Cultural Autobiography Examples

Cultural Autobiography

I am an African American woman, who was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago. I am the youngest girl of four siblings and I am also the only biological child my parents had together. My dad had two kids from a previous marriage. My mom, even though she was not married had a child before she met my dad. I would say I felt special growing up knowing this information that I had this special bond with both my parents, but it was quite the opposite. See, in my family secrecy is a valuable form of protection, and I would like to add destructive. I was protected from the truth that my older sister who I lived with was not my dad’s child. I also learned in my late teens that I was the reason my dad got divorced from his wife: a new baby from an affair was not apart of the wedding vows. There is a saying in the black culture, “What goes on in this house stays in this house.” I was never really able to talk to anyone about what I had learned and how it was affecting me. I was instructed in the ways of my ancestors to keep the family secrets. In the fifth grade, I was molested by a male cousin who came to live with us and because I was taught to never tell I never did. Eventually it came out because I broke the rules and told my best friend
My parents, my grandparents, and those before them went through unspeakable things, they learned to not speak of it, and move one. They overcame struggle in their own way, and so did I. My struggle was learning how to use my voice to break a cycle of dysfunction that I seen in my my family and my cultural. I am now back in school to get my BA in Literature because I want to be a writer. I have dedicated my life to be a voice to the voiceless. I am a very strong woman of God, mother of three beautiful girls, a wife of 15 years, a speaker, an author, and a