Have you ever been so afraid of failing at something, you find yourself having a hard time even trying?
I am currently planning and organizing my first "Faces" interview for Borderbeat. I've contacted some different Hispanic organizations on campus, to get a better idea of who I should interview, which direction to take, etc. Hopefully I will be able to get in contact with one of the organizations by Monday so I can try to arrange my first interview for no later than Friday.
But I'm nervous. And I shouldn't be. Especially going into journalism, this is something I need to get over and fast. Yet I don't think its the actual interviewing part that worries me every time, as much as it is the pressure to truly reflect the characters and values of those I'm interviewing.
It is so easy to spin an article, so easy to have your writing shift and instantly alter the reflection of those you have sat down with. They will have done their part by taking a couple hours to sit down with me and tell their life story -- but the bulk of the pressure falls upon me to adequately represent them.
That is what Borderbeat is all about to me, essentially -- adequately reporting and representing the people and the issues our nation are facing as far as immigration is concerned. It's a huge responsibility, especially at such a young age. I know we aren't the only ones out there reporting on these issues, but somehow to me, if even only one person's views are altered by reading something which will eventually be put up on the site, then we have been successful.
After all, it's hard to overcome stereotypes. They're everywhere. They are on television, on the Internet, in advertising, in conversation. Everywhere you turn, it is easy to find someone discussing border issues in a light-hearted matter. But sometimes the light-heartiness really has undertones of hatred; the hatred which shouldn't be allowed in a society that bases its beliefs in "all men are created equal."
It is funny to look back on our history and see how we've gone from an open melting pot to a country who views differences and other races as an issue that can be best resolved with heavily guarded borders, walls and deportation.
When I mentioned light-hearted jokes being everywhere you look... I decided to look around YouTube.
It's amazing how far our nation has come, isn't it?
That is why I hope with each "Faces" profile I do (as well as each article published on Borderbeat), the mirror we are holding as a new-born publication is an accurate reflection of our subjects.
Reflections, after all, shouldn't lie -- they should only project the truth.
There are pivotal moments most people can remember that directly links to when their perspectives changed, be it over current events, social issues, beliefs or the likewise. At least, that’s how it goes in my life.
Really until May 2003, I had held extremely stereotypical, conservative views of homosexuality, mostly because of the environment I had grown up in and my parents’ religious foundation. I’m not proud of saying my opinions were formed originally because of my parents, but at the end of the day – it’s the truth.
(The neighborhood I grew up in near Pittsburgh.)
Not that I was hateful by any means, but I definitely felt the undertones of superiority which can only be felt by somewhat sheltered, white girls in middle class America. I had relatives that used (and sometimes, continue to use) slurs against every minority group out there. From nigger, to faggot, chink, wetback -- family members who I do know and love have used them all.
Some people just refuse to change; too set in their ways by their parents and their grandparents before them.
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Yet my opinions were completed turned around towards the end of my high school years. It was after 2 a.m. E.S.T. and I had been on the phone with one of my best friends for hours already. After casually making a joke in reference to him being gay, there was the silence which I knew would change our relationship forever.
That night was the night he told me he was pretty sure he was bisexual, and then eventually he came out as gay months later.
Suddenly, I was the defender of gay people. I began to look at the issue in a whole new light – mainly because, someone I was extremely close to and cared about was being faced with his reality and people’s stereotypical perceptions of him.
Essentially, the same reasons I changed my awareness of Mexicans and immigration issues solely comes down to one undeniable truth: when an issue becomes extremely personal to someone, usually only then are they willing to see the world's biggest issues in a different light.
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I had never had a Mexican friend until I moved to Tucson. That is just how it is. Whatever culture shock I might have had when I first moved here quickly dissipated as I became immersed in the culture that surrounded me everyday. When your life changes, sometimes you just change with it.
But once I moved to Tucson and fell in love with those who have come from Mexico, only then did I truly begin to see how beautiful their culture is inside and out.
(Daniel and Karla, two of my best Tucson friends.)
Suddenly, when people on the news or in the classroom tried to say immigration issues could best be solved with a wall, or a crack-down system, I imagined the friends I loved and adored being forbidden.
Or even worse... never having been here at all.
Their faces are the ones I see when I listen to culturally-blinded people insisting that no Mexicans are the best kinds of Mexicans.
Freedom of speech isn't always such a wonderful thing, is it?
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The first “Mexican-American” I guess you could say I fell in love with was Norberta. She triggered my initial alteration in my own Mexican-American perspective.
She is one of the fulltime employees at the convience store I work at on campus. To this day, she is perhaps one of the most loving individuals I have ever known. Hardworking and friendly, there are very few times I have ever seen this woman at work without a smile on her face – and I’ve worked with her for over three years now.
Basically, Norberta is just one of those women you meet but never forget. I’ve received more hugs from her than any other employee I’ve ever worked with; when she asks how you are doing, she truly cares about your answer. She’s also a woman of faith, which shows since I’ve never known her to say anything mean about anyone.
Norberta is not only loved by the entire staff – but truly lives her life to its fullest, no matter where she is or what she is doing. Perhaps that is what I admire most about her.
(Norberta, with another employee, Spring 2003.)
She would soon be just the first of many. Being so close to the border for eight months out of the year, I’ve come to know many, many Mexicans who have proven to be everything their stereotypes are not.
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Slowly, but surely, over four years I began to uncover the reality that a person cannot be defined by where or how they were raised, only how their actions and words give birth to their truest identity.
We already have enough walls around our country and its people –
The walls stereotypes help build which continue to divide us all.
I grew up in a small town, southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In fact, I don't even say Finleyville, because I know you will have no idea where it is.
I never moved; I lived in the same house my entire life. My grandparents lived across the street. The kids I went to kindergarten with became the young adults I filed in line with as we marched across the football field to accept our high school diplomas.
"Border related issues" were never something which caught my full attention. Personally, the border was not something that affected my everyday life. But still, I carried the same stereotypical ideals that many people in America still hold as truth -- the supposed "truth" in which everyday, more and more (uninvited, unemployed, unmotivated) Mexicans are flooding into our already jam-packed nation.
I believed, as many do, those people are the same people that are raising crime rates in America, stealing jobs from our own citizens, taking money from our nation and transferring it back into their own. Those "lazy Mexicans" are sometimes seen as bugs, rats to the "superior" citizens of this nation -- rats that are uninvited, unwanted and undesirable.
Yet when I moved to Tucson, Arizona to attend the University of Arizona, the stereotypes began to quickly disappear. Suddenly, I lived in an entirely different community than I was used to; and I began to discover the same truth that lies within every country, race, culture and heritage: the truth being that we as a people tend to define and stereotype. We place people in boxes, refuse to look past the faces and into the true reflections of a person's spirit.
I have met countless individuals in this area who have not only required me to change my perspective on our border issues, but to truly embrace our melting pot status as a nation. It is how the US was conceived after all and it is how we are able to grow.
I'm not here to say the border issues can quickly be resolved. I'm not claiming that some political position is right or wrong. What I am here to do, with my weekly column at Borderbeat.net, is to take a deeper look into the reflections I have encountered in our enchanting desert.
My reflections on the people I have interviewed and come to know will soon fill the entries of this blog.
Hopefully, my reflections will change your outlook on one of the groups we tend to stereotype the most -- our very own border crossers, our newest American neighbors.
And still quite possibly -- our soon to be discovered friends and family.
