Task 5: Reflection About Stereotypes in Latin America

Reflaction based on a video from Youtube about stereotypes in Latin America


Latin America is very known place to have a countless list stereotypes and even some of them are even disrespectful to some people that are part of this huge community. But how some of these stereotypes are made? Well, many of them because of the behavior of some Latin Americans on foreign lands. Some people tend to behave in a way that make others think of Latin Americans in general in that way. I would say that sadly some of these stereotypes are true but some others are kind of good.

And why do I say sadly? Because some of them are contributing in a way to be recognize as that, even if you disagree or do not feel like that. For instance, a very common stereotype that you hear from foreigners is that Colombians do coke. So, every time I would say I am from Colombia, they would bring up this topic immediately or during the conversation. This is kind of bad because I would not like to be recognize as someone who does coke or produce good coke but previous circumstances have contributed to this. Previous circumstances like the era in which Pablo Escobar was living, an era that we cannot deny all the bad things that happened through those years in our country. The good side about stereotypes is that some of them are good in a way that highlight some features in which we are good at. For instance, Colombia is one of the highest producers of good coffee in the world, so when you introduce as a Colombian to a foreign, besides from the good coke, they will also praise our coffee. They would be like, “oh, so you must like coffee” which is not true all the time but most of Colombians live for the coffee.      

In that way, we need to consider that some stereotypes might reflect the culture of the country and the behavior of some of their citizens. It is important to always consider the background of the country because some of these stereotypes come from these past histories and some are not very good. It is also important to illustrate yourself with some information before dive into a stereotype that might just be irrelevant and disrespectful and make you look ignorant.    

Comentarios

  1. It is normal that people who live outside of Latin American culture do not have the best concepts of us and you know what is this? to the news media, international news always want to show tragedy, violence, drug addiction and death in their statements, because in one way or another it is what catches the attention of the viewer, and maybe we are a bit guilty in it when accepting and growing the raiting of this type of visual media. We know that we are more than that and we are the ones who will change the perspective of foreigners by making good content of our culture through media visited daily as social networks. make everything viral good.

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    1. I agree with you. Social media has a lot to do with the way people from outside our culture percieved us. But it is important to change that and I think that through education we can make that happen.

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Task 2: Reflective Tasks from the book by Stella Cottrell (2005), Critical Thinking Skills

Task 3: Creative & Critical Thinking – Dr. Stephen Brookfield, Keynote address at the 2012 DePaul University Teaching Commons Fall Forum

Task 6: Critical commentary of the lecture "Where is the Outrage? Critical Pedagogy in Dark Times" by Dr. Henry Giroux