Quezada 1

Esther Quezada
Professor Xin Zhang
TLS 411
2 October 2016
Autoethnography
I think that in order to go out into our placements and do home engagements we have to
understand ourselves so that we can identify what kinds of biases that we may have. I also feel
that going through this process and deeply analyzing ourselves gives us an idea of what the
families might feel when we go into their homes and ask them questions about themselves. So, I
will be analyzing my cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Ill be analyzing my social networks,
my familys labor history, my household history, my households view on education, and finally I
will be talking about my ideas of culture, my culture, and how they have influenced my way of
thinking.
I have grown up living in two different communities. Throughout my whole life Ive
lived between two countries, The United States and Mexico. I believe that these are two
drastically different countries, yet they made one unique person, me. Being from these two
different countries Ive socialized with both Americans, Mexicans, and Mexican-Americans. For
me this was interesting because I would go to Mexico and the majority of the people looked the
same; this was a country of one race. Then I would go to the United States and see people from
different backgrounds living in one country. I got questions from my family in Mexico, that had
never left the country before asking me, Do you have Asians in your class? Do people in your
school not believe in God? Through questions like these I could see life through their
perspective. I think that it was questions like these and moments like these that made me see the

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world differently; not everything was the same, and people from different parts of the world had
different perspectives.
I wouldnt describe myself as a very social person, because of this most of my social
interactions occur within my family. Since I was little, my parents have always prioritized my
education. They didnt have a good education at school and they didnt have many opportunities
in Mexico, so they wanted me to take advantage of the opportunities that I had here. That is why
they have always pushed me to go to college and get a degree, and I am very grateful for that. I
think that my whole family, my mom, my dad, and my two sisters have always had a very
favorable view of early childhood education and think that it is very important. I think that this is
mostly due to the fact that my sisters and I had an amazing preschool teacher. She was loving,
caring, she spoke Spanish, and she prepared us for school. I also think that me attending
preschool is what solidified my knowledge of the English language. If I wouldnt have gone to
preschool, I probably wouldnt have learned English, and that would have put me behind in
school. So for me and my whole family, early childhood education has been very important.
I think I have a very unique household history. To start off, both of my parents were born
in Zacatecas, Mexico. However, my dad was raised in Jalisco and my Mom was raised in
Zacatecas. They lived in very rural areas and they both lived in low poverty areas. They also both
had very large families, which contributed to their poverty. More people meant more mouths to
feed. My mom has nine siblings, and my dad has 15 siblings, so they had a rough childhood.
When they got married they came to live in the United States, specifically in California; my two
older sisters were born there. While they were in California they lived in the basement of my
uncles house; my mom stayed at home and took care of my two sisters and my dad worked in a
furniture store loading and delivering furniture. One day he was delivering furniture to a

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company and that company asked him if he wanted to work for them delivering their products,
he said yes, and soon he began working for them. Later, they asked him if he wanted to move to
Tucson, Arizona where they were opening up a new branch, he agreed and my family left
California.
I was born here in Tucson, Arizona. It is here that my mom began to clean apartments and
my dad continued his job. As the years went by his position began to change. First he delivered
products, then he started making the products, he then began working in the office making sales,
and finally he became manager. From there he went on to open his own business in Mexico in
the same field; through most of his life, he has worked with rigging, and cables, which is used to
pick up heavy materials in mines. My mom cleaned apartments, then she studied cosmetology
and began working in a hair salon. She didnt like this, so from there she worked for Sodexo,
making lunches for students at school. Finally, now that my dad has opened up his own business,
my mom has gone to work with him. My grandpas worked on the ranch, taking care of their
animals and farming, and my grandmas took care of their many children. Through the hard work
of my family they have managed to get me and my two older sisters to university, something
they were not able to do themselves.
Spanish was my first language and my parents first language as well. They talked to us
in Spanish because it was the language that they were most comfortable with and that is how I
learned Spanish. They were aware that living in the United States, we would soon acquire
English by simply being immersed in the language. I learned English when I was four years old.
I think that the method that I acquired English was quite informal. I never took any classes, so
for me the English language just came to me as I lived in the states. I also think that once I was
enrolled in preschool I learned English even better because I was immersed in that language for

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the majority of the day, so that really helped with learning English. Ive easily retained both of
these languages because of my travels between the United States and Mexico. I keep speaking
English because I go to school in the United States and most of the people that Im surrounded
with at school speak English. I have managed to retain my knowledge of the Spanish language
because of my frequent visits to Mexico. Im always in contact with Spanish speaking people, so
this has allowed me to retain my knowledge of this language.
Because I speak two languages, I have been immersed in two cultures; the American
Culture and the Mexican Culture. I am most fond of the Mexican culture, to me its very fun and
colorful. We always have an excuse to have a party and be around family and that is when Im
most happy. As a Mexican, family is the central part of our lives; we take care of each other
because we have a duty to each other. We tend to have very large families as well, especially if
you are from a rural area. We enjoy parties and our main guests are our family. We tend to be
very hospitable people, and at these parties we make a lot of delicious food. Parents are respected
in our culture because they are the ones that have given us everything and we are expected to
take care of them. Finally, one really important part of Mexican culture is soccer, we love this
sport, and especially our national team; we can be very passionate when it comes to this. The
American culture is hard to describe because the United States is a melting pot, but one
American tradition that my family has taken a part in is thanksgiving. We use this holiday to get
our family together. We dont really celebrate the original thanksgiving, but we celebrate being
together with our family.
To me food, music, religion, traditions, holidays, and family is culture. One of the ideas
of culture that I grew up with was the idea that white people were the normal people and the rest
of the people in the world were exotic. So I always assumed that what I celebrated and how I

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looked and how I dressed was not normal and that the default setting was white. I also grew up
with the idea that white people had no culture, but I was wrong; their culture was just not
familiar to me. Through these experiences I have found that I have to look beyond the surface to
find the truth. I was reading page 161 in Rethinking Early Childhood Education and the author
of this chapter mentions that her home was a very colorful place, they always had good food, she
had a big family and many celebrations, and school was very boring compared to this. NegriPool also mentions that she only remembers one time when her culture was represented in
school, during Cinco de Mayo, which isnt celebrated in Mexico; nevertheless, she was happy
that she was represented. I can relate to this, because Ive had many experiences similar to this.
Page 26 of this book describes a scenario in which a person is disgusted by a Latinos tamales.
Situations similar to these have influenced my way of thinking of culture, and it is situations like
these that have influenced me to teach in a multicultural way. The first instance can bring people
joy and the last instance can make people feel embarrassed, as they made me feel. I want to be in
a classroom where there are situations like the first one and less like the second one. I want to
make children feel comfortable, welcomed, and represented, not embarrassed. It is important to
acknowledge our students cultures and get to know them on a personal level so that we may
reflect their funds of knowledge in the classroom; this way we can be better teachers to them. It
is through these readings that I have discovered what multicultural education is. Multicultural
education supports diversities perspectives, it seeks to respect the humanity of every person, and
it affirms diversities as an essential aspect of a democratic society (Souto-Manning 7). Through
these experiences and readings, I have found that I want to teach like this, and I truly believe that
a multicultural education is the best education.

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Works Cited
Pelo, Ann. Rethinking Early Childhood Education. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools, 2008.
Print.
Souto-Manning, Mariana. Multicultural Teaching in the Early Childhood Classroom:
Approaches, Strategies, and Tools, Preschool-2nd Grade. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.