2001-12-18 ± 8:20 p.m.
what lies beneath

I abhor the feeling that I have right now...that "I just need to drag myself through the next 3 days and then I'll be homefree" feeling.

My students erupted into completely respectless shouting yesterday...unfortunately they were speaking rapid Spanish and the only words I caught should not be repeated here.

The problem...that has spanned a week now...is that all of my girls from Mexico are in a "fight" (ah high school) with all of the girls from other latin countries (El Salvador and Peru). Unfortunately this fight runs deeper than any I had in high school as it drags to the surface all of the prejudices harbored by my students.

Many Americans can't tell the difference between a Mexican or a Salvadorian or a Guatemalan. Well let me tell you...they can...and there are as many stereotypes and dirty monikers as there are betwixt blacks and whites. Mexicans and Guatemalans are generally thought to be "dirtier, lazier and more foul-mouthed" than those from other Latin American countries. These stereotypes have not proven true in my class...

Today I started the class with a list of fill in the blanks on the board:

white people are______________

latin people are______________

black people are______________

Pakistani people are__________

American people are___________

gay people are________________

Chinese people are____________

women are_____________________

men are_______________________

Mexican people are____________

Salvadorian people are________

Guatemalan people are_________

Honduran people are___________

I discovered amongst other things that my students hate black people ("dirty, lazy, thieves, smelly and (amazing enough) racists"), think all white girls are "beautiful," that all Chinese people are funny and good at fighting (thanks to Rush Hour and Jackie Chan), that all Mexicans have a truck that they use to transport at least 7 people at a time and that gay people are creative and respectful (though one girl, who has a crush on a male teacher whom she doesn't know is gay, claims that all gay men are "feos" or uglies).

It was a pretty engaged and heated class...the language barrier added to the chaos and as they lapsed into bickering and arguing I pointed to the board behind me...full of opinions and misconceptions and said "I want you to be angry...because this is stupid. Not one of these things is true. We then talked about the words Stereotype, Prejudice and Racist.

All students seemed to agree that stereotypes were wrong and hurtful...but that didn't stop the girls from getting into a heated argument that took me five minutes to break up.

everyone wants to blame the other "group" for their disagreements and I'm so glad that they'll have two weeks to simmer down during the winter holiday.

The conflict has zapped me.

I love my students...but they've never looked as ugly to me as they did today. I can understand their prejudices...coming from homogenious countries less than 6 months ago...but most of them have only buried themselves in stereotypes and age-old conflicts.

these beautiful intelligent young girls...brimming with anger. clenched fists. dirty words and a complete un-willing-ness to say "I'm sorry."

this entry is confusing and though too long also too sparse.

I felt like shit all day (see yesterday's entry) and the class conflict only served to compound that feeling.

blah.

what's love got to do with it? - 2004-09-29
noquierosoyabogada - 2004-09-21
I do not aspire to be cast in a lawyer joke - 2004-02-10
update - 2003-11-04
girl...you'll be a woman...soon. - 2003-08-12