On becoming white :: Ethnicity Personal Narrative Racial

On becoming white As a European immigrant in the USA, I spend a penny encountered many raw cultural phenomena in the last 4 _ years that have challenged me to compass who I am differently. This experience has been even more polarized by the occurrence that I have lived most of that time in Los Angeles, a melting pot to be reckoned with. Coming to the States, I expected these adaptations to my Irish self-grandness but the intensity of becoming cognizant of my label of whiteness has mocked the limitations of my anticipations. This cognizance sincerely ensued when I first started work as an educational therapist in a residential placement for s constantlyely emotionally disturbed teenage girls. Being in such a arbitrary position of proponent was difficult enough with people who have issues with control and lack of reward from elders but I also happened to be the only male ever in this position at the facility and a white ridicule to boot. Ninety percent of my clients happen ed to be Latina or African American. This ethnic twinkling point did not initially bother me because of my lack of awareness of its human beings and my naive determination that it was not important for my therapeutic and educational goals. However, of track down I had not sincerely considered at that time what being white really entails in this society. Consideration of ones identity is obviously key to successful educational and therapeutic interventions but it took the actual experience of being what I shout out white-washed to make me realize that skin color may actually have something important to do with ones perceived identity. The incident actually occurred in my position in a banal everyday interaction with a pipe fitter who was fixing our shower. Firstly, the plumber who was Caucasian continually bombarded his younger, Latino assistant with racial insults mostly to the tune of you stupid Mexican. When he realized that we were agaze at his comments he explained that his assistant gets it from his mothers side. This young man was in fact the plumbers son He then went onto talking about how America is today, and how being a fellow American, I should understand that. Of course I immediately responded with Im not American, to which he countered Oh I thought you were white.....I signify American. I think that this slip by the plumber reveals something of great importance about attitudes, assumptions and beliefs about ethnic identity that is very open to semiotic analysis.