Final Reflection Paper 1

Final Reflection Paper

Jenelle Magbutay

University of Las Vegas, Nevada

Abstract
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In this paper, I will explore my personal background involving my identities and familial

presence in the United States. I will identify all if not most of the demographics that I fall into. I

will be using this information to relate to the text, Counseling the Culturally Diverse by D. W.

Sue & David Sue , studied in this course. I will also be comparing this information with the

dominant culture in America. Through this, I will be analyzing how biases, stereotypes, power,

and privilege have impacted my personal development and affected my way of living today.

Final Reflection Paper

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Identity can be a very complicated and multi-faceted thing. There are many things that

make up the identity of a single person. I personally have a lot of conflicting identities, and have

struggled with all of them my entire life. Being born in Canada and immigrating to the United

States when I was 7, as soon as I faced teasing for being Canadian, I hid my origin for a long

time. Up until recently with leadership changes I have been ridiculed for being from the “hat of

America”, and I find it quite interesting now that Canada is considered a desirable place to live in

with the political climate America is in. I’ve even had multiple offers of marriage and requests of

smuggling people over the border so they can escape America. I find it quite ironic.

Being a Filipino, I faced the struggles of the other students not understanding what I

brought for lunch and making fun of it for looking and smelling “funny”. Being the first born out

of the Philippines, a lot of pressure was put on me to do well, and being an only child made the

pressure even worse. I was originally pressured by my parents to pursue a medical job as a

backup despite wanting to be a musician like my father. After doing what they wanted for a

semester and having a complete mental breakdown as a result, they let me do what I wanted. In

modern society, I am looked down on for pursuing my passions because most people don’t have

the luxury and are stuck in jobs that they don’t particularly enjoy in order to survive. I’ve had

countless people ask me why I was pursuing music and recommendations to study engineering

instead, but as soon as they saw my passion and talent for it, they retracted what they had to say.

Developmentally, I’ve always been an oddball and as I grow older I get more comfortable and

even embrace the fact that I have strayed from the norm and stopped caring what others think.

Being raised as a Christian, I was also put into private schools up until high school. My

mother, being a nurse, was the sole breadwinner of the family and because of this we were in the

very middle of middle class. I experienced months where we struggled with making home
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cooked meals and not going out to eat and months of going out to eat almost every day. As a

result of being sheltered, when I went to a public high school, I felt isolated and scared that

misbehaving was a common thing, and was not used to attending school with so many people.

The high graduating class where I attended 8th grade was two people because of how small the

school was. It was definitely a culture shock, but what I didn’t know before was that it exposed

me to the world and helped me find my passion of music and singing. I also made lifelong

friends that I still see to this day.

Being a straight woman of color who is not yet married, my position has never made me

fear of becoming poor, but I struggled with a lot of self-hatred against my race and many years

of battling identity crises because I couldn’t quite fit into the dominant culture. In the book, this

is described as the White identification stage, where peers become a huge part of conveying

racial prejudice, leading to “self-blame and a desire to escape racial heritage by identifying with

White society” (Sue, p. 364). I can definitely pinpoint times in my development stage where I’ve

felt this way, and I still struggle with it today. Being an actress and having to be marginalized

because of my racial identity, I have learned to comfortably live and in fact be very proud of my

heritage and my uniqueness. I feel that right now I am in my early stages of the incorporation

stage, which is the stage that “encompasses the development of a positive and comfortable

identity as Asian American and consequent respect for other heritages” (Sue p.364). I respect and

encourage the expression of other unique cultures, and I am still navigating through my feelings

towards the manipulative dominant culture and my inherit animosity towards them. Being a

woman of color, not only do I have to process being a minority, I have to process being

marginalized as a woman. This includes being boxed into traditional gender roles while

maintaining the demands of an American lifestyle. The text states that “women continue to face
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oppressive conditions and experience high levels of economic and psychological stress” (Sue, p

726). This is mostly due to the societal contradiction of wanting women to become caretakers

while facing the pressure of providing and making time to do both. Because “females are

socialized to prioritize the needs of others, taking on the role of nurturer and caregiver” (Sue, p.

728), they often face identity problems because they cannot define a life outside of taking care of

others. They are often taught that doing things for yourself is selfish, and this also ties into the

Asian American culture for me. The fact that Asian American families value collectivism over

independence, or valuing family needs over individual needs, contradicts the the American value

of finding self identity. Asian Americans are usually predispositioned to hold emotions in

because we are raised to think that “strong emotional displays are considered signs of immaturity

or lack of self-control” (Sue, p. 508) while emotional control is seen as a sign of strength.

Although there are many downsides to the Asian American culture, there are many strengths

including loyalty and resiliency by “demonstrating respect for parents and elders and supporting

siblings in their endeavor” (Sue, p. 511). Since Asians naturally have a good support system,

they rarely feel isolated from their families except for special cases when they are disowned. The

paradox of wanting to be independent like an American and having to take care of my parents

being the only daughter as an Asian has indeed given me much inner conflict throughout my life,

but growing older I have learned to adapt by simply not caring about what others think.

In comparison to the dominant culture, my personal life and development has strayed

from what is considered to be normal. Finishing my bachelors at 25 was something that I didn’t

think would happen, but because of wanting to finish my general education requirements and not

getting financial aid to a school that I really wanted to go to, my plans were changed and I ended

up staying in Vegas to go to University. Eventually, when I figured out counseling was

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something that I wanted to do (just a few months ago), I had to plan accordingly in order to

graduate. The American culture values graduating at around 22 and moving out by then in order

to live an independent life, but being an Asian American, taking care of family is very important

and because I am the only daughter of my parents, I will still most likely be living with them by

the time I graduate. Wanting to pursue acting, I constantly have to battle being pigeonholed into

stereotypes because I am not part of the dominant culture, and although it is improving society

has a long way to go in order to implement true inclusion and representation. Through the years

of struggling with my conflicting identities, I have learned that any doubt that I have come upon

them were directly caused by the opinion of others. As soon as I let go of the notion that external

opinions had any influence on how I wanted to express myself, I become unapologetically

myself. I wish to live this way for the rest of my life, and I hope that in doing so I can inspire

people to do the same. In finding my passion for music, I have found another passion for helping

others become able to express themselves fully, and in pursuing this major I hope that I will be

able to do exactly that.

References

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. Hoboken,

NJ: John Wiley & Sons.