Jose Gamboa
In today’s America being Mexican is not so good. People look at and treat you differently. Because of the recent war on drugs and the high wave of undocumented migrants, white America judges Mexican people and people with Mexican decent.
Just last week, I saw a video on YouTube of three Caucasian teenage girls responding to the immigration law that passed in Arizona two years ago. They used the most hateful, racial and discriminative language targeting people of Latin American, specifically of Mexican, decent.
This issue is increasing because of the fear and extremely conservative opinions that media puts out there. Two years ago, news anchor Lou Dobbs was dismissed form CNN because of his racist and unprofessional comments toward Mexicans. Mr. Dobbs, an extremist right-wing conservative, now works at Fox News. Shocking? I don’t think so. Fox News has been the leader in distributing wrongful comments and fear tactics against undocumented workers.
Undocumented immigration is a big social, security and economic problem. And instead of spreading fear and anger we should work toward fixing the problem. The mainstream media constantly associates Mexicans regarding matters of crime, wrongdoers, and other negative connotations, to the point that now people think every Mexican is a bad and evil person, giving them a reason to hate and discriminate.
Mexican heritage and history has been part of America ever since both countries achieved sovereignty. Just look at the southern states that border with Mexico. They all have strong Mexican influences in their architecture and culture.
During the first season of “The Office” one character, Michael, attended diversity training. Another character, Oscar, described himself as being Mexican, and the reaction that Michael had was unprecedented. He asked Oscar if he preferred to be called something other than Mexican. When I saw this, I laughed out loud. Even our popular shows are aware of this issue.
This issue does not only affect foreign Mexicans, but also Mexican-Americans. Here in Wyoming, I have met and talked to quite a few people that, though they have Mexican backgrounds, they do not identify with it. Our society is training people to feel ashamed of their heritage and backgrounds because of the unwelcoming and prejudice feelings.
Stereotyping and judging people by where they came from was something this country did in the past. Our country has broken many social barriers, but now the past seems to be coming back.
As students, we are aware of the different cultures and races around the world, so it is our job to correct someone when he or she distributes wrongful and misleading information of another ethnic group.
