Artifact 5

Image Credit: http://therebelworkout.com/blog/2016/03/25/physical-health-vs-mental-health

It’s always interesting that when asked “what makes you happy?” I’m always at a loss for words. I guess I really don’t know. I’ve always thought it would be a job where I make more money, or getting my nails done, or having friends and family who love me. While all of those things are nice, they really don’t make any difference to me and I’m usually okay with or without those things. When I think about the times that I was really happy it was when I accomplished something or when I would go on my daily walks. While I find myself feeling sluggish from being unfit, I don’t think that necessarily equates to me being unhappy. I do think that physical health can lead to happiness but I think it’s more of the type of activity and what it does for an individual mentally than the results. While my daily walks provided much needed cardio, what made me happy was that I was taking time for myself, breathing and clearing my mind, not that I was losing weight or exercising.

Artifact 4

There are some similarities and differences in our responses. The similarities included occupations such as doctor, taxi driver, dancer, baby sitter, school teacher, pilot, mechanic, architect, make-up artist and system engineer. This is probably because these occupations seem “obvious” for the provided genders. We normally think of a female to be a baby sitter or a dancer and a male to be a doctor or pilot. Our differences included occupations such as lawyer, chef, and designer.

Artifact 3

The photo I drew is the name of a program I attended from the age of 15 to 18. I also included little stick figures of people of different backgrounds. Anything prior to the age of 15 in my life I do not discuss. What I do talk about is how this program changed my life and helped me overcome a lot of personal issues I was battling. Once a week I would meet with a group of diverse kids struggling with similar or different issues, all of which affected our social skills and self-esteem. We all learned how to grow together and learn the meaning of team work as well as how to cope and believe in ourselves. My individual values are reflected in this picture because I also learned tolerance and acceptance and love of people of all different backgrounds and sexual orientations. I definitely think if I did not attend this program, I would not be the person I am today and would have probably ended up as one of the statistics I was always told I would be which is an individual who did drugs, got pregnant as a teen, or worse.

Artifact 2

My mom and I are like two peas in a pod. While we all don’t like to admit we are just like our parents, I can say that I am definitely a spitting image of this lady. When doing the Enculturation Activity there was really only one discrepancy I could find and that’s the one about when the parent’s get older, it’s the child’s responsibility to take care of them by allowing them to live with them. Since my mom grew up with two non-English speaking, very old fashioned parents from Puerto Rico and Ecuador, she was definitely taught that as the child it is her responsibility to repay them by caring for them as they got older and she certainly did. My siblings and I grew up more in the American culture. My mom did not teach us Spanish or instill the same teachings from her parents so we are against this logic and don’t think we should be obligated to allow our mother to live with us, with exceptions. We will definitely help her if she became disabled or ill, but this would probably be just providing financial assistance.

Artifact 1

I don’t really have any items that I keep with me that is representative of my culture. I would say the one thing that I do have is this photo of my family. To Puerto Ricans, the most important thing is family and unity. This photo shows that Puerto Ricans come in all shapes, sizes and colors. My mother, uncle, and brother  as well as some other family members are very dark while my sister and I are very light skinned. There’s really no difference or discrimination and regardless of our skin tone we all identify as Afro-Latin and are very proud of our African roots and our culture.