Positionality Paper Assignment

Positionality Paper

Dr Martin King once said “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people”. At a very young age I learned my position in society. Being a black young black a woman and immigrant  in society will be used against me for the rest of my life.  When it comes to the Web of Oppression and the Power chart I fall under the less powerful for every section.  Just because I am underpriviledged  doesn’t mean I don’t know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. I know what it is to get discriminated against to get treated certain way because of my role. My role as a Haitian immigrant woman has become a tremendous factor in my positionality. Being the minority and not feeling a sense of acceptance by the majority, it is unfortunate but true, that individuals are judged and generalized by their race, ethnicity, or involvement with a certain group, instead of their abilities. Positionality Paper Assignment.

I remember moving to the United States of America at a young very young age from Haiti. All my friends back home was so jealous of me, because I was moving to America. The land of freedom, where dreams come true.  Being a kid it was confusing as to why my parents wanted to migrated to another country when we had a great life. In Haiti I had the perfect life, I lived in a big house had my own room, my own driver to bring to school in the morning. Went to the top school in Haiti, my parents paid USA dollars for me to attend the best school.  We had our chef, housekeepers. Then moving to Brooklyn New York with my family we had an one bedroom apartment which my father, mother, sister and myself all lived in. I made one friend at school she used to let me come over to her house after school which my parents were totally against with. I used to get in trouble for going to her house. She asked me to come to my house all the times and I was embarrassed to bring her over.  She had her own room and I didn’t so I was ashamed of that. One day I finally decided to invite her over the first thing she asked was ‘where is your room?” I was so ashamed and pissed. We went from being rich in our country to being almost in poverty in New York City. I remember being so upset with my parents for moving here and starting a new life where I had to learn a completely new culture, language, a way of life. The hardest part was making friends. I remember struggling to make friends because of the language difference, not one single kids I went to school with spoke Haitian creole. Which had an advantage for me, It pushed me to learn English , everyday after school I would come home and watch cartoons to learn English so I can stop getting bullied.  Kids in school made fun of me  the way I spoke , the way I dressed I had to stand  up for myself by fighting the kids. Kids used to call me all sort of names because I was Haitian, they said I was stink, my family did voodoo , I was poor etc.  I got suspended from school a few times for standing up for myself but not once did the kids who bullied me got suspended.  At a very young age I always knew the white kids will always be at advantage and I would have to work harder, smarter than them.

During my middle school years my parents were finally able to saved up and were able to purchased a home. We moved to White Plains New York . For the first time I felt like I was living the American dreams people always referring too well at least I thought. I started a new school, made new friends, had nice clothes I felt like I belong there. Positionality Paper Assignment. Moving to White Plains was the best thing that ever happened to me. The school district was different the kids were nicer there, no doubt there are mean kids everywhere you go but I was finally at peace with being bullied. Although throughout my middle school years I didn’t struggle with being bullied by kids but I struggled with depression. Being Haitian having a mental health condition is forbid, not accepted in our culture, if you have a mental health issues they believe you are cursed and you should seek Jesus. For very long time I struggled with this depression I never told my parents because I was ashamed and they would judge me and say something is wrong with me. I went to the school social worker and she reassured me that it’s okay to feel depressed after having experiencing what I have experienced.  It was probably one of the toughest times, but it is a part of my history that has impacted how I perceive the world. Appreciating the little things in life, understanding that every individual has a story, and recognizing the importance of providing a helping hand to those in need; my background has impacted how open my heart is to not only my friends and family. Understanding if you’re struggling its okay to seek help don’t be ashamed because of your background, culture etc.  Culture determines many things about an individual. Some of these things can be something as simple as what one eats, how one speaks, what one’s beliefs are, what clothing one wears and what one does for recreation.  Having the ability to understand other people and the reasons why they live the way that they live. It can help can one understands a lot about one and another. A social value which are used to implement society’s mandate to provide safe, effective, and constructive social services also help you to become more open minded towards other individual. Economic justice is a component of social justice. The main goal when I come a social worker  is to create opportunities for each individual and provide them with the resources needed for them to have a productive, meaningful life beyond economic wealth. Social Workers have a responsibility to protect and secure civil rights and to work toward ending discrimination for any reason. By doing this, I will need to contain the understanding of the consequences and dynamics of injustice, oppression, and discrimination, thus understanding the impact of economic deprivation, discrimination, and oppression on populations-at-risk. This social worker saved my life that’s when I knew I wanted to make a difference in the world.

My parents are Haitian immigrants. They came to the United States in search of the great American Dream as countless other families did and continue to do. They sacrificed and worked very hard to make a name and place for themselves and their children in New York. My mother began attending nursing school ended up quiting nursing school to take care of my siblings and myself, while my father worked and studied so that he could attend Law school.  In my culture women are/were seen as wives who intended to cook, clean, and take care of the kids, while men took care of having jobs and paying any bills that had to be paid. Women have no personal opinion, no voice, and no freedom. As a kid you are taught to get married and have children before certain age or you will be unworthy. Lastly, women have always been treated like they are never good enough for careers outside of the home. My parents got a divorce and my whole life changed in a blink of second. My father left my mother with no source of income to take care for us. He wanted to take us from mother. The system tried taking us from my mother I’ve watched my mother put everything on the line for my siblings and I. She went back to nursing school while my grand parents help her caring for my siblings. As a result my mother always instil the importance of education to my siblings and I. I learned to push myself to succeed in school. By this I mean that I enrolled in honors classes whenever possible, joined various academic and honor societies, maintained a high grade point average, and most importantly to my mother, pursued a professional degree. I began to understand the importance of succeeding in a setting that did not value my experiences yet was necessary in order that I might be valued later on in my life. My mother and every other Haitian (caribbean) parents believe their children should be in the medical field or the legal field if not theyre a failure at life. They believed that with a medical position as a physician or physician’s assistant, a lawyer, an engineering degree, or status as a scientific researcher, we would not only be financially secure but also receive validation from mainstream society and be respected by society. I can still hear my mother favorite aphorism to me, “You’re Haitian’,‘You’re a woman’. That’s two strikes against you. No one is going to talk to you or care who you are unless you have an education. Men will not take you seriously and leave you when its convenient for them.  This harsh statement took some time for me to accept, but I realized very quickly that my mother was only trying to soften the blow of the even harsher reality that I would face in later years.

Overall, in reflecting on my positionality, I still believe that there is so much more to learn. However, I have realized that the color of my skin, my background, the languages I speak, and my history have all impacted the person I am today and will continue to impact who I am as a person. I am a immigrant a ,woman and young who grew up in a lower socio-economic area. However, I am also a woman who speaks two other languages  and is currently receiving a higher education at Fordham University Whether the world agrees with explanation of my positionality is up to their perception and interpretation. However, in spite of what is seen on the outside, I am a human being with a dream to make a difference in the world. Positionality Paper Assignment