Week 3: Prejudice/ Discrimination-- Jamie Nickell

Everyone can be discriminated against. Whether it deals with you race, sexual orientation, religion, culture, gender, occupation or all of these together. We all have stereotypes that can be labeled on us. Being a middle class woman, white, and christian, I have not experienced much prejudice or discrimination directly. That being said, I find that this is probably because I fall into what Americans view as the "normal" or "average" person category. If I was to be stereotyped or discriminated against, people might say things such as "snobby", or stuck up. I guess coming from such a sheltered environment in the sense that my community was all similar in these aspects listed above that I do not have the knowledge of what discrimination would even feel like if I was to experience it. This sounds pathetic but its true. Our society is so quick to judge people by the smallest things that don't even matter. We don't look at people for who they truly are, instead we discriminate against those who are different from us.


                                               


This is a whole different story with Jenny, my mentee. She might be discriminated against everyday by people who are different from her. She could feel outcast from others because of her ethnicity, culture, citizenship, and gender. Although, I feel that AMIS is a wonderful opportunity to mix children of similar backgrounds, language, and cultures together to eliminate that sense of prejudice and discrimination amongst the children to help build friendships without the constant stress of being "different." When I compare the privilege I have compared to my mentee, I notice how different we actually are even though we both are U.S. Citizens. She has to struggle daily to learn English to be able to communicate to other people and even myself. Why do I not take the time to learn Spanish if she has to learn English? How does that seem fair? It breaks my heart that I automatically gain the privilege of expecting others to speak my language just because I am an American. America is supposed to be the "melting pot" where we accept everyone for who they are. Except we don't, we expect them to change and form themselves to live and speak like other Americans do. No wonder immigrant children feel such prejudice and discrimination on top of the other issues of being an immigrant that comes along.