Most of my family was born in Haiti and lived there for a while. My mother and I were born in NY and it shows. Well, for me anyways. I am admittedly very Americanized and pretty much everyone in my family knows it. Part of it has to do with appearance. I am a lot lighter than most people in my family, due to my dad being half white. My family would often make "light skin" jokes although I don't remember what any of them actually were. When I was young my great grandmother's nickname for me was "blanc", which is French for white in case people didn't know. I don't know French or Haitian Creole, which is problematic because literally everyone else in my family does. It sure made almost failing French even more embarrassing. This brings me to the other part of my Americanization; a lack of culture. I'm really not into a lot of the traditions my family into, not a fan of Haitian music, not the best at dancing, and I always try to hide when somebody asks "who wants to say grace" before eating. There is some food I really like. Soup Joumou is not one of them, but I eat it anyways. My mother tells me that it's good luck to eat some during our annual family New Years party. I used to resist eating it entirely, but now I just take a spoonful from my mother's bowl to say I did it and I'm glad I do. I do not practice many Haitian traditions and I'm hardly around people who do, so it's good to have at least one thing to remind me of my background.

– Emile Jean Baptiste

Relationship:  Grandchild of im/migrant Grandchild of im/migrant