I love whenever President Trump says something about Mexicans in any of his speeches. Taken from “Fear and Latino Stereotypes on the Campaign Trail” on Media Education Foundation, one such amazing quote is from Trump’s presidential announcement speech, in which he states that Mexico is “sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems [to] us. They’re bringing drugs, They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” I feel like I fall short of these views Trump has on Mexicans, but also as a Mexican American in general. Apparently, the correct way to view any Mexican man is to go by the fact that we are criminals. However, I am not just a Mexican, I was also born in America. As a Mexican American, there is more that …show more content…
In the New York Times article “Media Feed Bias Against Latinos,” Luisita Lopez Torregrosa states in her findings that many non-Hispanics “mistakenly believe that half or more of the nation’s 50 million Hispanics are illegal immigrants,” and that they are depicted in the media “largely as maids, gardeners, dropouts, and criminals.” In response to the general public thinking that there are over 50 million illegal immigrants, Torregrosa explains that the United States actually has an estimated 10 million illegal Mexican/Central American immigrants from a 2012 study. The depiction in the media is definitely real concerning how Mexican’s are depicted in films, as the roles that the, now deceased, actress Lupe Ontiveros played in several movies, confirms. An article from The New York Times, titled “Trying to Get Beyond the Role of the Maid; Hispanic Actors Are Seen as Underrepresented, With the Exception of One Part” by housing reporter Mireya Navarro, details the roles Ontiveros had to play in the American media, which included over 150 maid roles. Ontiveros even noticed how much of a problem this is, stating that “‘It’s their continued perspective of who we are’...‘[The media doesn’t] know we’re very much a part of this country, and that we make up every part of this country.’” While this isn’t a particular negative light in criminal terms, it is still a misrepresentation of what Mexicans do for the nation. Ontiveros also mentioned that whenever she went to a
I would say we’ve all been stereotyped at some point, be it due to your sex, gender, race, or religious beliefs, the list goes on. Some are blissfully oblivious when in the face of being disrespected and or stereotyped, some just don’t care to look further into the situation. Others simply “take the high road”, doing the right thing even if it’s not easy nor popular in a difficult situation. Most often we can’t help the labels which society places on us, we were born with the skin color we have, our values ingrained into us by our families, and so forth. Personally, I’ve faced stereotypes relating to my race.
Society has focus on stereotyping every group based on myths, Ramirez explains how stereotyping can lead to a reality “A primary function of stereotypes, says Richard Dyers, is “to make fast, firm and separate what is in reality fluid” (Ramirez p.16), people tend to just judge the book by its cover before they even read the tile of it. Latinos are being portrayed as the bad, ugly, and the ones who can’t speak the language on the U.S films as Ramirez proves “Yes, there indeed were and are Mexican badits, lazy African Americans and Italian American gangsters. But banditry, laziness and criminality are not culture specific, nor do those qualities represent the group’s complete experience” (Ramirez p.16). It gives a better understanding of the different stereotypes of just not Latinos but other races too. In the film “The Bronze Screen” it elaborates about Latino until this day, they use them as the bad ones
Reports show that Latinos are the most underrepresented ethnic group in film affected by stereotypical issues shown via pictures in our heads and through watching. I concur with this information as stereotype starts from a personal level, which is definite through meditation, this does not include all the negative traits portrayed by the out-group. Although we have some general stereotypical agreements within in-groups that cannot change. This stereotyping is evident in a case where a foreigner defines Bandido accurately while a (North) American will involve them with laziness, being dirty and all sorts of negativity on them. These findings make me feel that Latinos and Americans will always be contrary to their film industry.
These negative portrayals of Mexicans fuels an already existing stigma. Griffin reinforces these archetypes through film and this in turn can lead to the
What is the image of the male Latino American in the media today in television, in the movies, and in other media? Is the male Latino represented fairly in American media? And if he is often presented as a stereotype, why is he portrayed in stereotypical situations? The answers to those questions come from a number of sources that will be presented in this paper.
Latinos are all illegal immigrants/dangerous thugs who sleep around, do drugs, and break the law, universal generalizations seen in the twenty-first century. Stereotypes have become a method of systematic suppression in America, a way to judge Latino immigrants and their children, to trap them in an endless cycle of misery and discrimination. Michael Dorris perfectly explains negative stereotypes influencing a minority in “Crazy Horse Malt Liquor”. Dorris describes the stereotypical views of Native Americans, and how they have a pattern of being negative, similar to how stereotypes about Latinos tend to be negative. The people of America form opinions based on stereotypes, stereotypes about Latinos that aren’t necessarily true. Stereotypes have become part of a system;Hollywood exploits them and then used as a form of judgment, which harms both the physical and mental health of both Latino immigrants and Latino citizens.
In the essay “Getting Down To What Is Really Real,” John Jeremiah Sullivan discusses the reality TV show “The Real World”. In his essay, Sullivan gives us an inside experience with the main stars of the show in order to give us a glimpse of what their real lives are like. He argues, “the single most interesting thing about reality TV, is the way it has successfully appropriated reality”(Sullivan 97). Similarly, Hispanic culture has been portrayed stereotypically in TV shows and films throughout the years. Latino characters on TV mostly take roles of maids, thugs and Latin lovers who have a heavy accent and immigration problems (Nittle). Movies like Maid In Manhattan and A Day Without A Mexican have represented these stereotypes quite clearly, and that sadly reflects how people see them. However, most recently, the TV show Jane The Virgin is applying a more complex and realistic depiction of Hispanic characters by breaking these stereotypes.
In a diverse society, America is home to many types of people, whose beliefs and experiences may arise conflict among the races. To diminish discrimination and show that there is a connection that unites each and every individual, films offer a different perspective of the lives of whom may be misunderstood and enable audiences to discover that others live under similar circumstances as themselves. How might the depiction of 21st century Latino immigrants be compared to that of 19th century southern slaves in feature films? Time nor race is a boundary that can stop two groups from relating to each other, such is the case with African-American slaves and today’s immigrants in the U.S. Like slaves, most immigrants work for a low wage in plantations, both these two group’s motives are also similar: the struggle for freedom. One
Besides boys reacting differently than what I expected, appearances on what boys are supposed to look like affected my views when I was younger. Watching novellas with my mother I used to looking at latino men who were tall and ripped, as I got older I started to notice that not all Mexican males were not buff and over six foot, and not all women wear tight dresses showing off a lot of cleavage. To rephrase it I do not want to say that latinos are not attractive, it's just I feel uncomfortable when people say that latinos are only attractive on tv. I feel that the stereotype of novella actors have imprinted an idea what latinos are supposed to look like, I constantly here that latinos are super sexy and good in bed, as if we are only good
For this article, it was important to be able to talk to professionals that have experienced dealing with the portrayal of Latinos, either personal or professional experiences. To gain a further understand the portrayal of Latinos in news and film, five subjects were interviewed about their opinion on the topic. Two of the subjects have a wide range of experience in journalism, as they have worked in media organizations for a long time. They both have similar ideas on the problem media has with reporting on Latinos. Two other subjects have great deal of experience in film and understand the struggles with misrepresentation of Latinos and ways to solve those problems. The last subject is a person that has experience with both film
The works of Nancy Foner and other scholars inform readers that, during the 1880-1920 and 1965-present waves of immigration to New York City, new immigrant arrivals have assimilated into New York life through collective and divergent histories of ascribed stereotypes and achieved identities. Many so-called native New Yorkers, usually people of Northern European ancestry whose local roots have spanned several generations, have labeled newcomers mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa with a range of positive and negative stereotypes. Such ascribed stereotypes have both privileged and disadvantaged immigrant groups. Immigrants belonging to certain nationalities and ethnicities with cultural practices
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
“It is important to have an understanding about some of the myths and stereotypes of Latino/Hispanic Americans that contribute to the prejudice, discrimination, and bias this population encounters” (Shusta, Levine, Wong, Olson, and Harris 191).
This essay will cover the analysis between the New York Times article “Latinos Onscreen, Conspicuously Few” by Anna Bahr and the study it references, “The Latino Media Gap: A Report on the State of Latinos in U.S. Media.” The study, by lead researcher Frances Negrón-Muntaner, is an in-depth look at Latinos as media consumers and creators, the issue of stereotypes, and recommendations for closing the gap. Bahr’s article highlights the study to bring attention to the lack of Latino representation in the media. The article does an excellent job of representing the facts and purpose of the study.
This article begins by reviewing the literature highlighting the ways crime news typically reinforces stereotypes of blacks and other nonwhites, particularly Latinos, and contributes to more generalized racial biases. Media stereotypes consist of recurring messages that associate persons of color with traits, behaviors, and values generally considered undesirable, inferior, or dangerous. In terms of speaking about crime coverage, there is considerable evidence that media portray blacks and Latinos as criminal and violent. These images matter because they are a central component in the on going cycle by which the media adds racial and ethnic misunderstanding and negative associations are reproduced, and end up in predictable influences in the criminal-justice process.