Monteagudo 1

Alex Monteagudo
Professor Lawson
ENGL 115
12 September 2014
Exercise 1: Summary of a Text
Melissa Algranati is an inter-ethnic with roots from Puerto Rico and Egypt. In her essay
she describes the difficulty she had of growing up and not knowing her identity. The very first
time Melissa had difficulty knowing her identity was when she took the standardized PSAT
exam and did not know what ethnicity to mark herself as. Being that her ethnicity was of Puerto
Rican and Egyptian descent, and there is no option on the PSAT exam for that ethnicity, she had
to mark that she was an other. Melissa then goes on to talk about where her parents were born,
how they immigrated to the United States, their experiences growing up in the United States, and
how they met. When her parents met, they got married and decided to have a child, Melissa.
Melissa then describes how her otherness has allowed her to be accepted and rejected by
different crowds. She then goes to say that through her struggles, she has kept her life diverse
which has helped her be herself and label herself as a Puerto Rican Egyptian Jew.
The essay was very interesting in that Melissa Algranati covered a big issue that many
Americans deal with, who they are. America is a country of immigrants, which means more of a
possibility that there are going to be a large amount of inter-ethnic children in America. Society
has not yet recognized the inter-ethnic children so when asked to describe themselves, they often
dont have the answer because society makes them think that they can only be of one ethnicity
such as Caucasian, Hispanic Latino, African American, Pacific Islander, or other. This is a big
problem because if children are inter-ethnic and see only one type of ethnic choice to be, they

Monteagudo 2
will not know what to choose and they wont know their own identity. This essay connects with
many people and is a large issue that needs to be more talked about.