In response to todays discussion:
Lem espressed her feelings about growing up Greek in America...I understand what you mean because I am New Yorican, which basically means my parents were both born in Puerto Rico and I was born here in New York. Growing up I thought that was a term my father made up but Puerto Rican culture classes has taught me that is actually an identity. Anyway, in Junior High School, i went through a few fights with my fellow Puerto Ricans who didnt believe that i was Puerto Rican because I am very light skinned, I was "too nice" and Puerto Rican girls are usually bitches and have an attitude, which i dont. They also said i spoke too properly to be Puerto Rican, I didnt use slang.
The other thing i wanted to mention was prejudice and stereotypes can be created through a persons particular experience. For example, My nephew had a bad experience with some Mexican boys in his high school. Due to this, he goes around saying he hates Mexicans, i personally get mad every time he says it because my best friend/sorority sister is Mexican and she is amazing! I tried to express to my nephew that that is a very awful thing to say and that he should rephrase it to hating some of the boys in school or if he must use race, say he hates the Mexican boys in his school. Unfortunately, my sister told me i was wrong for teaching him this because she has taught him to speak his mind and that is that. My nephew is now 15 years old and if my sister continues to let him think this way, it may turn out to be a more disastrous situation when he is older. It hurts me to hear this from her and to allow him to continue to make these statements and assumptions about a certain race, just based off of his "one single story".
One of my best friends in middle school was told by another student in our class that the music she listened to was "white music."
ReplyDeleteAnother best friend in high school was constantly told that she was "so white."
Both of these friends are black and were extremely insulted by these comments, especially since they came from other black students.
I think this idea that someone is too this or too that to be a certain ethnicity, or even a certain race, is because of the (ridiculous) idea that stereotypes define what characteristics an entire ethnicity should have.