| Sunday, January 14, 2007 |
| Old Reflections; Being Forced to Take a New Look |
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.Labels: Introduction |
posted by Border Reflections @ 2:32 PM  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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I'm curious as to what exactly made your perception of Mexicans change. Was there a key incident that made you think "wow maybe I've been wrong?"
Also, what kind of a culture shock did you experience when you came to the UA? If you did that is.
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I'm curious as to what exactly made your perception of Mexicans change. Was there a key incident that made you think "wow maybe I've been wrong?"
Also, what kind of a culture shock did you experience when you came to the UA? If you did that is.