Stereotypes

Today in Spanish class we were talking about stereotypes against Mexicans. First, our teacher asked to write down everything we think of when we think of Mexico. We all wrote down the same things. We wrote things like buritto, quesadilla, salsa, nachos, lots of other Mexican food, illegal immigrants, marijuana, wetbacks, Zorro, etc. After we wrote these things, we talked about how stereotypes are just a way of grouping people even though not very many people even fit in it. We know nothing about the people that actually live in Mexico. The only people that we know about are the ones they talk about in the media. Why are the illegal immigrants from Mexico such a big deal, and the Canadian illegal imigrants are not even noticed. It's because we think of Mexico as a poor country so we discriminate (are racist against) them. But, if you really think about it, we have so many poor people in our own country that it's probably just like Mexico. Im sure they have rich, average and poor people just like us. We always think about other countries being poor, but just look around. Everywhere you go in the US, we have homeless people that are barely surviving and we don't even take care of them and try to get them jobs. Basically what I'm trying to say is stereotypes are bad, because they arent even true. I think it's really pathetic that our lives revolve around it and a lot of the stuff we learn from the media are stereotypes. This also shows how much our lives depend on the media. That's where we get so much of our knowledge (besides school) and we believe everything even though it may not be true.