The stereotype of Mexican's being low in life is common. I've seen friends snicker on hispanics working on the corner trying to earn a dollar selling flowers. They would refer to them as wetbacks or some disrespectful term. It would feel as if we as the white race are better than them and it is simply not the case and I get quite frustrated. If something ended up broken or missing in the house the first initial thought would be the maid, that happens to be a hispanic. It is sad but it is quite true. Where I come from you would hear the term border hoppers referring to immigrants. It also goes along with the low life, drug affiliated cartel immigrant that just wants to leave their bad country and make the USA bad as well. It makes me sad to think that but I've witnessed people think that of hispanics.
Hispanics get a bad wrap with a lot of horrible stereotypes. In Southern California you will see some hispanics dress in a certain type of clothing that happened to be baggy that was not typical or what you would wear. The thought would be that this hispanic had to be affiliated in a gang or is some type of criminal. We are a fortunate country with our own issues and we as American's typically think we are a better than Mexico, we typically think Mexico is a dangerous country with dangerous people. The cartel is real yes and is dangerous but the extreme thought of Mexico and their people are like that is not the case. As a society we have to be greater than the ignorance we can be exposed to. Personally, being around hispanics all my life, I feel they are a hardworking, loving culture.
A stereotype of being a cholo can be giving to this person on how he dresses.
The stereotype of being poor, low life desperate can be associated with this pic.
The stereotype of being a criminal based on his style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8tlEcnrGnU
Sicario trailer playing into the stereotype of Mexico being a dangerous place.
Reading this was a greater reminder that every individual is bigger than the stereotypes that would otherwise define them.
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy you wrote about this. I'm Hispanic--my dad is Mexican--and I cannot tell you how many times growing up I heard people (even my best friends!) say things like, "those Mexicans are thugs," or "those Mexicans are making this a bad place." Whatever it was, it always was something negative about "those Mexicans," how they looked, and how they were making things so terrible for us just by existing. I hated it with a passion (as I do now, obviously) because it's ignorant, rude, offensive and extremely stereotypical. I am a Mexican. Any time I'd point that out to people they'd immediately say, "oh, but not you. You're a good one." Like that made it any better. No, in fact, it just made it worse because they tried to justify their categorizing and stereotyping by painting me as some wonderful exception to a terrible rule. But these are my people! We're not terrible. Just like every other demographic, there will be some people who are thugs and low lifes. But we're all different. Many of us are good. And just like everyone else, we want to be treated as equals and not dismissed as vermin.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Arizona and will fully admit that I stereotyped hispanics often. There were various occasions where my family was robbed by hispanics, or where they trespassed on our property (one time it was a hit and run and they were trying to escape through our yard). I was afraid of low-income hispanics in their landscape trucks or white vans. My perspective completely changed when I served for six months in a spanish area of California. I grew to love the people, and saw that in MOST cases, hispanics were really trying to live honest, successful lives.
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ReplyDeleteI am from Southern California and I can attest to how true this stereotype was for myself but many of my friends. Seeing hispanics on the street selling flowers wasn't anything surprising. Although this was prevalent, one of my best friends was my neighbor growing up and her family was from Mexico. They were the kindest people and I was able to gain a better understanding of their culture. Also, I'm not going to lie, I loved when they had me over for dinner.
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