Daliza & Shirley
March 22, 2004
Writing in 21st Century
Ms Gokturk
Stereotyping of Hispanics
Stereotyping is the imaging and perception of a certain group, for
example race. Racial stereotyping is when certain individuals are classified because of their culture, ethnic, and racial characteristics. The problem that
America has encountered is people not being looked at as individuals, but instead an inaccurate perception of being from a certain ethnic group. Hispanics are not one culture its different cultures of people from diverse countries. Media
portrayal, racial profiling in crime, and stereotyping is an everyday struggle
for Hispanics all over the United States.
In Hispanic stereotyping, the individual differences are ignored and
negative images are made based on a whole group because of the same ethnic
background. Many images that people obtained started with immigration. But before immigration there were explorers around the early 1500’s who were discovering new land. Most of these explorers though were Spanish. Juan Ponce de Leon for example, came from Puerto Rico and claimed Florida. During the mid 1500’s there were Spanish settlers in which is now the Southeast and Southwest of the United States (World Book 1). Later during the 1700’s there was more settlement going on in places such as California and Texas (World Book 2).
When immigration began in the 1800’s to early 1900‘s, Hispanics were
known as being from mostly Mexican background. They emigrated from their country looking for a better life but in various cases ended up being discriminated
against. At one point they were thought to be "the poorest of the poor, the most segregated minority in school, the lowest paid group in America, and the least educated minority in this nation (US)" (Chavez 116). This happened in the Southwest with Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans in the Northeast, and Cubans in Florida. They them migrated upward, many Puerto Ricans ending up in New York (Chavez 116) During 1959, the majority of the people living in the United
States that were from Mexico were native born (Chavez 119). Hispanics, which was including Puerto Ricans and Cubans, all situated in what, is still called
Barrios and Spanish Harlem. They created a community in between themselves. Later on, Hispanics were recognized as being from many different countries rather than just Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Mexican. What people tended to ignore was the difference in between the many different cultures of Latinos. (For example in Central American and South American countries) During World War I around 1917, many Mexican Americans entered. This did open up opportunities for better paying jobs but, there was still discrimination. They passed laws that went against immigrants and established the Border Patrol to help control immigration. There were people being deported and some even by mistake (World Book 6). Some were forbidden to speak Spanish at school, restaurants refused to serve them, swimming pools, bathrooms, theaters, as well as drinking fountains were segregated (World Book 7).
After World War II Hispanic activism started and Latino's tried to improve their way of being seen in society. Although many Hispanics served in the war and even earned more Congressional Medals of Honor per Capita than any other group serving, it was still very difficult for them (Chavez 116). The Hispanic population was also rising. In the United States around 1980, there were about 14.6 million Hispanics. In 1990 there was a great increase and it was estimated that there were around 21 million Hispanics (Chavez 119). From 1990 to 2000 the population increased nearly 60 percent. This makes it one of the fastest growing minorities in the United States today (World Book 11).
There are many negative stereotypes made on Latino's whether they're based on a fact that gets twisted or maybe even personal experience. There's also a persons surrounding environment such as family beliefs, friends and media (Straley 1). These unfortunately link to more problems such as racial profiling, teasing, and bullying. The different stereotypes are based on financial things such as jobs and economic situation. For example thinking that Hispanic’s don’t have a lot of money and that the jobs are illegal, having to do with manual labor (Julie 4). Examples of this stereotype would be landscaping or house cleaning. There’s also being "disadvantaged" educationally and portrayed as not caring about school because of lack of motivation which is also in part blamed on Hispanic parents. Parents are viewed as not being able to be there for their children or not be able to help them (Carrasquillo 3). The sexism stereotype portrayed the woman in the family to be housewives or having jobs that don’t need a lot of skills and being the ones that make the important decisions. The men are looked at to be "macho" or powerful, having authority and controlling women.
Hispanics have been portrayed in many negative ways in the media.
Throughout history, the appearance of Hispanics has increased. However, the perceptions of negative Hispanic characteristic still linger. They usually have the role of gang bangers, farmers, and maids. In other words, they are usually put in inferior roles to the majority. More then 66 percent of all network stories are about crime, terrorism, and illegal immigration of Latinos. Latinos also take up 47 news reports that have to deal with perpetrators or a victim of crime. In addition they were viewed at poor taste in newscast as dysfunctional inferior people and unfortunately, they were often viewed as criminals.
Immigration is also over interpreted in how news makes them seem as a big threat to the security of the country. News stories only talk about the negative from Latinos rather than their positive contributions to this nation. By only showing the negative coverage of Latino communities, you are creating more biases. Many people that are bothered by this negative array of stereotyping think that most of it is caused by a lack of Latinos in staff at these network television shows. Latinos only make up .75 percent of the news younger than the age of twelve. They are mostly related to the act of crime, terrorism, and illegal immigration. Media plays a major role in teaching stereotypes for the fact that it portrays how certain people are. However, negative thoughts can appear if the person has no direct contact with that race.
Toys also are a key factor in how Hispanics are looked at. When people walk into a toy store, there should be diversity in what to buy. Now they have all these Babies with all different backgrounds. The Hispanic Barbie is usually described as tan colored, brown hair, curly hair. While the white Barbie is described to have straight blonde hair, fashionable clothing, and light skin color. But then again, not all Hispanic people have these features. For example, in the Dominican Republic, 90 percent of the population is black while the other 10 percent is of mixed white or mulatto. In Colombia nearly 58% are mestizo or in other words people of mixed European and Native American ancestry. However, the other half is of 20% white and 14% mulatto. (World Fact Book n.pag.) On the other hand, when looking at a country such as El Salvador where 90% are mestizo and 9% are white then you begin see that counties vary in place to place of their ethnicity. (World Fact Book n.pag.)
Cartoons are also portraying Hispanics in negative ways. When watching a cartoon such as Speedy Gonzalez, which clearly is about a mouse in Mexico, viewers get the image off of how they talk and act that they are Mexican.
Although some Mexicans might not view it as offensive, some do. Phrases like, "Arriba, arriba, arriba, andale, andale, ole, ole, ole, andale!, Hello, pussycats, you looking for a nice fat mouse for deenner?," give somewhat of a bad image. In that phrase alone, two things are being portrayed as stereotypical. When watching this cartoon you get the image of it being Mexican for the fact it repeats "andale" over n over again and it makes Mexicans look like womanizers. "Speedy knows my sister, Speedy knows everybody's sister", this shows the perception of Mexicans as being womanizers as well. There is also the problem of "drinking, laziness, drug use." that is being constantly shown in this cartoon. (Verginia Cueto n.pag.)
Music videos are also showing negative portrayals of Hispanics. Songs like "my band" by D12 shows a scene in which Eminem dances in a native clothing of Mexicans while he hold in his hands some "salsa". Some movies also do the same such as, Predator II, which Hispanics are viewed as drug lords. (Kingpin shows how a successful business graduate becomes in control of his family drug corporation. There is also "Chasing Papi" which portrays the young Hispanic as a womanizer that has to choose between three very different girls. (Waxman n.pag.)
There are many negative stereotypes made on Latino's whether they're based on a fact that gets twisted or maybe even personal experience. There's also a persons surrounding environment such as family beliefs, friends and media (Straley 1). These unfortunately link to more problems such as racial profiling teasing, and bullying. The different stereotypes are based on financial things such as jobs and economic situation. There are many problems that arise as the negative effects of stereotyping. Violence such as bullying, racial profiling, and racism are part of it. When the stereotypes are used against people in a way that it is offensive and negative it turns into verbal harassment and leads to bullying. These negative comments can affect a person greatly. It can intimidate them or harm them (Straley 1). Also using this type of language or comments around younger kids may confuse them or influence them in a negative way just because at that age they are growing up in that environment and developing their own character. There have been many hate crimes, which are incidents caused by people who are against a certain group. It was reported that in 1995, 516 out of 814 hate crimes were directed towards Hispanics. For example in the early 1900's there were incidents of shooting and burning down houses directed towards Hispanics (Immell 85).
There's also racial profiling, which is major in many areas such as driving. Some police use what is considered "soft" racial profiling. This would be being stopped just based on the appearance of your race, which in this case would be Latino. A reason why a person would be stopped is because police relates them to crimes more than other groups, also depending in the area (Keller 1). Latino’s like African Americans are considered a minority. Both groups aren’t treated very differently when it comes to profiling. One difference is that Hispanics may be looked at as maybe being illegal immigrants and they are stopped because of the suspicion (Harris 130). There's also profiling at airports. The U.S. Customs Service is an agency has the job to stop drugs at the U.S. border. It was proved that during 1998, 43 percent of the passengers who were checked were either black or Latino. The drug rate on white passenger was 6.7 percent while the drug rate on Latino’s was 2.8 percent, which was lower. Hispanic women were 4 times more likely to be x-rayed than white women (Harris 217). Either way it was proven that profiling by police was not an effective tool to catching criminals (Harris 84).
Hispanics have contributed many things to the United States. Carlos Finlay was a doctor who found out that yellow fever came from mosquitoes and he invented a way of preventing the disease. (Dr. Juan Guiteras n.pag.) Dr. Severo Ochoa received a noble prize in medicine for discovering with Arthur Komberg an enzyme known as RNA. A toy consultant that came to known as one of the richest in the country is Mary Rodas, who at only 13 years of age was a VP of more then $20 million toys at sale. Another woman who stood up for the average citizen and was known as the 1st Hispanic woman to be elected into California state legislature was Gloria Molina. ("Current DNC Leadership") In addition, politician Henry Gonzalez also had a great influence in that he spoke against segregation of public facilities and tried to put an end the use of foreign labor to harvest agricultural crops in bad conditions.(Hispanic Americans in Office) There are tons of Hispanic contributors that have reached success and it has nothing to do with their ethnicity. They all succeeded because of admiration and devotion to their cause, and finally achieve the American dream.
Although there are many issues with stereotyping, there are many organizations that are trying to help the problem from escalating. The ALMA awards were created to help artists who have faced stereotyping and are awarded for their influence and prestige in movies, music, and television. Hispanic PR is a news distributor that shows the different cultures and traditions of Hispanics in the diversified city of Miami. The National Association of Hispanic
Journalists were also created to help Hispanics create a "national voice". There is also a channel dedicated for Hispanic-Americans so that they can hear the news, latest trends, music, and more called Telemundo. An organization that filters and tries to prevent negative and stereotypical media portrayals is the ERaM. There is now a television channel dedicated to breaking the gap between Hispanics born in their native countries and those who have lived in the United States their whole life. It brings a sense of unity to the public and all Hispanics that we are all different no matter what your nationality is.
In conclusion, much of the Hispanic Stereotypes has been portrayed to be negative and so have its affects. One example is the media. In our opinion, the Latino community has grown and has had a great influence everywhere whether it's from movies to music. But the Hispanic tradition itself as we see it from our point of view has been a bit exaggerated sometimes. For example in Empire, the well known actor, John Leguizamo is portrayed as a drug dealer
that sells cocaine and names it "Empire". A lot of Hispanic living in the
Ghettos like the character John plays, have dealt with the small economic
opportunities and had to manage by making money the illegal way. We admit it was a good movie; however, this isn’t true for all Hispanics living in the ghetto.
Many Hispanics that live in the ghetto are looking for ways of getting out and
making a better life for themselves. Many are very educated but when it comes
to getting into high league schools like Harvard, NYU, and Colombia can't due to
their economic status. Many get confused of why Hispanics go to community
College’s rather then private schools when they have a 4.0 average. Then people
wonder why private schools are white in majority and Hispanics in minority. It's
okay to show Hispanics and how they live in poverty but when it's all you see
in movies you can't help but think that they are all or mostly poor. If a
Hispanic would come to school in a Porsche or an Escalade everybody automatically
thinks twice if that's really a Hispanic in that nice car. Because of personal experience we have seen the many different stereotypes first hand, that people have put on us as Hispanics. We don’t think that everybody is racist, but it is obvious sometimes that there has been a bigger image made on us as a whole group of people and not as individuals. For example with looks, the typically Hispanic portrayed would be tan with curly hair. But, we come in all shapes and sizes the same as every other person, whether its light skinned with blue eyes or dark with straight hair. With family there are traditions depending on how you grow up and how you’re raised. Some of these comments do offend us but we believe that a lot of these stereotypes are made unconsciously not intending to offend Hispanics. We just wanted to make people aware of how far something such as stereotyping, which is ignored a lot these days by the people making the comments, can go and what they lead to or can lead to.
