My name is Michael Pena, and I was born and raised in Miami my entire life until I decided to move to Tallahassee. I am the youngest out of my siblings and I am the last one left to graduate in my family. Being the youngest, my parents and my siblings always were looking out for me and concerned me which made me also want to do the same for others I care about. Miami has an exclusive type of living which makes it very unique due to a lot of the Hispanics that live there. My parents are from Dominican Republic which plays a big role on my hobbies and things I enjoy to see and do. The culture my parents have brought from their home has affected me in many ways. Playing baseball and eating Dominican food has always been something I enjoyed and it made me appreciate the cultures and traditions of other foreign places. Since elementary, I have been living in a community where the majority of the residents have been Hispanic or Latino so a lot of my culture and traditions are based of my childhood not only from being in a Dominican house hold, but also having a Venezuelan Best friend influenced a lot on what I eat and even some of his country’s slang.
Throughout public schools in my neighborhood, like the local elementary to high school, is where I met the majority of my friends. Even now many of my friends that I knew when I was little are still in contact with me after high school. Since I always stayed in the same part of Miami called “Doral,” I became very social with the people I met who lived there and went to the same school as me. Miami was divided into different portions and Doral was one of the biggest in population and it is where I grew up. I also participated in many extracurricular activities and hobbies throughout high school. But out of all the sports I did, basketball was the main sport. My senior year I received various achievement’s like being a city All Star and one of the top scorers in South Florida. Working in...