Blog #1

As discussed in our very first class in our individual groups, my group made some great points focussing on race and identity. For the most part, all I know is that my mother's side of the family is completely Italian. As for my father's side of the family, I am not quite sure. I know that I am partially Ukranian from his side, but other than that, I am left in the dark about my origins. I had very few relatives on his side of the family, all of which were gone before I was born, therefore; it would be impossible to gather information through family, which would make this a bit of a challenge.

I would love to delve deeper into my own identity, and since I cant do that through living relatives, I would have to get creative. I could explore the options by researching maiden names of family members or even something like ancestry.com could play a key role. However, I think I could get more solid results from a blood test (which I have always wanted to get done out of curiosity). The blood test locates each part of the world that your family is from. I know that it can not pinpoint exact areas, but it does give general locations. So since I am partially Italian, the blood test would locate Europe. I think it would be completely interesting to see my whole family history spread out on a map showing each location that defines who I am. Also, this would allow me to see how my heritage has effected me as a writer, a learner, and the person that I am today.

I would also love to learn about other individuals journeys to find out their complete backgrounds if there are still some unknown pieces of their family history puzzle that they have yet to put together just like I have. I think it would be an interesting idea to share background histories and stereotypes from our own points-of-view and how it has effected us growing up and formed us to be the writers that we are today. 

• Standards... 
• Traditions... 
• The social "norm"... that creates us as individuals. 

We have such a diverse class and I think this idea of sharing our backgrounds and how it effects us as writers and learners could really give us so much more knowledge on the subject than any type of text book ever could.