Skin Complexion: The Stereotypes Of Being Hispanic

Being Hispanic, for me, is to have an everlasting relationship with our past, but always looking toward the future. As Hispanic people, we must keep alive

Beauty is an important aspect of many women’s lives, often dictating their everyday behaviours. Women are held to narrow, unrealistic expectations of what they should look like; these expectations being portrayed through beauty ideals and trends. Although these trends, and the advertisements they are promoted through, seem relatively harmless, they can often reinforce racism and become their own system of oppression. Throughout cultures, dark-skin is seen as unwanted and unappealing, whereas light-skin is valued and privileged. This white supremacist ideal is propagated through these various beauty trends and their advertising, inseminating privilege towards lighter skin shades. The beauty trend of using skin-bleaching creams to lighten one’s

Drugs and violence are universal. Although not all drugs cause violence some drugs like alcohol, methamphetamine, and crack cocaine do and can have horrible results. Some of the behavior that these drugs can cause are: domestic violence, sexual assault, homicides, and property crimes. Although horrible things do happen people still use them and crimes like these happen too much. This is a social issue because people see this as a norm. This shouldn't be a norm and people need to start realizing that.

Being Hispanic is being able to enjoy and demolish your mom’s tamales at Christmas. Being Hispanic is also being able to explain horchata to your friends and watch soccer games with your family. It’s being able to be proud of your culture and roots. However, being Hispanic is living in fear. Being Hispanic means sometimes you don’t know if your parents will come home from work. It’s being petrified that your dad may get pulled over because he is driving without a license. Being Hispanic is seeing your mom come home, tired from a low paying job, because she could not pursue an education. Hispanic means working hard in life to make your parents proud, to make all the looks of discrimination worth it. Being Hispanic is also being told “no” repeatedly,

Is it right to stereotype someone for who they are, what they do, and what they think? To stereotyping is someone that believes unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same. When i'm around people taking, sometimes i hear that all mexicans mexicans jumped the border but that does not apply to all mexicans, i'll be talking about a time where i was stereotyped.

As we have read in Healey’s (2011) textbook, the term “Hispanic” has been used to describe all different kinds of minority races, such as, Puerto Ricans and Cubans , etc., under the same token (pg. 318). The government identifies Mexican Americans and other minority races that have similarities in both appearance and cultural characteristics under one term (Healey, 2011, pg. 318). This causes the perception that they are all the same, taking away the individualistic origins of their place, culture, beliefs, etc. Most of all, this classifies false/mistaken assumptions that they are all immigrants, poor and same language speaking individuals, damaging each race’s individuality. Socially, the term Hispanic technically only classifies groups as

Being Latina hasn’t always been easy. At first I really struggle with being able to accept myself and not caring what others are saying. I was always told that my loudness comes from being Latina but actually that is just how my personality is. I was always told that my skin, hair, and eyes were always too light to look like a Latina. I was always told that I didn’t fit the “normal” girl image because I was too curvy…because I was a Latina. After time all these different stereotypes took over my mind and everything that I would do or say was beginning to be dictated by this. They would tell me all these lies day after day and as time passed I would believe more and more of what they would say to the point were I wouldn’t even think for myself.

Does stereotyping have a different meaning towards you then it does to other people? When someone brings up a stereotype what is the first thing you think of? We might see a person in a different way than others and think that they can't do what other people can do because of their race, culture, or even their gender. When you see someone your first instinct is their appearance, you will judge them and make comments to yourself and think of what they can or cannot do.

If you are Mexican,you are illegal,a drug dealer, and uneducated. You are also a criminal or a rapist. People always misjudge others based on their looks and race. These are all Mexican stereotypes.

One very common stereotype would be race or ethnicity. This one can by far go both ways, a common trait for this stereotype would be if you're black you must be good at sports or if you're a white teenage girl, you must like a starbucks. Grouping an individual like this could make someone feel very low and not highly of themselves if they can't hit a three or throw a ball around. As mentioned on simplepsycology.com a study was done on ethnicities, “White Americans, for example, were seen as industrious, progressive and ambitious. African Americans were seen as lazy, ignorant and musical.”(Katz Braly,

1. In contrast to stereotypes that skin whitening is purely cosmetic, dermatologists actually prescribe exfoliants to their patients for skin diseases.

Being Hispanic is the best thing to happen to me because I get to prove people wrong. Coming from Hispanic dissent means that I constantly have to prove that I am capable of becoming someone important. Throughout my life I’ve always had situations where I was judged because of my color or the fact that my last name was Sanchez one of the most common Mexican last names. Don’t get me wrong there might be many negative stereotypes about Hispanics but there are also many positive stereotypes like having a large, close knit family.

Through persistent research of this topic, I have concluded that pigmentation is one of the most common, adaptive traits demonstrated throughout the World today. When examining the differences in skin tones, it is obvious that a large diversity of people had to “adapt” to their environment. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History emphasizes about the difference “races” we see today without direct correlation to the Sun: “there is also a third factor which affects skin color: coastal peoples who eat diets rich in seafood enjoy this alternate source of vitamin D. That means that some Arctic peoples, such as native peoples of Alaska and Canada, can afford to remain dark-skinned even in low UV areas. In the summer, they get high levels

To be judged and unfairly mistreated is something many people have to deal with in their lifetime. It may or may not be a common occurrence, but for the Latino people in our country and in the world, it is. This specific group of people have always been unfairly categorized and labelled by Americans simply because they have different values and beliefs, and are originated from elsewhere. We Americans find it hard to accept others whom have a different appearance, ethnic background, and lifestyle as we do; this flaw of ours is what leads us to stereotype many people today and in my opinion, Mexican and Latino people are the most labelled and misunderstood of them.

There are many stereotypes circulating around the world about the many different races. However, these stereotypes could affect how someone performs and how much they will achieve throughout their life. In America, the race white and title of privileged are usually paired together. Being white is synonymous with being privileged, therefore, having an advantage towards other races regarding success, either with money or education. Also, other’s viewpoints on certain races could lead to having a disadvantage in succeeding. Other races are portrayed negatively on mass media which gives uninformed viewers a skewed viewpoint about other races. Many other countries have a different viewpoint about success. Success could be having a family, accumulating money, or having a certain job. There are stereotypes that have a positive connotation to them which could help that certain race or negatively affect them because they must live up to certain expectations. Stereotypes and race impact a student’s career, not only the student’s race, but as well as the race of their peers and teachers.