Nolasco 1

Jocelyne Nolasco
Professor Spitler-Lawson
English 115 Honors
20 September 2016
??????????????
I was born January 11,1998 into a family of five that consisted of my mom and my dad,
my two older brothers, Iran and Jonathan, and my older sister Lorena. I am half Honduran and
half Mexican. My dad, Juan Nolasco, was born in Honduras and came to the United States in his
late twenties searching for a better life and an American woman to help earn his American
citizenship. In his early thirties, he met a beautiful light skinned Mexican woman at a
laundromat, her name was Olga Camarena, future mother of his children. For my dad, meeting
my mom was like meeting a unicorn because my mom was not only the most paisa women my
dad had ever met but she was also an American citizen. My dad hit the jackpot with my mom.
My mom was born in Los Angeles, California but was raised in Mexico for the majority of her
life. She moved to Mexico when she was three years old, came back to America when she was a
teenager and went to Crenshaw High School, but unfortunately wasnt able to finish high school
because she moved back to Mexico and didnt come back until her early twenties where she met
my dad. When my parents met each other, my mom was Catholic and my dad was a Christian.
After going on more than a few dates, they got married and shortly after my mom converted into
Christianity. I grew up with a family of devoted to Jesus Christ, especially my dad. We would
pray every morning and every night and occasionally have something my siblings and I like to
call bible time where my dad gathered up the whole family in the living and talk about random

Nolasco 2

verses from the bible and discuss them as a family. These sessions would go on for hours. I was
very young at the time so I didnt have much insight to contribute; however, I liked listening to
these discussions because my dad wouldnt stay limited to just one topic about the bible, he was
a able to connect the biblical issues with world issues and also politics. These discussions created
a new way of thinking for me. I slowly started becoming more open to different perspectives of
different issues at such a young age. Granted, most of my views on most world issues where
extremely conservative because of my religious beliefs at the times; however, I was still very
open to listening to the opposite perspective. Enabling myself to have an open mind also created
space for second thoughts, especially when it came to world social and political issues. Despite
all the years of dedication to the Christian faith, my dad recently became Jewish about three
years ago which made me question my whole belief system, creating confusion and anxiety
toward my personal religious practices.
I have two memorable political and social instances that occurred when I was very
young, too young to be thinking about politics. The first instance was when the first African
American president of the United States became elected, Barack Obama, and the second was the
economic recession of 2008. The inauguration of Obama was a major event that kick started my
interest of American politics because for the first time ever I was going to see someone else
become president other than George Bush, who wasnt doing so well in his last years in office. I
was in the 5th grade when Obama became elected president and I remember following that
election because my dad was following the election and to me it was interesting seeing each
candidate get eliminated from their chance of presidency like it was some reality show. When
the election was down to three candidates, Hilary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama, my
dad strongly expressed his favorable candidates, Clinton and Obama because they seemed

Nolasco 3

trustworthy. Despite both of these candidates being democrat, I see my dad as a moderate or
even a republican because of how conservative he can be on issues like abortion or gay marriage
and even on military defense. Because my dad was a strong, faithful Christian at the time, today I
find it hard to believe that he favored Obama and Clinton over McCain, not only that, but I find
it hard to believe that I favored Obama and Clinton over McCain as well because I was
practicing similar political viewpoints as my Christian father. As a 5th grader, I thought that gay
marriage was an abomination, I agreed that abortions were murder and should be made illegal,
and I thought that spending most of the governments money on military defense was the best
way to spend the nations money. How could I be favoring a Democratic candidate when I was a
10 year old, whole-hearted Republican? And how could my father be doing the same thing? The
article Political Culture and Socialization in the Information Age suggests that media plays a
vital role in influencing an individuals perspective on certain political issues and political
leaders. During the election of 2008, most media outlets were giving praise to Barack Obama for
being the first African American to come close being elected president and then actually being
elected president. Media was portraying him as a candidate who will actually change to country
for the better. Despite my dads conservative viewpoints on many issues he was influenced by
media depictions that created Obama to be the best candidate out of the three which made my
dad favor Obama over McCain and through my dads influence I favored Obama over McCain. I
was ten, so it was only natural that Id be strongly influenced by the people and media around
me.
My political education in elementary wasnt as strong as I would have liked it to be. The
only exposure to politics I had in my elementary school was when the administration broadcasted
Obamas inauguration on our auditorium screen. I was able to be more informed about the

Nolasco 4

election than my classmates at 10 years old through my father and of course all the TV I would
watch. It wasnt until I reached middle school, where the history as a subject was a whole
individual class on its own. Eighth grade was the first school year where I studied American
politics in a deeper level and my teacher Mr. Rodriguez, a Mexican immigrant, was excited to
teach it. The article, The School in the Political Socialization of Children and Youth by Bryon
G. Massialas suggest that students become politically efficacious when they are educated more
about politics. Political efficacy means that a person has the ability to understand his or her
government and feels competent in changing it. Having political efficacious also means that a
person has the power to influence political change. By the time I was in 8th grade, I was 13 years
old and my opinions on certain ethical issued had shifted. For example, my stance on gay
marriage had slightly changed from being disapproving of gay marriage to approving gay
marriage, however not entirely supporting it. Coincidently, this was the time when my religious
practices also began to fumble because my family stopped going to church and stopped bible
time. At the same time, I was gaining new perspective about the controversial issues happening
in the U.S. and around world through TV. Not having a strong religious background anymore
promoted a new way of thinking about these issues for me. I was able to see and understand
issues from a liberal point of view and actually found myself completely agreeing with the
liberal side of the issues most of the time. In eighth grade, I gained political efficacy because I
was able to understand my government at a deeper level than before and I was able to influence
my own political decisions by the end of the year. My education definitely promoted to new
understanding of my government.
Today I am 18 years old and in college