Stereotypes | VivirLatino

Posts Tagged ‘stereotypes’

Immigrant Narratives : Choose Your Mother or Your Child

22 Jun 2009

Quick. Choose. The house is burning and you have to choose. Your mother or your child? Who do you save?

The current framing of the immigration reform movement and the immigrants it claims to represents takes place against a backdrop of human lives. And in our house, the United States of America, is aflame. The framing of the current immigration reform movement however, the good vs. bad immigrant narrative that we have written about and discussed extensively, forces advocates and the media into a corner. Choose. The idea is that we can’t have it all when it comes to immigration reform. That we need to make compromises, find workable solutions to borrow an often heard phrase from the Reform Immigration for America Summit. That means choosing between your mother or your child.

New Sotomayor Stereotype : The Latina Housekeeper

11:52 am By Maegan La Mala · Media| Politics| Women · 4 Comments

18 Jun 2009

Ah I knew we were missing a stereotype. Sotomayor has already been sexualized,objectified and dehumanized . She’s been called angry and a reverse racist. And now, yes she’ll clean up after you too.

Transcript:

Today, my friends, we turn our attention to the latest revelation from Judge Sonia Sotomayor. It appears that Ms. Sotomayor, the model of diversity and inclusion, has some explaining to do regarding her membership in a club.

Not just any club — a club whose members are all female. In documents provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the honorable judge wrote this: “I am a member of the Belizean Grove, a private organization of female professionals from the profit, nonprofit and social sectors. The organization does not invidiously discriminate on the basis of sex. Men are involved in its activities — they participate in trips, host events and speak at functions — but to the best of my knowledge, a man has never asked to be considered for membership.” (I don’t blame ‘em!)

The group includes over 100 high-level executives and upper-crust women from the corporate and government worlds.

However… the Code of Judicial Conduct bars judges from belonging to any organization that practices discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or national origin.

I wonder. If Justices Roberts or Thomas belonged to an association that discriminated against females, if Justices Alito or Scalia were discovered to have membership in a group that excluded females, how would liberals have reacted? Would they have forgiven the judges’ involvement in an “old boy’s club”? Or would they have erupted in a full-blown, five-alarm rage?

Safe to say, any conservative in this situation would find their nomination dead in the water. Clubbed — like a baby seal. No question about it. I think I’m going to send Sotomayor, and her club, a bunch of vacuum cleaners to help them clean up after their meetings.

Well Rush, at least you didn’t say she was your drug dealer.

Via / Media Matters

Beverly Hills Chihuahua Defeats La Macha

8:38 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Movies · 3 Comments

16 Oct 2008

I’ve tried to go to see the Beverly Hills Chihuahua three times since the movie came out, but alas, the Chihuahua is stronger than La Macha. I can’t do it, I just can’t. I want to be able to see the movie, and offer a valid critique of it, but everything about it makes my teeth set on edge. For example, this is the blurb about the story:

Drew Barrymore is the voice of Chloe, a high-maintenance, pink-bootie-wearing Chihuahua with a hovering celebrity owner (Jamie Lee Curtis). When her careless dog sitter (Piper Perabo) takers Chloe to Mexico, the pooch is kidnapped by a dog-fighting ring. But in this pup’s harrowing quest to return home to the Hills, she ends up finding her inner bark.

So, all the leads are white folks, right? But watch the trailer:

Where are all the white folks? For some reason, watching the trailer, I get the idea that the movie is about George Lopez for.

Could Disney be using Latinos to justify a racist movie that plays on tired stereotypes? But if it is, why on earth is every Latino under the sun in the damn movie? Does Latino Hollywood need jobs that badly??

I can not watch the movie to give some answers–maybe my dear VLatinos can?

via TIME

Latino Henry Cejudo Gets Olympic Gold, Gets Stereotyped

4:04 pm By Maegan La Mala · Sports| mexico| race| society · 3 Comments

19 Aug 2008

Latino wrestler Henry Cejudo took home the gold for the U.S. in men’s freestyle wrestling in a dynamic win today over opponent Tomohiro Matsunaga.

According to The L.A. Times, Cejudo, the son of undocumented immigrants, invoked his Mexican heritage as he spoke about his win:

“This is cool. Coming out of a Mexican American background, it feels good to represent the U.S.,” said Cejudo, whowasborn in Los Angeles. “Not too many Mexicans get the chance to do that.”

Cejudo’s parents divorced when he was 4 and he saw his father, Jorge, only one more time before he died in Mexico City. But his mother, Nelly Rico, raised a family of six children on her own, bouncing from low-paying jobs in California to New Mexico and Arizona, where the family sometimes slept four to a bed.

It’s a nice story, indeed. But what I personally don’t care for is the way his win is billed as “The American Dream”, supported comments from people who know him make it seem like that it’s a miracle he didn’t turn out to be a criminal in light of his family background. In fact, that’s exactly what they imply:

“He has done an unbelievable job coming from the environment that he came from,” his coach, Terry Brands, said. “Could be in prison. Could be a drug runner. Could be this, could be that. He’s done an unbelievable job of not being a victim.

Is this because he comes from a situation of adversity or because he comes from a situation of adversity and he’s brown? Way to taint an otherwise uplifting story…

Via / LA Times

Latino techno? You’re kidding!

1:32 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Media| Music| Newspapers · 4 Comments

28 Feb 2006

As evidence of the fact that mainstream media continues to see Latinos as retrograde, this snippet from a very “surprised” article about the Latino techno movement:

Electronic and Latin music would seem to reside at polar ends of the music spectrum. One is precise, the other passionate. One is the brutalist Bauhaus beats of Kraftwerk, the other is the languid romanticism of the Buena Vista Social Club.

Why Buena Vista Social Club? Why is that the quintessential “Latin music”?

Latino character actor dies

1:41 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| Entertainment · Comments Off

15 Feb 2006

Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, an early Latino performer in TV and film, died last week in Arizona at the age of 80. Gonzalez Gonzalez was a fixture in John Wayne movies and was often accused of perpetuating negative Latino stereotypes in his performances.

The films with Wayne, among them “The High and the Mighty,” “Rio Bravo” and “Hellfighters,” and guest appearances on such TV series as “Gunsmoke” made Gonzalez Gonzalez one of the most recognizable Mexican-American actors at the time.

Because he often played sterotypical roles, had a heavy accent and frequently served as comic relief, Gonzalez Gonzalez was criticized in later years as perpetuating negative Latino images.

But his grandson said Gonzales Gonzales took what roles were available.

Gael Just Says No To Stereotypes

1:55 pm By Maegan La Mala · Celebrities| Movies · 1 Comment

3 Nov 2005

Not only is Gael García Bernal one of the most talented young Latino actors currently on the scene (and in my opinion sexy), but he’s also outspoken. Most recently in London, García Bernal criticized Hollywood’s perpetuation of Latino stereotypes. He attacked not just the portrayal of Latinos as criminals but also the portrayal of Latinos as people from the ghetto with hearts of gold.

The Mexican actor of Y Tu Mama También and la Mala Educación fame said on stage at the National Film Theatre in The Times Screen Talk, part of The Times bfi London Film Festival that

There’s also the Good Latino stereotype. They always come from the slums with dogs playing in the dirt and people everywhere and a room full of kids. To be the Good Latino they then have to get away, to go to university and then marry the white girl.

Gael realizes that the impact of stereotypes reaches far beyond the screen. He went on to say that

This kind of thing is allowed now after September 11. As if the US wasn’t made rich by all the people that came and brought their culture with them

Bernal must know that the best way to counter negative Latino stereotyping in the media is to become the media because he along with Y Tu Mama También co-star and amigo Diego Luna set up a film production company in Mexico to help local indy filmmakers work without commercial constraints.

I didn’t need another reason to fall in love with Gael García Bernal. but I’m glad to know that he doesn’t just speak out against the proverbial hand that feeds him but he also works to feed himself and other Latino artists.

Via / The Times Online

So Exotic, So Romantic!

1:29 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Media · Comments Off

20 Sep 2005

Once again, my morning began with yet another ridiculous article on “the way Latinos are” found in Nashville-area newspaper. As the Latino population grows, this seems to be becoming a trend. Some classic quotes from the article, so eloquently titled “Hot, hot, hot!”:

…The formal manners and sultry climates of these locales add to their mystique and romance…

South Americans take exquisite care of their appearance, Scokin said, such as languidly spending the entire day [getting] ready for a dinner with their husband.

…Her must-have details for an evening of 1950s South American glamour include mojitos, Argentinean asado, flamenco girls, a tango performance, and the live Orkesta Mondo Pingus so guests can heat up the room with the sexy salsa, rumba, conga and cha cha cha.

That last one groups everything from Argentine cuisine to Cuban cocktails to traditional dance from southern Spain together. It’s all the same to these journalists. It must be fun for them to romanticize who Latinos are. It’s much cooler than actually learning something.

Who are these people and where do they get this stuff?

adriana: I have been following this too, as my alma mater is one of the colleges that banned the Russell gear [...]

Nelson G.: Did Ruben show up? [...]

Transgender Day of Remembrance and Latin@s | VivirLatino: [...] America still painted as more transphobic than the good old U.S. of A, all we need to do is lo [...]

Maegan La Mala: intellectual jism....ja ja. I love you [...]

Maegan La Mala: Chip, Thanks for the info I will add this above. I don't have any other info about the Sunday vi [...]

VivirLatino