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, 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. When immigration began, Hispanics were known as being from mostly Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Mexican backgrounds (Chavez 116).  They emigrated from their country looking for a better life but in various cases ended up being discriminated against. This happened in the Southwest with Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans in the Northeast, and Cubans in Florida (Chavez 116). Hispanics 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) 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). 

   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, there are some secti

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. 

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 1^st Hispanic woman to be elected into California state legislature was Gloria Molina. (“Current DNC Leadership”) In addition, politician Henry Gonzalez aslo had a great imfluence 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.

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 incident s 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 for 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 (Keller 1). A reason why a person would be stopped is because they are related to crimes by police more than other groups. There’s also profiling at airports and sometimes racism in a people’s working environment.

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 was 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. 

 

 

 

Ralph Nader Congress Project. Henry B. González, Democratic Representative from Texas. Washington, D.C.: Grossman Publishers, 1972.

 http://www.unbeatables.com/HHeroes.html. Hispanic American Hal of Fame