I never had the desire before this project to find out the history of my family. I didn’t see the importance of having that piece of information in your life. But through research, I found out that knowing your family history, does not only allow you to know where you come from, but forms a better perspective of who you are. I now have a profound respect, for my ancestors or the ones I could find information about. Upon researching for the first immigrant in my family, I could not find records that far enough that indicated the first member of my family who came to the United States. I knew, all my family on both my father and mothers side came from the United States, not only the United States, but from Texas. Through ancestry.com, I found that my great grandparents were from Texas, as well as my grandparents, and my parents themselves. Not until I found a birth record of my mother’s father who I referred to as my popo did I find history, that I never knew about. For the longest time, when people labeled me as Mexican I declined their accusation. I always preferred to be called a spaniard, because I knew my mother and father’s last names were derived from Spain. Also, due to the fact I was a lighter hispanic and I didnt know my background. But the mindset of being a Spaniard changed once I found information pertaining to my great great great grandfather, he was in fact born in Mexico. Eulalio Sanchez, my great great great grandfather on my moms side, passed away in Manor, Texas. I’m assuming him and my great great great grandmother, Rosaria Gonzales met and married and Mexico, because her birth records state she was born in Mexico as well. Because both of their deaths happened way before I was born, Im guessing they both moved to Manor, Texas wanting to create a better life for their future family. That is why all the other generations of my family are from Texas and not out of the United States. Both Rosaria and Eulalio arrived to Texas in 1875, based on the United States Federal census. I couldn’t tell you what experiences they had once they came to the United States, but I know they were much different than todays. I couldn’t tell you the problems they faced, because not even my mother knew her great great grandfather and great great grandmother came from Mexico, she thought as I did.  Since the information I could obtain were already stated, and I couldn’t get as many details, I will be taking a different approach for my paper. I have always been curious as to why my parents never taught me nor my sisters spanish. I was always made of fun of at school, because people would ask if I was white or Mexican. I would always answer with Hispanic-American, or sometimes Tejano, then I would be asked if I was hispanic why couldn’t I speak spanish. I always just thought my parents were lazy, and felt too much work would be put it in too teach me and my sisters a new language. Over years, I picked up that my grandparents would be great at spanish, usually speaking it at all times, but my parents knew just a little bit less than them, but definitely more than me. It dawned on me their must be a true reason, as to why the spanish I know was taught to me in high school, rather than my parents themselves. Through extensive research and family interviews, I found out this reason was the generation of exclusion. This generation includes my mother and father, a generation in which the government feared spanish speakers because they believed, if you spoke the language you were an immigrant. School programs, made children like my parents believe spanish was evil, and to step away from speaking it, because they were in America now. Throughout the years their ethnic identity became lost, and so was mine because it wasn’t passed down. My parents had to assimilate into mainstream America and had to achieve english proficiency. Society built an ideological framework for them, and expected them to reform to these ideology or they would would be frowned upon, and considered different or considered immigrants to others, just for speaking the language. Over the years, I have heard my parents speak more and more Spanish, and I hope one day they can pass the language on to me as their parents did to them, and maybe this time it won’t be silenced. I wish, I knew what my great-great-great grandparents experiences were coming to the United States, but they definitely worked very hard for their life, and for us to not lose our culture of being hispanic.