Alp Ozgunduz

Professor Lynn

UWRT 1103

10/27/15

The Values of my Family History

Today is October 27, 2015, it has been eleven weeks, three days, and four hours since I

began this essay and I still have a hard time believing how my perspective of family changed

from mere boredom to curiosity. Due to the insufficient amount of information found online and

from my parents in regards to my family history, the drive to find out more information became

an addiction rather than a typical assignment. In addition, I realized how my curiosity of such a

topic changed my willingness to share my family history with others. Finally, the book, “The

House on Mango Street”, and its different tragedies, I became curious as to the different

tragedies that my family experienced in their life.

Having enough information given to an individual doesn’t get them to be as interested

into their project in comparison to someone who must put a little bit more elbow grease to find

their information. This is what happened to me. Due to the lack of history about my Turkish

heritage, I searched deeper into my family history by viewing different social media websites.

Turns out, there is a lot of interesting information about my family, such as my Great

Grandfather being a famous general of the Ottoman Empire. Finding information such as this

made learning about my family much more interesting, which is interesting because of how

unwilling I was to share my personal family history the beginning of the year to that of now.

Before learning about my family history, I was unsure as to what to say to my friends

when we discuss our families. This was before I learned that my grandfather used to be a Kernel

of the Turkish Military. This is one of the many things I learned about my family tree, which

ultimately got me interested in sharing my family history with other people. At times, I enjoyed

writing about my family in projects such as the of the Family Tree Project, and I tended to loose

all track of time and sooner or later, I had a three page paper when I was only supposed to do

one. However, even though my family only recorded information of positive events, I was

curious about the negative events that occurred in my family.

One particular book that is somewhat depressing is, “The House on Mango Street”.

Despite my love for the book for its interesting characters and fantastic settings, I found that

every story had a tragedy that was inevitable. This surplus of depressing content made me

wonder what tragedies did my family have when they moved to America? While I have not done

any research or interviewed my family, the question of what tragedies my family had still

remains. As a result, I intend on asking my parents what struggle did they have when they

immigrated to America.

As I said before, my perspective of my family changed from boredom to curiosity. And

while I do have a sufficient amount of information about my family tree, I still have many

questions to ask my relatives. As a result, I am expecting to gather both the good and the bad of

my family.