Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts

Family Genes

I wanna share something with you.
My ethnicity.

I am multi-racial. My maternal grandmother is of African-American decent and she married my grandfather who was a native (Cherokee and Blackhawk).
                                                   
                         
Which makes my mother biracial.

My paternal grandmother is of Irish decent. She married my grandfather who is also Irish.

Which makes my father Irish.

My mother of African-American and Native decent married my father who is Irish.

Which makes me African-American, Native, and Irish.

My mother and father divorced at an early age and my father did not remain in my life. . My sisters and I were raised by my African-American mother and her family. Naturally, we grew up connected more to this culture.

My daughter's father is biracial. His mother is Caucasian and his father African-American.

Which makes my daughter African-American x2, Caucasian x2, and Native.

Her father passed away while she was young, and she was also bought up in an African-American household. And tended to naturally identify more dominantly with this part of her.

The challenge came as she got older and although her DNA contains equal amounts of both ethnicities, her genetic expression gave way to her having pale skin, blue eyes, and silk hair, giving her the appearance of a Caucasian female.

If asked she expresses she is mixed or African-American. This often results in her being given the side eye. Can you imagine her frustration? As I've mentioned before my family uses art as a means of expression. Lana (Lori, as we call her) uses her written word to convey her emotions. I'd like to share with you a poem she wrote: {Please click image to view in its entirety}

Did I mention Lana (Lori) was a published poet? I will be sharing more of her work in future posts.

Laila As An Artist

One thing I adore is talented kids. I don't toot my own horn often, but I must admit, I've created some pretty amazing  little people. This week I will be taking the opportunity to show some the work from my houseful of artist. Today I'm sharing art from my daughter Laila. She recently turned 13. She's a rising 8th grader and has dreams of becoming a teacher and a fashion model. Drawing is her favorite self expression with writing being a close 2nd.
 Laila's drawing of Wonder woman.
 This is her poetry work.