Personal Narrative: White Privileges

During my time at Dominguez Hills several of my classes have discussed white privilege. I remember first hearing this term in my Cultural Anthropology class. I believe that as a result of me being born caucasian many people carry prejudices and stereotypes against me just because of that. Typically, people judge me and automatically assume I come from a wealthy to do family, with an educated family, and a successful life. Although I have learned because I am caucasian there are some privileges I receive that others may not such as having a better opportunity to get a job, but I have also had tremendous struggles. Instead of growing up with a wealthy family we were considered poverty level, my parents were 7th and 8th grade dropouts with the
For me, I am most uncomfortable knowing that some illegal immigrants are able to get certain benefits that even I as a citizen can’t get. For example, I have been struggling to get health insurance for several years and I was told from my former internship that there are certain areas that illegal immigrants can get services for free. Also, when I was looking for a place to live I was not getting any help, but if I was undocumented then I would be able to receive certain HUD funded housing I recently learned about this through my internship. I am happy people are being taken care, but I also wish when I need/ed services they were available to me as well. This is probably the individualistic side of my culture showing through. As for other caucasians they assume illegal immigrants are living off of our system and government without putting in their fair share of the work. This is not always true as they are still required to pay taxes without an opportunity for a return refund. I know that this is not true for all people however, I believe the consensus in the community is against people of this
I believe through my exposure to people of different cultures and the knowledge I’ve learned will help guide me. I am most comfortable working with people from the Deaf culture, and the homeless community, however, I believe I could work mostly with any population. I know some cultures have different values and beliefs than I share, but I know it’s important to do my research and try to be as neutral as possible. In some cases if It were to get to a point where I felt I could not continue on with a specific client I would follow the protocol put into place at the job I was at. If anything I am unfamiliar working with rich caucasian people in this context, I know there are people out there that have money and that doesn’t mean they are without problems, but I have never been super comfortable around rich people. I don’t know how to act around them and I feel that their better than me even if we are the same ethnicity. It is strange to talk about, but something I have been trying to understand for awhile. It is weird because I am biased against people of my own background. I think growing up seeing all the rich white kids in school and what I judged to be perfect families made me envious, but also embarrassed that I did not have that. I know caucasian rich