hey atiya. this is totally random. but i saw your status about puerto ricans so i just had to read your blog. I think you did a really good job at mentioning the stereotypes about mexican men but i didnt feel the love for puerto rican women. i know that what you saw in new york was ridiculous but believe me were not all like that!
also good luck in tinseltown.
I was using the anecdote about my views of Puerto Rican girls and my youth, as a comparison to those I had of Mexican men, in my young-adulthood. In both situations, I have placed a certain blind-judgment on these two groups; my information being based on hearsay via my family and immediate surroundings for one, and then the media for the other. I do not believe that Puerto Ricans are receiving fair representation in the States- When they did, it was for 15 minutes in 1999 and I think it looked like this.
Yesterday's encounters were another wake up call for me. I realize how apathetic I've been about seeking knowledge about various cultures (except for the food, I'm very active in the realm of diverse food exposure). It was a very long version of a very rhetorical question: Why do I feel like we've leveled off in the progression of educated ethnic representations in popular culture? How far from a minstrel show have we really come?
Watching television and trying to relate to the people I see on it, reminds me of shopping for concealer in middle school: There were copious shades of white, 3 shades
of brown and none of them matched me.
That's all.
xx
