Me

            African or African American do I have to choose? My parents are from Liberia, Africa and have been living in the United States for over 30 years. As a child I have experienced two cultures and two different ethnicity. Living in the States has been difficult for me to enhance my African culture. I have been faced with many challenges when I entered the school systems. Racial slurs, and ridicule from my peers have been just a few. Living in two different cultures and experiencing racism has had a profound affect on my life.
             My mother and father came to the United States in 1976, to earn their college degrees. While attending Kent State University, in Ohio, my parents met. They had no idea they were both from the same country. My parents courted for 3 years before marring in 1979. They later moved to Chicago IL, for better opportunities. My dad drove cabs for extra money while attending Illinois Institute of Technology, while my mother braided hair to help my dad support their foundation for something special to come. This union has brought fourth 3 lovely children, 25 years of marriage and counting along with cultural enhancement for the family as a whole. .
             On July 4, 1980, my parents first child was born, I Jartu Selli am the eldest of 2 siblings. I was born in Chicago IL, on the birth of Independence, which to me is a coincidence? The birth of Independence is unique, not only in the immensity of its later impact on the course of world history and the growth of democracy, but also because so many of the threads in our national history run back through time to come together in one place, in one time, and in one document: the Declaration of Independence.
             That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.