Literacy Narrative part 1

21May11

This is the first half of an assignment for my Reading and Writing class at Michigan Tech. The assignment is about tracing our literacies, to look at what has helped shape these literacies.

I was born on a native american reservation, which is generally a life sentence of poverty at best. The reservation I lived on for the majority of my life was not as destitute as some. We have electricity and indoor plumbing, we have a modern(ish) town. My tribe opened the first Indian casino though we do not reap the benefits of most other tribes that are in the gaming business. The county my reservation is located in consistently has the highest unemployment rate in Michigan, not an easy task, and it is known in the Upper Peninsula and beyond as an area where drugs are plentiful and there is rampant alcoholism.
This is what I grew up in and what, as a young person, you see for your future. The school did not tell us we could go beyond the town. Students were encouraged to take the welding classes because that was one of the main industries in the area until about 6 years ago. Underage drinking was ignored or joked about by teachers and faculty. This is the environment I was learning in, an environment that encouraged me to assimilate, not to try to better myself or my community. It was common to have someone tell you that you would never be able to leave or make a better life for yourself. I believed this for quite a while and started to accept that I would stay there and have the same kind of life as everyone else. But I would look around, I would see how much people complained about their jobs, the desperation they had and always had in the back of my mind, the hope my parents had that I would be able to do something more than they did. Towards the end of my senior year of high school I figured out that I would do something to make it out, not just for myself, but for anyone from my town or a similar area. I wanted to show people young and old that if you come from a town crippled with alcoholism, drug abuse, unemployment and a self defeating attitude, you can improve your lot in life.
But there was a problem, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I got accepted to Michigan Technological University and Northern Michigan University, despite my low GPA I finished high school with a 2.3 or somewhere around there and it was good enough to be the exact middle of my class (of 48 if I remember correctly). So I went to MTU the fall after my graduation, like you’re “supposed” to do, a college education is the key to success and all of that. The only thing was I had no idea what I was going to college for. I was enrolled as a general engineering student though I knew I did not want to be an engineer of any kind. I actually put undeclared in the major field of the application but I guess someone decided that I meant general engineering by that so I decided to give it a try since I had not other ideas about what I wanted to be.
The environment of the university was something that I was not prepared for and I do not mean inside the classroom. I can say upon reflection that MTU is different now than when I first attended in the fall of 2000. I was not prepared to be surrounded by people who came from radically different backgrounds than me. I did not feel like I belonged on the campus and in a few cases heard negative comments about economically disadvantaged people, which still happens today but it makes me angry instead of uncomfortable now and anger is a source of fuel for me. Combine this with my disinterest in engineering and I quickly decided to leave the university. After four long days of being a college student I decided to drop out, but before I could drop out at the time I had to go talk to the Dean of Students about why I was leaving. The talk with Dean Melton was easy but while waiting to speak to her I was bombarded by questions by the woman at the desk about why I would want to drop out. She did not seem to understand the idea that I did not want to be an engineer and practically insisted that I was “just home sick” even though I told her I still lived at home. Overall she was very condescending to me. Dean Melton on the other hand immediately accepted my reason that I did not want to be an engineer.
I had escaped the university but was still motivated to do something positive in my life. However being surrounded by the area I was fighting against did not prove to be the best environment to figure out my life, at least not quickly. I took a “career assessment test” to see what would be the best path for me to follow. The results told me that I was very intelligent and I could “succeed in any field I chose”, not what a directionless 19 year old was looking to hear. I took to reading books that piqued my interests, nonfiction books mostly about politics and American society or about popular music, to keep myself close to learning. I also began delving further into music.

To be continued…

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