​My Reflection

Sabrina Akbar November 4, 2015​

Backward-Looking: What process did you go through to produce this piece?

In order to create a realistic narrative essay about an event that actually

happened, I had to recall certain events that I didn’t remember as much anymore. Since
the event took place about two years back, I had to ask my mother about what
happened in terms of her dialogue and even which mall the event took place in.
Although, she also couldn’t remember her dialogue word for word, I had to compromise
with what I thought was our dialogue. In certain parts of the story, two different
languages were used to describe the events. As I have not yet learned fluent Spanish or
Urdu, I also had to make sure the words were spelled correctly in the languages.
Towards the end of the narrative, I used a parts of a spoken-word poem I had made two
years back when the event happened, and I used it in the beginning and end of the
story. Yet, reading the poem was very nostalgic and quite sad, I wanted the reader to
have a sense of how I felt at the time.

What part of your narrative are you most proud of? Why?

I think my favorite part of the narrative is the resolution or conclusion of the story.
I wanted the narrative to end in a positive way, and I wanted to show the reason of how
and why I cope with being mixed. Although, because events somewhat like this actually
still happen today, I didn’t have a fully closed solution that would end the problem
forever. I wanted the narrative to end in a way that doesn’t exactly end. I do say in the
last paragraph, “I wrote that I would learn to cope with being mixed, and all my struggles
with my identity would be a memory,” but that is not completely true. Yet, I am proud of
the ending because it shows that i’ve learned to accept that I might always have
struggles with my identity. My story ends with my favorite part of my poem. “So if I
walked into a room with a line in the middle separating my two ethnicities, I would sit on
the line.”

Inward-Looking: What did you learn about yourself as you worked on this piece?
How?

While working on the essay, I realized I was much more shy and an introvert two
years ago then I am today. I still do get shy at times, and sometimes I will stay quiet and
excluded from certain social activities. Yet, the me that I am today would have not done
the same things I described in the story when I encountered the Spanish man or Indian
woman. I realized this because as I wrote my memories came back, and I saw my shy
freaked out twelve year old self, a complete opposite of me today. I also learned that
some of the events that took place wouldn’t be considered offensive at all. Though two
years ago, I was very oversensitive about my ethnicities and when I was put into
situations where I had to show my weakness, I would panic and create a bigger
problem. While working on this piece I also remembered my poem, and I realized I’m
actually a pretty good amateur poet.

Outward-Looking: What is the one thing you want people to notice when they
look at your work? Why?

The main thing I want people to gain from my narrative, regardless if they are
mixed at all, is to ask questions about everyone and everything. No question is ever a
bad question, and I realized this that day. I believe why I was always so nervous back
then was because I was always clueless about myself. I knew what to say when people
asked me “what I was,” but I never had a good enough answer for myself. I could tell
them I was half Cuban and half Pakistani, but that just rose my questions I didn’t have
answers for. I had little clue of my cultures and languages and even my parents
religions. Yet once I did ask my parents the questions I’ve always wanted to know,
every answer for a question asked about my ethnicity was much more clear to me. This
doesn’t have to imply to my story only as well. There are times in school or at a job
when asking questions are useful, and asking your question makes all the difference.
Whether you’re asking a worker in a store for your size of jeans, or simply asking
questions about the universe that aren’t so simple, asking questions is how we learn.
Before I wasn’t allowing myself to learn about who I am. All because I never even
asked.

Forward-Looking: Looking back at the writing process, what was the most
challenging step? Why?

I think the hardest part for me might sound silly for a narrative, but it was hard for
me to create myself into a character-like person. Yes, it was hard to write about myself
in my own narrative. I knew the event that I wanted to talk about, and in my head I knew
how I would address each individual situation. I just had a very hard time with
characterization of my own character. I tried using certain dialogue and descriptive body
language that would create me into a character in a story, but I feel as if I’m just a main
narrator with some dialogue. I believe that because this was a true event, the narrative
became myself mostly explaining the scene rather than just letting the scene happen.
Making a true story unfold like a natural story was very difficult for me.
What is one goal for improving that step?

My goal to steer away from problems with characterization is to create the

character before telling the story. When I make free-writes I usually create the
characters first, but because this was a narrative, I thought just by telling my story my
main character would unfold. Yet I am the main character, so I couldn’t exactly make up
characteristics. My idea is to use the knowledge of how I know I felt in that event and
use characterization like speech, thoughts, effect on others, actions, and looks to create
the character. Since I knew I was shy and insanely insecure back then, I could have
used that to create a character in a more accessible way for the reader to visualize.
Since not every reader will know me personally, I’m going to have to jump into the story
and become a character when writing about myself in the future.