Farmworker's Daughter Identity Analysis

Everybody experiences the journey of life keeping in mind the end goal is to discover his or her identity. Their identity turns into a puzzle where every part of life is a new piece of the puzzle and is waiting to be added to the ongoing collection. In Rose Castillo Guilbault's Farmworker's Daughter, she had experienced numerous difficulties to discover who she was. She came to California with no knowledge of the American way of life and had a challenging time assimilating to the culture, yet she experienced various encounters and individuals who helped her through the intense time. Rose Castillo Guilbault's life was enlivened and formed by various individuals and circumstances throughout her life to discover her own sense of "self". Correspondingly,

When I was younger, I felt different among my group of white friends. Since I was so Americanized throughout my early years of elementary school, I was always too scared to share my culture – even when my friends heard me speaking Vietnamese to my parents on the phone, I would be jokingly made fun of and some would try to mimic my speech. I felt like no one would understand it or treat me differently because of me being Vietnamese. Like I mentioned earlier, being a Vietnamese-American I sided with my American identity more than my Vietnamese one – to the point where I could no longer speak fluent Vietnamese (as I use to when I was younger). As I grew older, I lost my Vietnamese heritage along the way, and with it, I lost a significant portion of my identity. However, since I have entered college, I have been trying to gain that part of my identity back. It is especially helpful that SJSU has a 32% Asian population with copious amounts of Asian festivities going around on campus. With that, I forced myself to become more sociable and outgoing and ended up joining the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) here on campus. By becoming a member of VSA, it brought back memories of why I enjoyed being Vietnamese in the first place -- it inspired me to not be afraid to share my culture with others and be proud of who I am just as Mrs. Rojas had done for Rose. The people that I have met in the

My professor explained that there were many paths a person could take if they chose to major in nutrition, such as becoming a dietitian, since my professor is a dietitian herself. I had never thought about becoming dietitian simply because it was not one of those typical jobs such as a doctor or dentist. She also shared the story of how many people doubted her when she first started majoring in nutrition, but her love and perseverance proved them wrong. After her lecture, I had my own epiphany similar to Rose’s. It is also the fact that I lost 90 pounds, through diet and exercise piqued my interest in the subject; as a result, I believe that nutrition was my calling and would work hard toward that goal. The only hard part was explaining changing my major to my parents. At first they did not even understand was a nutrition major was and what possible careers could come out of that; however, after convincing them that my biology classes were making me miserable and becoming a dietitian is a valid career choice they eventually accepted my major change. Ultimately, my professor made me realize that a person can be anything if they put their mind into it. Nothing and no one will stop me from something the things I want to do as long I work hard to pursue it. Just like what Rose had realized, I will also not let anyone get in the way of anything of my