Last week we discussed how Latino's are portrayed in the media. Most everyone has seen movies like Cheech and Chong or a film featuring the "spicy" Latino woman or the Latin lover, but are these accurate portrayals of Latinos and Hispanics living in the United States? I feel like most of what we see regarding Hispanics today is the news media telling stories of illegal immigrants or criminals, so I think that sadly, many people take this view they see in the news and apply it to all Hispanic people they see.
In Jour 2320 over the summer, I interviewed a Hispanic woman about how she felt they were portrayed in the media today and she seemed to think the same thing. She felt that if more positive stories were shown on the news about Hispanics, then people would have much different opinions of Hispanics and the Hispanic culture. I don't think that shows like George Lopez or comedians like Carlos Mencia are really helping with stereotypes either.
I had to take a portion of the United States citizenship test at the beginning of a class not long ago and I was absolutely shocked at how difficult it was. The types of questions that were on the test dealt with everything from politics to United States history questions. I don't necessarily think that its a bad idea for tests concerning history to be on the test but I don't understand the necessity of many of the questions. The entire time I was asking myself, "Why do you NEED to know this in order to be a citizen?" Either way, it did surprise me and made me think a lot harder about illegal immigrants and how long it takes most people applying for citizenship to actually become citizens.
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