Personal Literacy Narrative

Jose Ramirez

16 February 2014

English 1A

Literacy Narrative

            My name is Jose Julio Ramirez and I was born in Mexico, but moved to the states as an infant and have been raised here in Sacramento. Throughout the majority of my life, my family and I have lived in some pretty rough neighborhoods here in Sacramento. Since the neighborhoods that I have lived in were so infested by crime and violence, my parents found school to be my brother and I's safe haven. With that being said, my parents made school our number one priority and made sure we gave 100% effort academically. From that point on my parents and I placed high standards on my education and made it a goal to go to college. That is how I ended up here; now pursuing my dream of graduating college.

            Throughout my short lived life, reading, writing, and I have had a love-hate relationship. From the time I was in the fourth grade to present day, teachers, different academic standards, and being a minority have impacted my interest in reading and writing. What I mean by “being a minority” is that social and cultural issues have shaped my understanding and view on reading and writing. With that being said, I’m going to take you back all the way to when I was a kid and was barley learning how to speak English.

            Being Mexican and having almost every single family member be Mexican was the main reason that the first language I learned how to speak was Spanish. Spanish was my primary language that I used to communicate with my family. As I grew up my brother, uncle, and cousin were the main people that helped me learn how to speak English. As time went on and once I started going to school, I learned how to read, write, and speak English properly. I never found writing or reading in Spanish useful so I never bothered to learn how to do either. English, to me, seemed a lot easier when it came to writing and reading, so I took more interest in that than in Spanish. To this day I mainly use Spanish when talking with my parents or when I talk with other family members, but there are times when I do regret not taking the time to properly learn how to read and write in Spanish. Before I started kindergarten I was able to speak both languages.

            Once I reached the fourth grade I read a book that would change my opinion about reading and books for a while. The book was called Danger in the Desert by Terri Fields. This book fascinated me and really became the gateway for my interest in books. After reading this book I no longer felt that reading books was only used to learn. I looked beyond that and realized that some books were created for pure entertainment. From then to about the eighth grade reading was mostly a requirement but I actually enjoyed it. As for writing, I didn’t really have interest for it at the time.

            Once I became a freshman in high school my feelings and interest for reading and writing changed once again. At this point outside reading was no longer a requirement but an option or so called hobby. The only required reading was assigned books or text books. Being primarily focused on reading those books I didn’t pick up reading out of school. My joy for reading slowly started to fade until my junior year of high school, when our assigned reading was to read The Great Gatsby. I found the book to be really interesting and even thought about starting to read out of class more often. I tried reading as a hobby but it didn’t really stick with me. As for writing, I gained a bit more interest in it, but still despised it. Since most of my writing at the time was research papers or reflections of the assigned reading I found it to be just as boring. The one thing that made me gain more interest in writing was that I was good at it, often getting A’s and B’s on major writing assignments. This portion of my life really influenced how I felt about reading and writing. I think that if teachers would have chosen more interesting books to read I would have actually enjoyed reading and the writing assignments that came after.

            As I have mentioned, I don’t really like reading and writing for the reasons stated above. Although I may not like them I do find them to be very important in our everyday lives. My parents have always told me to never forget how to speak Spanish or to never forget my roots. But, they also could not stress enough on how important English is for a minority like myself. They have always wanted me to be successful and in a way they wanted me to prove to the world that minorities are just as capable of going to college or finding a good job. With that in mind I always found reading and writing to be important and essential even if I did not enjoy them. Besides my parents I felt pressured by society to be more dominant in the English language rather than Spanish. This pressure has also given me that extra push to continue to learn to read and write properly.

            Last but not least, there have been times where I felt as if I had been discriminated against due to my ethnicity. For example, there have been instances where I would be having a conversation with someone and at the end they would say something along the lines of “oh I didn’t think you would know what that meant” or also “wow for being Mexican you don’t have an accent”. Some may think that was a compliment, but I took it more of an insult. Just because I’m Mexican doesn’t mean that I can’t comprehend what others say. Personal experiences like this have given me the will and desire to keep on learning and better myself in writing and being able to comprehend some reading easier.

            Since my academic journey will continue for who knows how many more years, reading and writing will always play a vital role in my life. As I keep on expanding my knowledge on reading and writing, I will use it daily in and out of school and I will also help my family better their literacy problems as well. Once I graduate, literacy is going to be a must since I am going to be required to read and analyze paperwork, write reports on it, and even discuss, whatever the topic may be, with my colleagues.                  

All in all, at this point in my life I have mixed emotions and views about reading and writing. I don’t like it for simple reasons; such as it’s too time consuming and I never gained interest in it. But, I do find it to be important because it is something that will always help me learn and better myself academically.