have to explain my name because usually the teacher could not pronounce it or they would want to know where it was from. Well this substitute teacher asked me like all the rest what kind of name it was and what to call me. So when the teacher asked me I told him it was a Pakistani name and that I go by Cori.

I guess the substitute forgot my name because later on in the day he referred to me as "Pakistan". He literally just said "Hey Pakistan" in front of the class. At the time when he said it I felt really embarassed and ashamed. I did not really understand why at first, the embarassment just kind of came. Later when I got home I told my mom and she was very upset about it and said that what the teacher had done was wrong and explained to me why. After that experience with that teacher I became aware of race.

I realized that by being half Pakistani some people saw me different than everyone else. I also realized that my race was recieving hostile attitudes considering the recent events. I became aware of my race even more when my stepmom, dad, my sister, and I went to Red Lobster and a woman asked my stepmom 'Why we did this?' She was referring to 9/11. My stepmom simply told her she did not know why because she did not do anything. I cannot remember what the woman's expression was after that.

Ever since these two experiences I have described I have always been aware of race and the different races that are in the world. I have also been aware that different races means that certain races get treated differently (for better or worse) depending on where they are.




(I could not find a picture I liked, but I thought this was cool!)