By ROSELYN TORRELLAS
Staff Writer
People treat each other badly in today's society for no apparent reason. They would rather criticize how you dress and look, and they sometimes attack where you come from.
Such attitudes are wrong, and every time they are expressed, someone's feelings get hurt, even if it is unintended. In this school, people treat each other badly daily. I hear students talking negatively about other students one time, and the next hour you see the same students pretending to be friends with the people they were putting down. It would be comical if it weren't so real. Instead, it's completely wrong. If you don't like somebody, it takes more courage and integrity to tell them in front of his or her face than behind his/her back.
In my case, sometimes I am criticized for the way I speak English. I am a native of Venezuela. My native tongue is Spanish. I have only been in the United States for two and one-half years. I am trying my best to learn to speak English fluently. I really despise it when other students talk about somebody else's appearance and how that person is dressed. But none of us comes from the same economic background and no two of us have the same opinions about style. Each is unique. We need to respect that uniqueness. How you dress says something important about you, and we should be all sensitive to each other's styles.
Usually, American students treat students from another country with either an air of indifference at best or with downright hostility at worst. This is unfortunate, since no American's family is originally from this land. All the peoples in the this country come from elsewhere if you go back far enough. The stereotype is that if you are not born here, then you are stupid and don't belong. This is untrue and malicious. If you are quiet in the classroom, it does not mean that you are stupid or that you are weird. Many American students born in other countries are often embarrassed about their lack of language skills. With time these students will improve their ability to communicate with their new culture. We should judge each other, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it, "by the content of our character," not by how we look. We should be judged by our actions.
Roselyn Torrellas, a junior, is an honor-roll student and enjoys typing.
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