Blog Essay 5

I believe that in the United States, there is a very large gap in the way people are educated on Latinx culture. So often we see assumptions and stereotypes being made about different aspects of, for instance, Mexican culture. I spoke about this in my podcast interview, but there are so many Mexican traditions we see minimized due to the lack of education and, consequently, appreciation for the meanings of these celebrations. For instance, when I saw that Donald Trump had tweeted an image of him eating a taco bowl in celebration of Cinco De Mayo, and then captioning it “I love Hispanics,” I was shocked. The fact that it was deemed acceptable for him to share something so offensive is simply unbelievable. While I think there are many things to be analyzed about this tweet, I think one important thing to point out is that taco bowls are a Tex-Mex dish, originating in America. The blatant uneducated assumptions that were made by Trump in this tweet truly are a reflection of the fact that there isn’t enough education or respect for Latinx culture in the United States, especially if such a prominent figure in the country is promoting these disrespectful ideals.

In the United States, we also see a lack of media coverage and information being shared about the reality of Latinx hardships experienced as a result of racist ideals. While going through the vides and readings, I learned about the truly unknown history of latino lynchings in the US. Prior to this, I was unaware of this history, which really shouldn’t have been the case. I believe that in general, schools tend to focus on the history of African Americans when it comes to blatant racism, descrimination, and lynchings, but ultimately, I feel that there should be a more broad education on all the groups of people experiencing this hate, that way people are more aware of the history of the country they live in. I think that people in the United States really underestimate how much discrimination is present in this country, especially towards the Latinx community. It shouldn’t take acts of domestic terrorism, like the 2019 El Paso shooting, for people to understand the extent to which latinos are being discriminated against. Instead, people should want to be educated on these issues and be willing to take a stand against this very prominent racism.

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