{"id":6000,"date":"2019-05-18T09:51:37","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T13:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=6000"},"modified":"2025-06-27T15:45:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T19:45:34","slug":"i-never-knew-how-black-i-really-was-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2019\/05\/18\/i-never-knew-how-black-i-really-was-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"I Never Knew How Black I Really Was: Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Riana Texeria with her mentor Shirley Rush<\/p><\/div>\n

Riana Teixeira, mentored by Shirley Rush, presented to a full audience on University Day. \u201cI had the great privilege of working with Miss Riana on a special topics class about identity development,\u201d Rush said. \u201cAnd this is a result of her semester of work.\u201d Teixeira, who is Cape Verdean, spoke about coming to Presque Isle from Brockton, Mass., and gaining independence. \u201cI was under my parent\u2019s thumb,\u201d Teixeira said. \u201cAs a Cape Verdean, you\u2019re taught you\u2019re really supposed to respect your parents\u2019 wishes and follow their path.\u201d Teixeira found herself not liking the path she was on. \u201cI was like OK,\u201d she said. \u201cLet me go somewhere far where I can do my thing and my parents will be a phone call away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deciding she wanted something different from the fast-paced life she had been living, she enrolled at UMPI. \u201cIt was definitely a lot of new experiences coming up here,\u201d Teixeira said. \u201cSeeing simple things. The hospitality here is definitely different from Massachusetts, I\u2019ll say that for sure.\u201d But not everything has been so easy transitioning to. \u201cA big thing was realizing I\u2019m a minority,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s not something I paid mind to when I was home because there were so many different minority groups.\u201d She further explains how it never occurred to her the dominant culture to the non-dominant until she moved to Presque Isle. \u201cThere\u2019s little things that remind you every day that oh, OK. We\u2019re different,\u201d Teixeira said.<\/p>\n

The focal point of her presentation was identity as well as the concept of race being unavoidable. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re Asian, white, black, orange,\u201d she said. \u201cYou name it. You have a stereotype.\u201d Teixeira went on to explain how who you are in society affects your opportunity. \u201cLittle things like your race, like your gender,\u201d she said. \u201cThey will open doors and close some doors.\u201d Her powerful knowledge sparked great conversation at the end of her presentation, as well as a strong round of applause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riana Teixeira, mentored by Shirley Rush, presented to a full audience on University Day. \u201cI had the great privilege of working with Miss Riana on a special topics class about identity development,\u201d Rush said. \u201cAnd this is a result of her semester of work.\u201d Teixeira, who is Cape Verdean, spoke about coming to Presque Isle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8436,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000\/revisions\/8436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}