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Jaynise Porter

Professor Flowers

EDU 280

2020 June 3rd

Assignment 1: Cultural Autobiography

Since I could remember my mother, father, and grandparents made it clear that being an

African American woman wasn’t wrong, we undesirable disadvantages, and that in fact only the

strong would survive. My parents were never racist or implied hatred to any other race only to

point out that the way of life was different for us. As a child I remember my grandmother telling

me stories about how she grew up on the cotton field and her experiences as a child. She made it

very clear to me that she didn’t have a lot of the opportunities the Black community have to

today. I spent majority of my childhood with my grandmother, speaking on my paternal side. She

was a Christian woman and went to church at least six days out of the week. I didn’t have a

choice as to whether I wanted to attend church. As a child my grandmother’s religion of course

influenced me and I to thought I was a Christian, I mean I went to a Christian Church so would

that make me Christian. Now here I am today, twenty-seven years of age and I don’t necessarily

consider myself Christian. On my maternal side we have Christians and Muslims. I have

explored both sides and I’m not sure if I could be both, which is why I don’t have a specific

religion. I began speaking about my religion and absolutely forgot mention my name. Well, my

name is Jaynise Porter, the only thing I know about my name is my I am named after my parents

and that my last name was a slave that originated years ago. My mother and father a have two

children together and I am a sibling of five. I come from a single parent home my mom worked

at least twelve hours of the day. My parents separated at an early age in my life, shortly after my
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dad went to prison. My dad went to prison when I was about ten years old and he was out of our

life for at least two years. That experience has had a major influence on the woman I am today. It

pushed me to be independent and strong. After that I just knew I was strong enough to overcome

any obstacle that I may face in life, after all my mom taught me to me very a strong woman.

Well my family originated from Mississippi and Florida, “down south” as we say and although I

was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada some say they can hear a country accent when I

speak. In Las Vegas, I come from not the wealthiest part of the city, I was surrounded by poverty

and struggle in a community that was 90 percent of African Americans. My childhood has

influenced a lot of who I am today as a woman and a mother. I currently have four children and

is engaged to my wonderful fiancé. After having my son in high school, shortly after graduation I

made a promise to myself that they were going to grow up with different circumstances. I made a

promise to give them everything I never had. I told myself that I would break the cycle and that I

would reach goals that my family wasn’t able to do. I pride myself in elevating my education and

being an awesome mother to my children. I try to instill in my children that education today

holds an extremely high value, especially in our culture. My family on my paternal and maternal

side are extremely family-oriented. We host huge gatherings on every occasion you can think of

including non-holidays. I believe that why I have such a huge family at the age of 27. I’ve

always wanted a big family like the families that get together every Sunday on the television

shows. Today I consider myself strong, outgoing, funny, motivated, goofy, loving, and caring.

Overtime I will be able to identify and discover more about my cultural identity.

Upon completing this assignment I had to take a second an think. Prior to this assignment

I never really thought about who I am culturally and what life experiences influenced my culture.

While completing this assignment it gave me the opportunity to discover and identify my culture.
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This opportunity has actually enlightened me on who I am and how I became the woman I am

today culturally.