Vazquez, Jasmine 1

Cultural Autobiography

My name is Jasmine Vazquez, I am 20 years old and I am Hispanic. I was born and

raised in Nevada and lived my whole life in North Las Vegas. I can speak Spanish and

English, but my Spanish is that good. I have relatives that live in Mexico and have gone and

visited them three times. I enjoy to read mostly young adult, and romance. I have an older

brother who is 26 years old, who is living with his girlfriend. I live with my parents and I

have two dogs, but in total at home there are five dogs and one cat. Currently I am

unemployed but I am focusing on school, and hopefully by the fall I would get my

Associates of Arts in Elementary Education and start working as a substitute teacher.

I was raised by both of my parents and I learned Spanish first. However, I was the

youngest child in the family at the time and had my older brother and three cousins who

were already attending school and were learning English. As I got older I would speak more

to them in English than in Spanish. That led to me switching back and forth from Spanish to

English especially when I didn’t know a certain word. My parents always said that we are to

speak Spanish to them because they do not understand English, which was understandable.

I grew up in a Catholic home, I was baptized, I had my first communion and my

confirmation. Although we are not “true” Catholics, we do not go to church weekly, I am a

big believer in a god, the Virgin Mary, angels and spirits. I grew up with portraits of Jesus

Christ, small statues or ornaments of Divine Child Jesus and a lot of religion aspects. Since I

was a baby my parents have always done the Sign of The Cross for when we are in a vehicle

first thing in the morning and if we are driving by a church. My family celebrates the Day of

the Dead and has a big celebration for Christmas.

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As I grow older, I start to realize how my parents raised me and how I feel that it

was a good way. Honestly speaking I was never hit as a child, but I was told no a lot of the

times. I grew up working with my parents. My mom works as a housekeeper and she has

taken my brother and me with her since we were babies. At around five years old we

started working. I would help my mom clean her houses when I was on break from school.

On Saturdays the whole family, my mom, brother, and me would help my dad on his side

job, a gardener. My dad gave me the name Jasmine because he liked how the flower Jasmine

smelled. These experiences were important because I would get to see my parents on their

job and understand how hard working they both are. My brother and I both get along very

well, we do have arguments but it has never lead to us being physical with each other.

This project has made me realize that I have a different cultural experience than my

own family members, cousins’. Since I realized this a have also realized how our attitudes

towards some issues and our way of communicating to each other are different. It may all

stem from having different experiences of cultural and how we learned and grasp different

aspects of our lives. Example, I have a cousin who I was very close to when we were

younger but because of her mothers beliefs that Las Vegas was not a safe place to live they

moved to Henderson and my aunts and cousin’s attitude changed completely over the

years. Sadly, it has been two years since we have communicated and I realize that there’s is

nothing I can do to change their view and make them realize that they should not have an

attitude of “ I am Holier than them”. Thanks to this assignment I realize that it is beneficial

to experience different cultures to understand each other more and have a more

compromises with each other than arguments.