Cultural Stereotypes as Reflected in Literature - Essay Example

Cultural Stereotypes as Reflected in Literature In everyday life, it is hard to avoid criticisms as each person interacts with many people. Each person is unique that sometimes it becomes the source of judgments, stereotypes and conflicts. People normally pass judgments regarding on what they can see outside, but not always and not all people are accustomed to passing judgments easily. In general, criticizing other people for their flaws or for uncommon qualities they have is easy to do, but to know those people better is somewhat tedious to do. Perhaps categorizing things is part of the learning of people as they want to simplify things and be organized. It is not a good excuse to use the same way to people as human beings are not mere objects, but creatures of emotions and spirit. Perhaps it would better help in understanding when the concept of stereotyping is thoroughly discussed and relate it with discrimination before going on to an in-depth reflection on three literary works: the essays entitled The Good Daughter and The Myth of the Latin Woman and the movie Crash. In the same way as the concept of stereotyping had been introduced in the first paragraph, stereotyping is defined as “making generalizations or assumptions about the characteristics of all members of a group based on an image (often wrong) about what people in that group are like,” (Burger and Els 105). Certain observed qualities have been used to describe a certain group of objects or people and that is stereotyping. It is possible that a person had just seen some people wearing glasses study very hard and that person might generalize that all people are nerds. In reality, that is not the case as people may get blurry eyes due to aging, computer eye strain and other eye diseases. In such practice, a person or people are placed in certain categories using certain criteria like color of the skin, nationality, religion, ethnic race and even gender and sexual orientation (Cook and Cusack 10). In using categories to group people with the prevailing image, discrimination is inevitable. In line with discrimination come prejudices and pains. As discrimination becomes rampant because of stereotyping, the treatment balance among people have been subjected to several stresses and strains as people are judged for qualities that do not make up their whole selves. People are judged for skin color like black, discriminated for their sexual orientation like being gay, offended for being immigrants, punished for practicing their religious rituals, and hurt for on-going wars where peace is not an option (Kruhm and Wirths 1). In various places around the world such offenses happens everyday. Differences among people cause the biases and discriminations happening. To make the concept of discrimination clearer, a definition would be helpful. Discrimination is defined as “treating someone badly just because he or she is different,” (Middleton 5). Through harsh treatments people receive pain and diminish their self-esteem. Usually such problems occur due to cultural differences. Culture relies on habits done by groups of people as it guides people in the way they act in a society. How people think and how they behave create the differences across cultures (Trent and Roberts 90). Cultural differences would be traced in the literary works in various ways. The first essay is entitled “The Good Daughter” by Caroline Hwang. The essay was written based upon the experience of the author. The background of the author affected the flow of the essay. She studied BA English and worked as both writer and editor for several projects (Hwang 12). The essay opened in a situation in which the author encountered a Korean dry-cleaner. As she knew her race is Korean, she was surprised when the dry-cleaner asked her if she is a Chinese as she mispronounced her surname (Hwang 13). In the opening it may not be intentional but stereotyping had already been shown since the dry-cleaner assumed her to be a Chinese. Also racism is seen when the author said that she came from a Korean race but her parents immersed her into an American culture. He parents also said something about choosing a partner since both parents wanted her to have a Korean partner and children in the future to save the race (Hwang 14-15). Another worth remembering is the sentence about being American and Korean as she said that she was “displaced in the only country” she is familiar with and “identify with Americans, but Americans do not identify with” her (Hwang 14). The sentence means that she was totally into American way of life, but her physical features do not belong to a natural American people which make her feel a bit left out. The struggle regarding stereotype exists strongly within the family as the author said that her “friends had to choose between pleasing parents and being true to themselves. But for the children of immigrants, the choice seems more complicated, a happy outcome impossible. By making the biggest move of their lives for” her as her father and mother “indentured” her “to the largest imaginable” as she owes “them the fulfillment of their hopes for” her (Hwang 14). The parents of the author immigrated to give her the best future, but getting stuck to what the parents wanted for the future may indeed block her real plan or what she wanted to do for her future. In the second essay entitled “The Myth of the Latin Woman,” the author pointed out how stereotyping and racism are present in the society. Being a Puerto Rican, she cannot remove the connotations given to her race as women who can show offs some skin. Even if she knows English language, it seems that the island is traveling together with her (Cofer 173). She cannot deny to foreign people that she is a Latina. What she did not like is that being a Hispanic sometimes people make fun of her like one time when she was in a hotel at work together with a colleague, a young supervisor with his daughter sang a song pertaining to Hispanic in a fun way as he laughed while walking and holding a glass of wine (Cofer 175). Also sometimes Latinas are considered as sexual symbols as perhaps they dressed skinnier. The way they dress may be attributed to their climate as it is hot there and their culture wherein the traditional Catholicism flourishes and men may look at them but never touch them (Cofer 174). The image was aggravated by mass media when images of Latinas were used for advertising and promotion. One of the worst stereotypes ever given to them is the image of being a housemaid (Cofer 175). The image generalizes Latinas to be only good at domestic and low-paying jobs. The image also depicts the lack of access in education of people from Hispanic race. The last literary work to be thoroughly studied is the movie “Crash.” The setting of the movie was Los Angeles and the characters from various backgrounds collided as they experienced stereotyping and discrimination. The characters involved were the police detective with a family problem and his partner, two young Black Americans who were carjackers, the White American Lawyer and his bitchy wife, an old White cop with his idealistic partner, a Hollywood director and his wife who experienced discrimination from an old cop, a Persian father who bought a gun for his store protection and the Hispanic locksmith who cared much of his daughter (Lewison). A good scene to focus on in the movie is the conflict of the partner of the police detective and the Korean woman involved in the car accident. They exchanged harsh words regarding their races. That scenario already showed a conflict on cultural difference between Westerners and Asians. The incident showed how Western culture can come into conflict with the Asian culture. In reality, it happened many times. As a proof, Abrams made a study about the perception of people in the West regarding the rankings of superiority. The study showed that majority of the respondents believed that Americans and Europeans are superior to Asians. The basis is the physical characteristics such as the skin color (Lawrence 62). In general cultural stereotyping must be lessened at all cost or even annihilated if possible since all people are created equal. They should all have the same rights and none must be considered as superior and inferior than the others. Works Cited Burger, Retha and Stefan Els. Advance with Life Orientation: FET Level 3. Cape Town: Pearson Education, 2008. Cofer, Judith. “The Myth of the Latin Woman.” Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric, and Handbook 4th ed. Eds. Susan Bachmann and Melinda Barth. USA: Longman, 2004. 172- 176. Cook, Rebeca and Simone Cusack. Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives. USA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Haggis, Paul, dir. Crash. 2004. Lions Gate Entertainment. 2004. Hwang, Caroline. “The Good Daughter.” Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric, and Handbook 4th ed. Eds. Susan Bachmann and Melinda Barth. USA: Longman, 2004. 12-15. Kruhm, Mary and Claudine Wirths. Coping with Discrimination and Prejudice. USA: Rosen Publishing Group, 1998. Lawrence, Daniel. Black migrants: white natives: a study of race relations in Nottingham. London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Middleton, Don. Dealing with Discrimination. New York: Rosen Publishing Group. 1999. Trent, Robert and Llewellyn Roberts. Managing Global Supply and Risk: Best Practices, Concepts, and Strategies. USA: J. Ross Publishing, 2010. 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