My personal terministic screen has been shaped by a multitude of factors. I am white, female, have a close relationship with my family and have never faced true adversity. My parents have always had the financial ability to give me everything I could ever need or want and I have the opportunity to get a private education. This privilege has allowed me to see the world in an exciting, fairly unintimidating way. My culture and demographics have been two primary influencers on my perspective of the world, among many other factors and experiences.
Culture
My dad’s father came to America from India after nearly losing everything after the partition. My family deeply values our Indian culture and it was a huge part of my childhood. My mom’s side, on the other hand, is a very traditional Irish Catholic family. Having this contrast growing up really influenced my terministic screen by giving me insight into how two groups of people (who both are very important to me) celebrate the exact same holidays in very different ways. Holidays with my dad’s family were filled with the best Indian food and stories of our family. At the beginning of meals we would say what we were grateful for but never have a formal grace or prayer. My dads side also did not celebrate easter together. The holidays with my mom’s side were very traditional and exactly what you expect of holidays for a white American family (traditional food, saying grace, massive easter celebration etc). I feel very fortunate to have had both traditional and nontraditional experiences as a child because I think it has made me have a very accepting and open perspective on other cultures and family traditions.
Home
I believe that for many, the place they call home is the biggest influencer of their perspective on the world. I am from Milwaukee, a beautiful city that I am proud to call home. The truth is though, Milwaukee is the most racially segregated city in America and this has greatly affected the way I see the world. It’s not only the city that is so segregated; it’s the schools, classrooms, malls. My school district was primarily white and nearly all the non-white kids were from outside the village I lived in, they were able to go to my school because of a government-funded program. Even then, there was a clear disparity between the academic levels of white and non-white kids in the district. The higher-level math and sciences classes were almost always 100% white, while the easier classes were nearly all non-white students. I lived in the village of Shorewood, the zip code is 53211. It sits on Lake Michigan, has a median household income of 69,000$ and is 85% white. Three miles directly west of Shorewood is the zipcode 53206. It incarcerates more black men than any other zip code in America. The median family income is 22,000$ and it is 95% African American. These numbers speak volume huge disparities. Growing up in such a segregated city has deeply shaped my perspective on the world. I credit growing up in such a segregated place as one of the biggest reasons I love to travel and learn about diverse cultures and places; I was never able to get that at home.
Shorewood, Wisconsin. The village I lived in my whole life.
The 53206 zip code just three miles west of Shorewood. A documentary was made about the zip code for its staggering incarceration rates.
Mayo Clinic
Culture and demographics are two very obvious determinants of how one’s terministic screen will be; significant events also have the ability to alter one’s perspective. For me, it was going to Mayo Clinic that changed my perspective on life and the world. From age twelve I suffered from chronic pain, forcing me to spend nearly six years going from doctor to doctor, all while missing out on so much due to the pain. The pain also had side effects like exhaustion, anxiety and difficulty focusing in class. During the spring of my senior year of high school I was given the opportunity to be evaluated at the Mayo Clinic. I missed a week of school to meet with some of the world’s best doctors and it changed my life in the best way. Besides improving my health more than I ever thought was possible, I finally learned to accept the issues with my body and gain a sense of closure by having answers. It was the most difficult week of my life but exponentially improved my quality of life. This changed my terministic screen because I learned from a young age how precious our health is and the importance of being grateful for it. My perspective completely flipped, I am now able to do so much with my body and appreciate everything it does. I never take the ability to walk to class for granted, and every workout I do now I do in honor of myself on the days the pain was so unbearable I couldn’t leave my bed. Even though this was such a difficult part of my life, I feel very lucky to have this terministic screen of seeing our functioning bodies as such a blessing.
My background and experiences have given me a unique, one of a kind terministic screen of the world. Terministic screens are like snowflakes, no two are ever the same, which I think is really what makes our world a special place.
Greta Ghei 