I have found it interesting lately the stereotyping that goes on about Mexicans. I havent really noticed it before and I am not sure if it is because I just didnt realize it or I just havent been around people who have talked about it until now. I found an article on-line talking about the stereotypes of Mexicans specifically and I was suprised at how many there actually are. The author starts off generalizing what stereotyping does for every culture not just the Mexican one. He states "Welcome to the world of stereotypes. Sling out a phrase and whether it's true or not, damage has been done. A negative implication has been made concerning a race, gender, or culture, and it can take decades to handle the mess. What I find fascinating is that races and cultures will form their own stereotypes. Sometimes, it's just a part of that culture's evolution." He may be right, for a culture to evolve it may need to be stereotyped or look down upon for whatever reason. The author continues by starting to talk about Mexican stereotypes the first was that Mexicans are poor and illiterate. I have heard this one before and I see it a lot on t.v. like cartoons (speedy gonzalez). It also reminds me a lot about our earlier readings when we read about how the English thought that the African Americans were not as smart as they were in Zinn. Another very common stereotype that I have heard a lot about Mexicans is that they will work for any wage, even if it is lower than minimum wage and they will also accept any job. I watch a lot of crime shows like CSI and Law and Order and there are always portrayls of Mexicans who can barely speak english and that are working bad jobs, some of them are even working illegally. I think personally that unemployment and being illiterate would be a problem for anyone in the US. One good stereotype that I am also very familiar with that the author brings to the readers attention in the article is that "Mexicans are taking all the jobs in the US". I have heard that stereotype a lot and I am not really sure why. In my opinion the jobs they do get are very underprivelaged, they do work for little, and sometimes bad hours. It is not like Mexicans are coming to America and just taking all the jobs there are, I think that Americans should be more welcoming to different cultures and diversity in the US. One of the last stereotypes in the article is that Mexicans procrastinate and Mexican women love their soap operas. I know that there are a couple of movies that I have seen that portray Mexican women as loving their soap opera time which takes place everyday from around 4pm sometimes until 9pm at night. I wonder why it is that we have to classify people only by what we see? I think that this could be because it is the quickest thing that we notice. The title of the article is Stereotypical Melodrama which I think is kind of funny if you think about it. Melodrama is of course when something is exaggerated so the title basically tells the reader right off the bat that the Mexican stereotypes are just that, exaggerated. I thought this would be a good article for my media portfolio because we have talked a lot about racial stereotyping towards Indians, African Americans (Columbus, the Indians and Human Progress, Zinn chap 1)and even Jews (Brodkin, How Jews became white people) and Chinese people (Wu's Yellow). To me this just puts out there that it doesnt always have to be the typical African American stereotype but there are many other ethnicities who also deal with unfair discrimination and racial ideas against a race of people who dont deserve it. I hope that in the end the author is correct when he says that racial groups all have to go through stereotyping because it is how they grow and evolve into stronger people because maybe that will mean someday we wont just see color or ethnicity but maybe just people.
http://yasmin.newsvine.com/_news/2007/04/06/651990-stereotypical-melodrama
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