College Admissions Essay: My Experience As A Multiracial Student

People with healthy biracial identity acknowledges and integrates both parts of their racial heritage in forming identity, which process is influenced by family, community and context, as well as socio-economic status. Empirical articles reviewed in this paper demonstrate that family socialization, recognition of both ethnic and racial heritages and validation of racial identification from community members have beneficial effect in helping biracial individuals to form a healthy racial identity (Mass, 1992; Chong, 2012; Lou et al., 2011). Having higher socio-economic status will encourage biracial individuals to claim a biracial identity (Townsend et al., 2012). Context change might pose threat for psychological well-being for individuals who have not reached an integrated biracial identity (Collins, 2000;

Personal privilege is privilege one receives based on unearned qualities such as skin color, gender, socioeconomic status, demographics, or cultural characteristics (Lee, 2007). Being White and growing up in a predominately White community limited my exposure to other cultures and races. While I was limited to my exposure to other cultures and races I have become aware of White privilege and who it influences interactions with different races and cultures. Whites tend to view “their own beliefs and actions as normative and neutral” (Hays & Chang, 2003, p. 135). This action influences and limits the cultural and racial interactions Whites experience (Hays & Change, 2003). Due to working in a predominately White community it can be easy to forget the importance of establishing racial and cultural differences with clients. Continuing education is exceptionally important in continuing one’s multicultural awareness. As a supervisor this will be my duty to instill this importance into my supervisees (Hird, Cavalieri, Dulk, Felice, & Ho, 2001).

I like to think of myself as a person who can appreciate and understand everyone's opinions. Although I might not agree with them, I feel as if everyone's beliefs and thoughts deserve to have equal initial respect. This leads me to where I was first introduced to discrimination and racism, the exact opposite concepts I now try to surround myself with. I have lived in Cross Roads, Pennsylvania for the entirety of my young life and if there is anything obvious about my community, it is that we are not very advanced in the diversity department. My hometown is predominantly white, which brings on a whole new set of problems concerning discrimination and racism, especially when a family of a different race moves to our community. Now don't get me wrong, my family, my friends, my neighbors, are not bad people. Most of them are great people but a few have just been brought up with idealisms that I myself find racist in nature. As an example, someone I spend a lot of time with because of family relations is in many ways ignorant to people different than them. They, like me, grew up in a

When addressing self-identification, some multiracial or biracial individuals do identify as being two or more races. Some identity as just one, or that they feel closer to a certain racial group. About 69% of Multiracial adults with a black background considered themselves as black/African American (experiences, social interactions that align them within the black community). While Multiracial Asian adults, with a white and Asian background, feel more connected to the white community than to the Asian community. Another group of multiracial individuals, are those that are white and native American, and around 22% say they have a lot in common with the in the US that is native America. And 61% say they have a lot more in common with the whites.

In a perfect world, race, ethnicity and culture would have no negative effect on the medical care we receive, yet problems do arise and it affects the quality of care the patient receives. Language barrier, poor socioeconomic status, and poor health literacy also contribute to health care disparity. For Lia, it was more than her skin color, it was all of the above, her parents did not speak English and they were illiterate. They had trouble understanding the American healthcare system, had trouble or little interest in adjusting to or understanding the American culture. They didn’t work, which in addition to cross cultural misunderstanding, helped contribute to animosity between the Hmong and the host community, because some in the Merced area did not like or appreciate the fact that some Hmong did not work and relied on welfare to make ends meet. All these factors, contributed to the poor quality of

In November 2012, my siblings and I successfully emigrated from Nigeria to the United States. This was an amazing opportunity for us to pursue our American dream, a goal my family had been hoping to accomplish, since 2004 when my father first made the trip across the Atlantic. However, since moving to the United States, there have been times when I was made to feel unwelcome and out of place in the society, especially as an immigrant and a person of color. This was one of the factors I was looking at, when the time came to apply to medical schools. In applying to Morehouse College of Medicine, I was looking for a place where I would be welcomed to study in an encouraging environment. In Morehouse, I saw an institution that promotes equity and

The saying “home is where your heart is “doesn’t seem to fit the hearts of many biracial kids around the world. The hurtful and harmful things that biracial kids hear and go through with their families is something that needs to be put in the same category with other issues that are presented in the forefront. A biracial acquaintance of mine, Evea has had her mother actually tell her to not be with a black man because if they had a baby it will get sickle cell anemia and die. This stereotype is commonly attached to the African-Americans and portrays a bad image. Also, whenever she would do something bad her mother would say “it’s because you have the nigger in you.” Statements like this would affect the parent-child subsystem and have a negative effect on how the child views the parent.

My experience interacting with minorities and medically underserved individuals has taught me cultural competence by gradually learning the capacity to understand other people’s experiences and sufferings in a way I never had before. By working in family and free health clinics, and volunteering as an EMT and a hospice aide, I have personally seen some of the health disparities found in our world. I have witnessed how a lack of insurance, monetary income, or health education affects one’s decision to attain primary health care. Furthermore, my experiences with emergency medicine teams serving culturally diverse communities have helped me to be able to see how healthcare professionals handle crises while not losing the ability to think logically and rationally when striving to treat people’s illnesses, instead of focusing on their

Most minorities have been or know some one who has been racially profiled in their life. Being racially profiled has a big impact on the minority community as well as the policing community too. Being a victim of racial profiling hinders the black community. In this essay I will tell you a little about Tony Robinson, then how the black community responded, how the police community responded and finally how it makes me feel when I or another African American is racially profiled.

I was born in a refugee camp in Kenya to escape war-torn Somalia. I was then raised in Atlanta, and will complete school in Madison. I’m the 7th daughter in my father 's line, the 8th in my mother 's line, and the 1st in my family to attend a University. My involvement in the Legal Studies and Criminal Justice fields allow me to understand the social and legal factors placed on our health care system. My African American background, my role as a 1st generation college student, my Somali culture, and my identity as a Muslim, have all contributed to the person I am today, and to the doctor I will become. Because I’m a linguaphile I casted away my comfort zone and immersed myself in a new culture, language, and land for three weeks and explored my foreign language studies in Deutschland. I’m an avid gym goer since high school, when I set a record in my weight training class. I consider myself an extreme foodie, and I’ve traveled to far places solely to try out new cuisines. My interests in social justice marked my college years with protests and causes I partook in, due to my passions in furthering equality and justice. I have considered a law career, but ruled it out because I desired a career in medicine too fiercely to ever walk away from it. I also understand that I face challenges in obtaining an acceptance, but I am hoping that the mistakes of my past do not cost me my future.

To preface this assignment I am positive that there have been times that I have been discriminatory to people that I have encountered in clinic and ‘real life’ that I am unaware of. To focus on a more specific problem I thought of how the news and medical attention have been very focused on the opioid epidemic and the inter-professional way that we as providers can help people. I saw a number of patients during third year rotations who are on chronic pain medications. Before winter break I was in the Family Medicine Clerkship and this encounter I remember well because I realized that I had judged a patient based on only a couple of words in their chart. The patient was a black woman in her 40s who had chronic back pain and was receiving an

I am currently living in the St. James apartment complex, the building that I am in is one of the ones farther away from campus, but the walk still is not very long to any of my classes. I am originally from Hanover Park, Illinois, which is one of the many suburbs of Chicago, the drive to Bradley from there is about 2 hours and 30 minutes.

The patient stated “I was lucky, I got exposed to two worlds, my mellow family on my mother’s side, and the crazy life on my father’s side.” He further expressed how much he enjoyed his Mexican side of the family, “especially the food.” The patient stated that “my family on my mother’s side was like… more mellow… I think they would be shocked and say what the (explicit) happened to this dude, if they saw me now after so many years.” The patient suggested that his background gave him exposure to different things, in which he stated “I got a balance, you know, it helped me become who I am today,” he correlated this phenomenon to his way of living while incarcerated. He expressed how he “loves everyone, no matter what skin color, I love people.” He described the prison life in relation to racism, he explained how in prison, he could not sit and talk to a black person without raising eyebrows from his peers of Latino descent due to the segregated and racially tense environment within the prison. When asked about his experience at Rawson Neal Hospital, the patient expressed joy and stated “I like it here, I can talk to you, him, anyone without that feeling, I love people from all backgrounds,” he further noted “I am mixed, you know, we’re all human at the end of the

The concept of globalization, which is the increasing integration and interdependence of different countries from one another in terms of economic, communication, and technological aspects, leads one to address the concept of cultural diversity or multiculturalism. Cultural diversity in the health-care system touches lives of many Americans in one way or another. No matter what our own cultural background is, when we go receive medical care, we may encounter a care giver who comes from a different cultural background than ours(Naylor 1997,291).. In the concept of cultural diversity, it can be recognized that two terms are equally important. The first concept is culture, which refers to the total way of life of individuals, and the unique

As a junior in college, I sought out a premedical advisor to help me find out how I could become a more competitive applicant for medical school. I was eager to meet with her; I knew she could make my application shine. When my appointment finally came, I learned more than I could hope for. She told me the fact that I was African-American would increase my chances of getting into medical school significantly. I looked at her with utter shock and repulsion as she discredited all the hard work I accomplished up to that point in my academic career in one simple sentence. As a first generation female African-American student who has been determined and hard-working her entire life, hearing this from an advisor only discouraged me. My parents were born and raised in Eritrea, a small country in East Africa. Early on my parents stressed the importance of acquiring a good education, a blessing that they were not afforded during their upbringing. They moved to America for better opportunities and they worked extremely hard to get us where my family is today. They passed their diligence on to me, and now I am fulfilling my dream of applying to medical school not because of the color of my skin, but because I crave making my passion of helping others a reality.