From where do stereotypes originate? I kept asking myself this question as we watched the movie A Day Without A Mexican. The movie poked fun at common stereotypes white people tend to have about latino people. The movie called attention to the value people have in society as well as questioned our thinking about who we are in the larger scheme of life. How do we begin thinking about who we are? Apart from relationships, we cannot know who we are. In the movie, Lila Rodriguez realizes that though she may not be of mexican descent, she is mexican at heart. The family who raised her impacted her in ways she didn't realize until they were gone - and this event allowed her to contemplate who she really is on a deeper level.
I was first struck by how many different businesses would be affected if all latino people were to disappear and in turn the effect that would have on the daily lives of U.S. citizens. The truth is that we are all dependent on each other. What may seem like the smallest, most insignificant of roles may sometimes be the most important. We are a network. When links are missing, the whole network feels this loss.
I also considered how much people - particularly the rich - take for granted. One family in the film took their nanny for granted - both her services and her as a member of their family. The Abercrombie family simply did not know how to function without their nanny. The mother was left struggling to do the chores of everyday life and much tension was apparent between husband and wife. Their small daughter was left with no one to give her special attention - she was obviously bonded to her nanny in a unique way.
The rich, who often want more, take for granted the simplicities of life that form a foundation for a certain way of living. Cooking, cleaning, care-giving - these are basic things that the Abercrombie family did not seem to know how to do without their nanny there to fill the role.
As I write I try to remember not to be too critical of "the rich" or "caucasian americans" - I am one of them, too, aren't I? I think I'd like to think of myself as much different than the Abercrombie family. It is true that my family doesn't have a nanny that we depend on, but it is also true that I take the life I know and love for granted each and every day. And I, too, fail to get to know people - especially people from different backgrounds, like the latino community - on a fairly basic level. Feeling uncomfortable in settings where I am the minority is a fear I need to overcome. It is a feeling that some people experience as part of their everyday life.
I love to hear people's stories. I think if I simply took the time to listen, to reach out to people I don't know very well, I could begin to know myself in a new way as well as begin to fight some of the stereotypes that american society assumes about groups of people.
Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian author, has said that “stereotypes are not wrong, they are just incomplete.” I think there is a surprising amount of truth in that statement, given how often we rely on stereotypes to tell us how to interact with people and how to understand them. This is not to say that there aren't plenty of wrong and harmful stereotypes out there (say, the notion that all Muslims are terrorists). But humans like to categorize and generalize, and we do it to ourselves (think of how many Mennonite stereotypes are played up by people who want to show they can sing, or whatever). On SST I met a wide variety of Egyptians and I saw how diverse the population can be – but when I came back, I found myself making broad generalizations about Egyptians so that I could better explain my experience to others. I used these generalizations to navigate through Egypt, and they were helpful – but I had to temper them with the knowledge that they are by no means uniform. You're right - we do need to pay attention to more stories so we can keep that in mind.
ReplyDeleteYou ask helpful exploratory questions here, Mandy. I appreciate the extent to which you probe your own participation in the "network" and acknowledge the privileges that you have, which can easily blind you to the situation of those who are less privileged. Tillie makes a good point, above, that the human mind works with "types," but that they are incomplete until we begin to fill them in with specific examples, experiences, and stories. Especially when our stereotypes are about people we don't encounter in daily life, we need to make the effort to go beyond. You seem very willing to do that.
ReplyDeleteIn my experiences, I have come to realize that whoever my caregivers were did not reflect what was in my heart. My parents were of Salvation Army/Southern Baptist origins. As a Catholic my views are in complete contradiction to my parents’. So I would have to disagree in that one’s heart does not necessarily have to reflect who your caregivers were. I do acknowledge my parents as the people who raised me, but my “heart” is not with them. One could say my heart belongs to Jesus Christ and Holy Mother Church.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I’d like to touch briefly on is your mention of the rich and Caucasian Americans in parenthesis. I must remind everyone in the class that the typical idea of richness is found in any culture—Latino or American, and the situation that is present in the films can be presented elsewhere. For example, I have seen rich Latinos in movies hire “gringos” as their housekeepers and so on. I think it is neat to look at the fascinating similarities across cultures in this respect.