5. Look Sis. Steadman, No Hands!

I'll be honest, I don't really like writing long papers, but then again who does? So being told I'd have to write a 10 pages research paper in my Writing 150 class gave me absolutely no joy at all. Even worse, the prompt we were given seemed so ambiguous that I thought I would never be able to come up with a topic to write about. Our section is very Family History oriented and so we were told to pick a family story we liked and write about an issue that somehow connected to that story. So after much pondering and stress on my part I decided on a story......type thing. My Grandma is Mexican, yet she denies if every time I bring it up. I wanted to know why. But that wasn't really a good enough topic, SO NOW WHAT? Well, eventually I did some more research and found out about a few reasons someone in her position might not want to identify as Mexican. I still felt pretty hopeless about it all but I was moving forward. After much more toil and labor, I actually came to enjoy learning about all of this history. I guess all it takes is a little breeze and a running start to take off and fly.

If you read my paper. I know what you'd say.

"Kira, your paper is talking about how Family History can be bad? Do you really believe that?"

"No, actually I don't. I love Family History and I think everyone can benefit from knowing about their roots. But, as weird as it sounds, sometimes I write the best when I'm writing from the opposite side of an argument I would usually be on. When I'm writing about something I absolutely don't believe in, I don't know, it just works I guess?"

"Well, why does any of this even matter?"

"It seems like it may be a small thing, but in reality I think this is a bigger deal than anyone realizes. I'm not even going to go into the psychological aspect of it all, because I can't explain or understand it very well myself. For some people, who their ancestors are defines their entire being. If they try their absolute hardest to ignore where they come from, or if they try to make connections where they can, they life is essentially run by their past. and if we allow our past to control us like that, we really ought to know what it is."

"Well it seems to me that..."