In this paper my task was to detail my own personal history.

I feel that the goal of this paper was to become more comfortable with being able to write out a family history. I also feel that another purpose of this assignment was to help students to identify where their own personal values come from, so that they may better understand themselves. A better understanding of oneself is necessary towards giving competent services to clients, as it allows us to view our own values and how they may affect the way one interacts with their clients. A also believe that this assignment helped to strengthen my analyzing and evaluation skills as practice behaviors. I feel that I was successful in these goals, as I was able to step back from my own situation and analyze my family history well.

Nicholas Case Ethnography report

Abstract The intent of this essay is to explain how I came to be who I am as an individual. I will be explaining how my family works, where we came from, how we got to be here, and how we are structured. It is a good point to note though, that I do not have a large, close knit family. My family, on both my paternal and maternal side, is highly individualistic, and few of us really come together. More will be explained on that topic, as well as why we came to be this way. I will do my best to explain my own personal culture and ethnicity, but there are problems related to that matter as well, which will be addressed in full. Finally, I will be relating the values I developed in my family, to those of the social work profession.

My name is Nicholas Alan Case, I am Caucasian, and I was born in Detroit, Michigan, in January of 1986, during a blizzard nonetheless. My parents, Alan Case and Ruth Nardelli, both come from small clusters of larger families, and were married two years before I was born. I have a half-brother, who is two years older than me, and my father adopted him at birth. With a few exceptions here and there, this was all the family that I knew for most of my young life. It was not the happiest family on the block, we were poor, my parents both worked constantly, but most days we somehow made it work. There are many aspects of my family that I always thought of as somewhat peculiar, but until recently I never gave it too much thought. The biggest aspects of my family that have always given me the most to think about, have always been the questions of where my name comes from, my ethnic heritage, and how we got to be so distant from the rest of our family groups. There is much that can be said about a name, particularly a surname. Among many other things, it can be a marker towards where you get your roots, a tie to a distant heritage, or a sense of pride from belonging to a long line of people that shared the same name. I am not able to learn, or explain anything about myself, or my history based upon my surname. As the story goes, told by my mother since it is not something my father, or any one on his side of the family likes to discuss, my grandmother had become pregnant by a man she met at her church, while she was living in Chicago. When my grandmother informed this man of the situation, he made it very clear that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with her or the child. The man then disappeared, and my grandmother never saw him again. So she decided to once again ask a close friend of hers if she could put his name on the birth certificate. His name was James Case, I know absolutely nothing else about him besides that, and he also gave his name to my one of my

aunts as well. This brings the number of people on this Earth who share the same last name and the same blood with me at the same time to two. This is not the only pothole on the road to my heritage though, and members of my family knowing only half of their lineage, seems to be a very common thing on both sides. Continuing with my fathers side, he has three sisters, and out of the four of them, only one of them actually knows who their father is, which the youngest sibling, Susan is. The other two, are Cherie, who is a recovering addict of just about everything, and Penny, who is one of the only members of my fathers side of the family whom I have been on speaking terms with for years. My aunt Penny is also the other person with the same last name as me, she has two kids, Lonnie and Stephanie, and I have always been somewhat close to them as well. It is thanks to Penny that I was able to find out anything at all about my paternal ethnic background, which on the matter she said this My mom's mom, gaga, was Swiss, French and Native American, the Native American coming from the Powhatan tribe. Gaga's husband Walter, who died in 1956 due to his alcoholism, was German, and Irish, His father was born in Germany, his mother was born in Ireland, and they met somewhere near Chicago ( Penny Case, personal communication, January, 2012). The maternal side of my ethnic heritage is slightly easier to nail down, yet I still often end up confused on how I am related to the few members that I have actually come into contact with. As far as I have been able to dig up, my great grandparents on my mothers side immigrated here shortly before World War One from a small village outside of Rome. For the longest time that was all I knew, until I met my moms half-sister Kathy. My aunt Kathy tells me that even she knows very little about her mother, though what she could tell me is this, As far as I know, your grandmother was French-Canadian, Polish, and Native American. I dont know anything about her parents, and wouldnt even know where to start looking to find out. I only know as

much as I do about her from a conversation I had with her years ago. She was an awful woman, and I have spent most of my adult life avoiding her at all costs (Kathleen Yates, personal communication, February, 2012). I always found it somewhat funny that on my dads side, I only knew one grandparent, my grandmother, and on my moms side it was the same situation, only instead I had a grandfather. This is in great part because up until I was sixteen years old, I was under the assumption that my mothers mother had died at a young age. As I mentioned my aunt Kathy as having said she avoided her mother at all costs, my mother did the same, only she added in lying about her mother being dead. This is actually not the only part of my family my mother hid, I didnt know about her sister until I was around twelve, and I found out she has a brother as well when I was twenty. My mother refuses to talk about her mother, or her brother, and my aunt Kathy is much the same, though beyond them both saying that their mother was a bad person, I have never been able to get any details on the hows and whys, and neither have any reason to not speak of their brother, as far as I know they just drifted apart. This all brings up what I consider to be one of my families largest short comings, communication. As I mentioned earlier, I have not been on speaking terms with my fathers side of the family for years. Other than my aunt Penny and her children, the only other member of the family that I was ever close with was my great grandmother. The only reason I got to know her though, was because she came to live with my family for the years that I was fourteen through seventeen. She died a few years ago, and I fell out of the family. I had never actually noticed it before, but on my fathers side of the family, she was the oldest member by around thirty five years, the next oldest being my great aunt Beverly, who passed away two years ago, around the age of sixty five. Until writing this, I had literally given no thought at all to the fact that there were no elderly

people on his side other than her. Even now, my grandmother is the oldest surviving member of that side of my gene pool by about twenty years. So looking back, I understand better why my great grandmother was able to avoid living in nursing homes right up until three months before she died: she had a large reserve of younger family members to rely upon. For some reason, I always remember the rare family gatherings on my dads side as being just terrible. Everyone always seemed cold towards each other, and it really just seemed like a group of strangers that would eventually start arguing about something, and then part way through dinner, we would leave, while my dad was still yelling at someone. The older I got, the less I kept seeing my dads side of the family, and now it has come down to being extremely rare for me to ever see any of them, even though I know I live very close to all the remaining relatives that I have met from my dads side. I say that I have met because shortly before I dropped contact with my father, I started asking questions about our heritage again, and he informed me that we actually have a huge familial group that lives between Illinois and Indiana. Since there is only my aunt Penny that I talk to now, I asked her if she knew anything about this group of our family, and she had very little input on the subject. From what I gather about them, my dad and his sisters had spent time with these people when they were growing up in Chicago, but due to some altercation, of which my aunt Penny could not remember the nature of, while they were still relatively young, they lost all contact with the other group, and eventually moved to Detroit. The only other piece of information that I could gather about these people is that they mostly have the surname of Beaumiller, which would more than likely place the relation between us and them as having come from my great grandfather, Walter. No pictures exist in my family of any of these people, and no contact has been made between the two groups in at least thirty five to forty years.

My mothers side of the family is almost the exact opposite of my fathers actually, in almost every way. For example, the average age of any given member of my mothers side of the family has to be somewhere around the mid-fifties, with many members of the family sitting happily around the eighties range. Another key difference between the two families is that the original settling group was very close knit, and has mostly stayed that way until more recently, as the older members have slowly started to pass away. As the remaining elders of my family grew up, they spread, mainly throughout Michigan, and now form three different groups: The Viccionies, the Bazovvies, and the Nardellies. I personally belong to the Nardelli branch of the three families. These three groups still meet up every couple years for a reunion, and we actually had one last summer. At this recent reunion, I had the chance to spend some time with my aunt Anne Viccionie, who is actually my cousin but out of respect I call her my aunt, has made a family album that follows all three families from the time they were first all settled in America, which was in the early 1900s, until now. I got to see pictures of my great grandparents, as well as my grandfather and his three siblings: Anne, Ray and Flora. The only of the three siblings that I never got the chance to meet was Anne, because she passed away shortly before I was born, due to a stroke. Ray, whose actual name on his birth certificate is Radio due to his mothers thick accent, passed away due to a heart attack when I was eight. Flora passed away when I was about thirteen, from Alzheimers. It was nice seeing them all so young and happy, and seeing them all together. I especially loved the fact that even though most old family pictures of other peoples that I have seen always have people with very serious looks, ninety-percent of the pictures of my family members show them with big smiles, and often showing them all in groups with their arms around one another.

When I was a kid, I remember always being so happy to go over to visit family members of my moms side for holidays. I always felt so welcome wherever my family was; everyone was always so kind and happy. No one ever fought; there was always so much love and affection being shown with hugs, laughter, a great deal of hand holding, and caring squeezes of the shoulder or arm. The hand expressions though, are one thing that I definitely picked up from interacting with my mothers side of the family. Everyone would use their hands while they talked, making gestures to relate just about any feeling or emotion. From a young age I started speaking and gesturing the same way, and I still do it, even though Im usually unaware of it until it is pointed out. I even go so far as to use hand gestures while reading, to help with the flow of the information in my head, which is something Ive seen both my mother, and my grandfather do on numerous occasions. Even though she does it too, my mom loves to pick on me for doing it. Dinner time was always the best part of any gathering on my moms side though, no matter the occasion it was always a feast. I dont remember anyone ever drinking alcohol, beyond red wine in moderate amounts, but the array of food was always just amazing. Much of it was traditional Italian food, such as stuffed manicotti, gnocchis, pasta va zoo, but there was always an aunt with a specialty. Many of the special recipes have been passed down, and I still get to enjoy them every so often. My two favorites are from my aunt Shirley, and they are this German sausage and vegetables dish, and the most amazing and unique cheesecake that I have ever had the extreme joy of eating. Shirley was my uncle Rays wife, she passed away late last year, and it was hard losing her. She was a very kind-hearted woman, even though she always kept up a stern appearance, she was the center of the universe for her twelve children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and she is dearly missed, by the entire family.

Even at a young age, I could tell the difference between the two sides of my family, and held a strong preference towards my moms side, which is a feeling that definitely continues to this day. Also, if by some rare occurrence, the two sides came together, it was often awkward, and the two sides barely inter-mingled. Where my fathers side was cold, distant, and hardly got along; my mothers side was warm, supportive, and rarely discussed private matters, or had even the slightest argument in front of the rest of the family. Having my parents come from two distinctly different upbringings was very evident in my household. Especially since both of my parents came from a broken home, one of which was headed by a man who remarried only once, the other being headed by a woman who had five husbands and none of them fathered one of her children. And even though they ended up getting a divorce shortly after I turned eighteen, I feel that they did instill strong family values in me. I feel that my father got the short end of the stick in the area of having a decent childhood, as I know from what my mother has told me, my father, grandmother, and his sisters were physically abused quite a bit when he was young by a variety of men that my grandmother brought into their lives. While much available research shows that children raised in abusive homes, also exhibit similar patterns of behavior, for my father, this was not the case. He does have a very short temper, and would yell like there was tomorrow if he became upset, he was never physically abusive towards my mother, and only on a few rare occurrences did he ever lay a finger on my brother or I. In fact, I found it interesting to find in one study that, It has been estimated that even when children experience multiple adversities over time, approximately 50 percent will still overcome these and achieve relatively good developmental outcomes (Benard, Using Strengths-based Practice to Tap the Resilience of Families, 2006).

Other ways that the different upbringings had effects on the household I was raised in, were pretty mixed. For example, even though my mother made sure that we had a family dinner, at the table, almost every night, the dinners were also often filled with my parents arguing. It was not every night that they fought though, I do have many warm memories of my family sitting around the dinner table, laughing, telling stories about our days, and just having good interactions with each other. The fondest of which are related to when my great grandmother lived with us though. She was so finicky about everything, and had such an odd and beautiful way of carrying herself that I feel she provided somewhat of a funny outlet for the rest of us to rally around. My great grandmother lived to be one hundred and one years old, and I think she was ninety-two when she started living with us. She moved in after suffering from injuries related to a fall, and she usually used a wheelchair to get around, though she could use a walker. Even though she worked full time as an evening bar tender, my mother always showed the patience of a saint when dealing with my great grandmother and took care of her usually until I would get home from school. Every day though, my mother would help her to bathe, use the bathroom at times, eat, dress, and do just about anything else she needed. My dad would usually get home from around ten at night, so he rounded out the day for his grandmother by visiting with her while they watched television together, and then would help her get to bed. For some reason, my brother could not stand being around my great grandmother though. There was one time actually, that I remember coming home from school, and finding my brother army crawling through the kitchen. Apparently my great grandma had heard him come into the house, but he was trying to make her think that no one was there, so that he wouldnt have to talk to her. I took pity on my brother that day, and walked into the room with my great grandma with headphones in my ears, so I could just pretend I hadnt heard her, while my brother crawled to

safety. The rest of us never really minded helping out with my great grandma though, and I value the time I got to spend with her very highly. And even though I did not have the courage to be at her funeral when she passed away, due to my strained relationship with most of that side of the family, I did get to see her just a few days before she died. We had a warm conversation, and I sat by her bedside, holding her hands, and helping her to read from her bible. Even though I never read it, I keep a picture of her in a bible in my dresser drawer. I like to look at it from time to time, and just remember everything that made her who she was. Religion is another odd way my parents mixed their former lives together. I dont remember either of them as being particularly religious, but they wanted my brother and I to have religious upbringings like they had. My moms side of the family has a large portion of very traditional devout Catholics. So in retrospect, her decision to put my brother and I into a private Catholic school when we were young, was probably for the most part just to get them off her back. I was baptized in the Catholic faith, had my first communion, and my confirmation. I even have an extra middle name from the confirmation, Vito, after my godfather. From what Ive been told, the only reason I got the extra name is because my family is so traditional with their practices. Most Catholics in American society do not practice that particular tradition anymore though, it is a tradition that they brought with them from the old country. As I was going through the indoctrination methods of the Catholic church, my grandmother decided that for some odd reason, she would take an interest in me. I will never understand what it is about me that she does not like, but she and I have never been close. She wouldnt recognize my brother as her grandson though, and both of us had to call her Jenny until I was about seven or eight. She said it was because she didnt feel old enough to be a grandmother yet, but I never believed that. One day though, she started picking me up every now and then, and taking me to

her Baptist church with her, usually on Wednesday nights, which I always thought was weird. I will never forget seeing a baptism there one night, and seeing this kid, about my age, get into this pool behind the preacher. Somehow, I had not noticed the pool until the two of them got into it, but once they were in, the preacher put his hand on the kids head, started talking really loud, and plunged the kid straight back into the water! I could not understand what the hell had just happened, but everyone around me was cheering and shouting, and the kid seemed fine, just a little dazed. Seeing the extreme of traditional Catholic, and occasionally feeling those were a bit odd, and then seeing this bizarre child-dunking ritual, just really got me confused on who exactly it was that was making up the rules for these traditions. I think from that moment on, without knowing the word for it at the time, I became Agnostic. We moved away from both sides of my family, when I was twelve, and we became pretty isolated from them all, with the exceptions of seeing my moms side for most major holidays, and my great grandmother living with us. So when I eventually told my parents that I was kind of starting to think that all the religious stuff was a bunch of hoo-hah, I was pretty surprised when they actually told me that it was alright to feel that way. They both attended a nondenominational Christian church in the neighborhood that we moved to, but they never tried to force me to go with them. I would go with them sometimes, and it always made my dad happy, but my brother never went again as soon as he found out that I didnt have to go. It was weird seeing that my family didnt take any of the religious aspects of my life that I had learned from them, but it was really good of them in my opinion to not force it on me once I was mature enough to make my own decision on the topic. One grey area on both sides of family that I noticed growing up, was the topic of racism. My family lived in a fairly diverse neighborhood, and I never really thought anything about there

being differences with people, just based on the way their skin looked. I dont remember exactly when I started noticing it, but my family would always act weird when we would be out somewhere, and I would just start interacting with other children and even adults at times, regardless of what they looked like. I thought nothing of it, I was just always very social and friendly as a child, and they never said anything to me about it for a while, but I remember over hearing my dad say something to my mom along the lines of it being funny that I had just walked up and started hanging out with a group of black children. And while to this day, I still cannot understand what all the fuss is about over skin color, I started noticing more and more little instances of racism from there on out. Now that Im older, I know for a fact that my family, mostly on my moms side, is apparently pretty racist, and somewhere down the line, I became my families social conscious of sorts. My dad has never really been one to practice prejudice or use racial slurs, and I think that is one of the few positive qualities that I picked up from him. My mom, and her side of the family, while they never outwardly practice prejudice, hold some racist beliefs, and used to often use racial slurs. I say used to, because after at least a decade of personally preaching tolerance and acceptance to my family, I am proud to say that I only rarely hear my grandfather use racial slurs, or make racist comments, and the rest of my family just basically got sick of hearing me chew them out for it. While I know that I will never be able to change their minds at this point, I refuse to give up the fight, and it remains an area where my family and I are often forced to just agree to disagree, and leave it at that. I think in a few ways, my family had been helping develop me into a social worker throughout my life, without ever knowing it. Three very good examples of why I feel this way are the way my family took in my great grandmother, the issues Ive had with my family and

their little problem with racism, and the way my parents reacted when I told them how I felt about religion. The NASW code of ethics lays out a list of core values that a social worker should hold, among these values, I believed picked up my own respect for service, integrity, dignity and worth of a person, and the importance of human relationships (NASW code of ethics, 2011), just based on the relationship we had with my great grandmother. My constant resistance against racist elements in my family, I feel helped me to gain my own passion for social justice as well, which is also outlined as a core value in the code of ethics (NASW, 2011). I also feel that the way my family handled my stance on religion, helped to promote me to act the way I do towards racism in my family, and it also helped me to open my eyes to the validity of many other religions, which fostered a respect for diversity, which Im pretty sure is a must have for any budding social worker. Altogether, Id say I turned out to be a fairly decent citizen, and human being as a result of my upbringing. My family is by no means perfect, but my parents really did do their best to provide my brother and I with a good life, and to raise us to be good people. I feel that my mothers side of my family, helped immensely to counteract the coldness of my fathers side of the family. The warmth I found from those I remain close with in my family, as well as those that have passed, has done a great deal towards making me a compassionate and caring individual. If there is one lesson I have learned so from life, it is that we do the best we can with the cards we are dealt in life, and that is the best a person can do.

Bibliography Penny Case, personal communication, January, 2012. Kathleen Yates, Personal communication, February, 2012. NASW, code of ethics, 2011. Benard, B. Using Strengths-based Practice to Tap the Resilience of Families, in D. Saleebey (ed.) Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice, pp. 197220. 2006, Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon