The Myth Of A Latin Woman

James A Forbes once said, “When people rely on surface appearances and false racial stereotypes, rather than in-depth knowledge of others at the level of the heart, mind and spirit, their ability to assess and understand people accurately is compromised.” Stereotypes have become an essential factor in how one judges another. Gender and racial profiling, as well as cultural and religious stereotypes, have always been a problem in society. A stereotype is an altered view of a person or a thing. When a specific thing or person comes to mind, one typically associates them with a stereotypical opinion. One popular shared stereotype of Americans would be that Americans only speak English. For most Americans, English is one’s first language. Though,

Women only live to get married and have children, they do no like sports, and they only dress nice to gain attraction from others. When breaking it down between an American woman, and a Latin woman, there are several differences in how each woman is perceived by others. In an essay titled “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria,” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, Cofer explains how there is a considerable difference when comparing an American woman’s life growing up, compared to a Latin woman growing up. “As young girls, we were influenced in our decisions about clothes and colors by the women—older sisters and mothers who had grown up on a tropical island where the natural environment was a riot of primary colors, where showing your skin was one way to keep cool as well as to look sexy” (Cofer 65). Cofer did a good job of explaining how showing skin and dressing gaudy is normal in her culture. Compared to how an American woman dresses, Latin Women able to express themselves more because of how diversely they can dress. In American culture, a woman who wears tight clothing and a great deal of jewelry, men would interpret that as a come-on. As young girls, Latin women are kept under strict rules since virtue and modesty are just as important as family honor. Girls are taught at a young age that they need to behave in a proper manner. However, this causes a problem. Though girls

Many people like to make assumptions about an entire religion based on one person. Something similar to this would be when people say that a terrorist, who happens to be Muslim, represents the entire Muslim community. “Every Muslim is a terrorist;” this is something that many people seem to think. Approximately, there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world; and 3.3 million of them live in the United States (Anti-Defamation League). Since these numbers are so high, it helps support the claim that not all Muslims are terrorists. By classifying people by their religion, we create this divide in the world. Amartya Sen, author of the essay “A World Not Neatly Divided,” talks about how each person needs to find other ways of seeing people; one cannot just see another in a way that only revolves around their political views, language, religious status, and other affiliations. Sen writes, “Our religion, important as it may be, cannot be an all-engulfing identity” (Sen 70). When one looks specifically on another’s religious views, that is the only thing highlighted; that person is nothing more but a Lutheran, a Buddhist, or a