Reasons why Latinos are Stereotyped Physically
Sept 6, 2020 19:54:41 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Sept 6, 2020 19:54:41 GMT -5
Reasons why Latinos are Stereotyped Physically
If you are Latino and live in the United States then you are familiar with the stereotyping that we are subjected to. For example, on the West Coast where most Latinos look, Mestizo, you are expected to look, Mestizo, If you don't look Mestizo then you are automatically assumed to be an Anglo America, An Afro American, A middle Easterner, or some other type of human being from some other part of the world but never a Latino. On the East coast, the same rule applies but with different criteria. There you are mostly expected to look mixed with black. Again, if you look completely black, like the famous Cuban singer Celia Cruz and the famous Puerto Rican baseball player Roberto Clemente did, then you are assumed to be an African American, and if you look Anglo, like Cameron Diaz and Ricky Martin do, then you are assumed to be an Anglo American, but never a Latino.
Of course, even we Latinos suffer from the same rather irrational expectations and are very often surprised when the person with whom they might have been casually conversing with for an hour or more suddenly turns out to be from the same country that they are from. For example, just recently, one Latina I had been speaking with assumed that I was either Greek or Italian while I assumed that she was African American. Then, after approx twenty minutes of conversation, we finally discovered that we were both Puerto Rican. So if even we who supposedly should know better are affected in that confusing way, then it's quite understandable that non-Latinos should also be.
If you are Latino and live in the United States then you are familiar with the stereotyping that we are subjected to. For example, on the West Coast where most Latinos look, Mestizo, you are expected to look, Mestizo, If you don't look Mestizo then you are automatically assumed to be an Anglo America, An Afro American, A middle Easterner, or some other type of human being from some other part of the world but never a Latino. On the East coast, the same rule applies but with different criteria. There you are mostly expected to look mixed with black. Again, if you look completely black, like the famous Cuban singer Celia Cruz and the famous Puerto Rican baseball player Roberto Clemente did, then you are assumed to be an African American, and if you look Anglo, like Cameron Diaz and Ricky Martin do, then you are assumed to be an Anglo American, but never a Latino.
Of course, even we Latinos suffer from the same rather irrational expectations and are very often surprised when the person with whom they might have been casually conversing with for an hour or more suddenly turns out to be from the same country that they are from. For example, just recently, one Latina I had been speaking with assumed that I was either Greek or Italian while I assumed that she was African American. Then, after approx twenty minutes of conversation, we finally discovered that we were both Puerto Rican. So if even we who supposedly should know better are affected in that confusing way, then it's quite understandable that non-Latinos should also be.
Reasons for the Confusion
The reason for this confusion causing this stereotyping is because people who live in the USA are mostly familiar with only two types of immigrating Latinos. These two types are mostly mixed Caribbean Latinos on the East Coast and Mexican Mestizo immigrant Latinos on the West Coast. So out of force of habit, they have been led to assume that all Latinos are either Mestizo, a mixture of European and Native American, or those who look mixed with black since most immigrants to these two geographical areas fall into those two categories due to socio-economic factors which causes the poor of these countries to immigrate to the USA while those who are of European descent and who are well-off financially, stay home.
There is however one very notable exception to this usual pattern which was the Cuban immigration to Miami that occurred after Castro took over and established a communist regime. These immigrants who were of the rich class, were mostly of European descent and did not usually fit the typical idea of what Latinos were expected or supposed to look like since they tended to look Anglo American. In fact, when I first arrived at Miami, I very often mistook many of them for Anglo Americans and only realized that they were Cuban when they responded in Spanish. In contrast, the second wave of Cubans. known as the Marielitas, who were of the lower socio-economic category, were very frequently either dark-skinned or Afro Latinos.