In my life, I've experienced a good deal of prejudice. Growing up in the suburbs, attending a primarily all white school, I can't say I've ever felt like I blended in anywhere. As far as being treated differently in a negative way based on something arbitrary like skin color, race or religion, I can't say I've personally experienced all that much of it. To think of one striking example, my family is Hindu and so we(used to) frequently attend temple just to feel close to our culture, and one day the new temple had been spraypainted with vulgar words from local kids. At the time, I was in no position mentally to absorb what hateful words were even saying,or even what they were in the first place at that. Outside of a few isolated incidents though, I don't feel I've been the direct subject of as much racism as some people might expect. Yes, friends have in the past have joked about the prejudice of "brownness" and what that even means, tying into the stereotype of the immigrant parent, specifically asian parents, that seem to "live through" the accomplishment of their children because they may not have the ability with limited skills in English to rise as high in the workforce of America. But again, I grew up mostly isolated from my own culture because my mother, the one who would have encouraged this relationship to be reinforced constantly, got stuck living in Sri Lanka for the next 14 years(to this day) without us, which forced my dad to work around the clock and basically left me to my own, growing up amongst my own friends more so than closest family. In Kevin's case, he is hispanic, a much more widely recognized race of people, so for him things might be a lot different, not that I currently know but it's definitely possible that he lives in an area among people of similar descent as well, and I saw that his friends at school, or just the kids he sits next to maybe, are all of Hispanic origin. This, to me is another reason why he seems so tied into his own culture, because he has friends to reinforce it, and so he may not be embarassed about like sadly I used to be at times, but certainly not for long.
In my life, I've experienced a good deal of prejudice. Growing up in the suburbs, attending a primarily all white school, I can't say I've ever felt like I blended in anywhere. As far as being treated differently in a negative way based on something arbitrary like skin color, race or religion, I can't say I've personally experienced all that much of it. To think of one striking example, my family is Hindu and so we(used to) frequently attend temple just to feel close to our culture, and one day the new temple had been spraypainted with vulgar words from local kids. At the time, I was in no position mentally to absorb what hateful words were even saying,or even what they were in the first place at that. Outside of a few isolated incidents though, I don't feel I've been the direct subject of as much racism as some people might expect. Yes, friends have in the past have joked about the prejudice of "brownness" and what that even means, tying into the stereotype of the immigrant parent, specifically asian parents, that seem to "live through" the accomplishment of their children because they may not have the ability with limited skills in English to rise as high in the workforce of America. But again, I grew up mostly isolated from my own culture because my mother, the one who would have encouraged this relationship to be reinforced constantly, got stuck living in Sri Lanka for the next 14 years(to this day) without us, which forced my dad to work around the clock and basically left me to my own, growing up amongst my own friends more so than closest family. In Kevin's case, he is hispanic, a much more widely recognized race of people, so for him things might be a lot different, not that I currently know but it's definitely possible that he lives in an area among people of similar descent as well, and I saw that his friends at school, or just the kids he sits next to maybe, are all of Hispanic origin. This, to me is another reason why he seems so tied into his own culture, because he has friends to reinforce it, and so he may not be embarassed about like sadly I used to be at times, but certainly not for long. 
No comments:
Post a Comment