A few months ago, I was really close with this one girl. She would always talk to me about how she feel stuck. She didn't speak Spanish, so her relative felt like she wasn't a part of the Latino community. She told me how her relatives would always tell her how she will never make it far in life- how her life is predestined to teen pregnancy, drug addiction, and poverty. I know she wanted to prove people wrong-that she can succeed in life, but she also holds a lot of bitterness for being a latina even though she denies it.
One time, she told me that she was fat and chubby because she was genetically predisposed to be fat due to the fact that she was latina. When she started dating a white guy, she said that she felt weird when she tried to say her full name, but with his last name. She said it sounded "too white" for her and how because of it, she thinks the relationship will never work out.
When we began to have a falling out because I got annoyed at her blowing me off at the last minute, she got all passive aggressive and said, "It's because I'm latina right? You don't like me because I'm Mexican. You like our friend better because she's white. In your eyes, she must be so much better and so much smarter than me" It was really sad to see and to hear her say that. I think she holds a lot of bitterness for being a latina, and I wonder if that kind of thinking is ever-present in the latino community.
Personally, I feel like being Chinese, instead of being told that we are not good enough, we are mocked by others for being "too smart". And if we are not as "smart" as other people expects us to be, we are viewed as failures. In freshman year, someone in geometry class actually turn to me and said, "What do you mean you're not good at math? You're Asian. You're supposed to be good at it"
I totally know where you are coming from. Often people people they are being "disrespected" due to their race. Its not only race but the person itself, like for example "Oh is it because I'm black" "Oh is it because I'm too fat" people generally take things too personal. Society add more to the problem because they say or express themselves in a certain way to make the other people feel worthless and ashamed to be who they are.
ReplyDeleteThis absolutely shows the dangers of stereotypes in a society. Often people feel defined by on the surface features of themselves, that do not truly prove who they are. It can be argued that race is something created by humankind, and thus is merely a division among many others. We should be celebrating our own diversity, but not letting our differences affect our relationships, and not let them define who we are either.
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