"I come from..."

After weeks of anticipation and equal doses of excitement and nervousness, I finally embarked on a two-credit class, "Opinion and the Blogosphere," that I'm teaching at Portland State University this weekend.

As a way of getting to know them and encouraging them to think about commonalities and differences, I asked my class to do a free-writing exercise called "I come from..." It's an exercise that Julie Sullivan, a much-admired reporter at The Oregonian, uses to break the ice when speaking to groups both large and small.

A half-dozen students read aloud what they wrote, each of them revealing a piece of themselves that I thought reflected great candor but also how they might view the world, given their varying life experiences. One student talked about being the youngest of four daughters; a couple of others, about living in a lot of cities and states and how they appreciate being in Portland. One wrote about the murky lines of ancestry in her family, another about being descended from apes. And still another wrote about having to adapt to his parents' divorce, his mother's death from cancer, living with relatives, surviving homelessness.

As generous as they were to share their writings, I thought it only fair to share mine:

I come from a working-class, Mexican American family, the middle child and only son of Catarino Rede and Theresa Flores.
I come from a household where work was highly valued and it was always expected of me that I would support myself and my family.
I come from a home where my parents, with 7th and 8th grade educations, couldn't help me with my homework, but they could encourage me to find and follow my path.
I come from Northeast Portland and a two-story home on a corner lot in a middle-class neighborhood, where my wife and I have raised three adult children, alternately marveling and shaking our heads at the things they've done and the choices they've made in life.
I come from the Catholic Church, but readily admit that I fell away from it when my parents divorced, leaving me wondering why a benevolent god would allow the two adults I loved most to split apart.
I come from the perspective of an introvert, someone who likes to observe and analyze more than to be the center of attention, someone for whom reading is as natural as breathing.