Stereotypes In West Side Story

Society is built upon a grand scale of assumptions and misunderstandings, all of which tend to lead us in a path for the worst. There is, however, a remedy for our seemingly infinite list of problems that lead us to war, hate, and unrest. Unfortunately, this remedy is not very likely to be found because we have not been looking in the right places, which happen to be right beneath our noses. You see, we as a society have spent our lives writing books, directing movies, and painting murals, and yet we have overlooked our own genius; Footloose, The Breakfast Club, and Dirty Dancing. These three movies all share a common thread, and it’s not their epic soundtracks and classic ending scenes. These three movies have the capability to perfect society.

It takes the average person under a minute to compose an opinion about someone they recently encountered. This opinion will be the image inside your head until you genuinely get to understand that person., but judgement with still occur because humans do this for an eccentric reason. People have stereotypes that go along with judging through age class, for example, adults stereotype judging teenagers as persistently staring at their phones all day, rarely interacting with anyone face to face. This exhibits irony; children and teenagers perceive their parents to be infallible.

The movie Philadelphia follows the story of Andrew Beckett, a young lawyer suffering from the disease HIV. Fearing it would compromise his career; Beckett hides his homosexuality and HIV status but is later found out, when his colleagues notice the illness’s telltale lesions. Fired shortly afterwards, Beckett decides to sue for discrimination, teaming up with Joe Miller, the only lawyer willing to help. Through a rigorous court case, the two end up winning and set a precedent setting case for homosexuality in the work place

When looking at a bunch of bananas in a grocery store, people tend to choose the perfect spotless bananas, since stereotypically food that is perfect looking, with no flaws, taste better. However, people soon realize that when you start to eat bananas that have more spots and are imperfect they turn out to be sweeter and better. This connects to stereotypes because people who follow stereotyped will always eat the perfect bananas; however, people who choose to look through another perspective can realize that the imperfect bananas are better. This connects to The Outsiders because Ponyboy realizes this after he talks with two Socs, kids from a rival group named Randy and Cherry. In The Outsiders, S.E Hinton presents the idea that teenagers can break through stereotypes if they look at life through another perspective; as shown in the book when Ponyboy starts to talk to Cherry and Randy and realizes the stereotypes about them are false.

“The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That 's what we 're all fighting for” - Cristina Saralegui. Judith Ortiz Cofer published the article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman,” where she expresses her anger towards stereotypes, inequality, and degradation of Latin Americans. Cofer explains the origins of these perceived views and proceeds to empower Latin American women to champion over them. Cofer establishes her credibility as a Latin American woman with personal anecdotes that emphasize her frustration of the unfair depiction of Latinos in society. Cofer addresses the cultural barriers and challenges that Latinos experience through emotional appeal, anecdotal imagery, parallelism and the use of effective periodic sentences.

The revolutionary Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr, once described discrimination as “a hellbound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” His point being that African Americans face racial discrimination on a daily basis. Brent Staples, being an African American living in America, expresses his view on the subject in his essay “Just Walk on By”, where he conveys the message of how fear is influenced by society's stereotypical and discriminating views of certain groups of people; his point is made clear through his sympathetic persona, descriptive diction, depressing tone, and many analogies.

Everyday people are judging and being judged by others with unique criteria that we, as inhabitants of Earth deem necessary checkmarks to be met to afford and be afforded tokens of civility. In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Myth of the Latin Woman” the memoir is brimming with personal accounts of fetishiztation and discrimination the author experiences as a Latin woman that have vast influence on her life. Throughout the text Cofer conveys the significance of how deep the status “exotic” to describe Latina women is held inside the minds of people which the author alludes to on page 879, “I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature early,” [1] after being given a sudden, non-consensual kiss at a dance by her date. The author expresses the cultural dissonance between

Stories and memories passed on through generations can help to shape an individual. In many instances, storytelling can tell a lesson or push a person’s opinion about something in a certain direction. Memories can sometimes be unreliable, but can also be all that someone can base their life off of. Judith Ortiz Cofer’s memoir Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican childhood uses storytelling to share her memories in a life lesson manner. She takes the reader on a journey through her memories and childhood and uses her memory as a main tool. Memory and storytelling is an important aspect of Silent Dancing, because they helped to shape the author, told lessons to the reader, and explained a life tied between Puerto Rican and American.

The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named María is an essay by Judith Ortiz Cofer that addresses the impact of stereotyping on Latino women. Throughout the essay, Cofer relates her personal experiences with stereotypes to discuss how they have negatively affected her life and the lives of other Latinas. She also explains how these stereotypes originated and calls on her audience, the majority-white non-Latino population, to stop propagating the stereotypical portrayals of Latino women. In The Myth of the Latin Woman, Cofer speaks out about how stereotyping hinders the process of assimilating to a new culture by appealing to ethos through her personal experiences, using similes that show how stereotypes create isolation, and adopting

Cofer begins her essay by reliving an interaction she had with an Irishman on a trip to London, where the man re-enacted “María” from West Side Story. It was Cofer’s Hispanic appearance which led to the incident and the extra attention caused her to feel like an “island”. She felt out of place and insists that the same situation would not have likely occurred

Staples uses imagery, so the reader can picture it when reading his work, and to help create a sort of dark and lonely tone. The character uses several personal experiences which use a large amount of imagery. This is better shown when staples writes “ As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken- let alone hold it to a person’s throat……”(542), The character feels as though he is being judged for being a certain color when really he is afraid himself of getting hurt; he is also very humble and shy because he is afraid to even harm something that isn’t alive. When being treated as guilty and wrong, shame will follow; the character feels shameful that the lady is afraid of him when he has done nothing wrong. The

Stereotyping is an issue that affects all ages, genders, and races. Not all stereotypes are bad, but when you maliciously stereotype it becomes a problem. In S.E. Hinton’s young adult novel The Outsiders, stereotyping is a significant issue. There are two gangs in this novel, the “greasers”, and the “Socs”. The greasers live on the east side and are known as “hoods”. The Socs live on the west side and are known as the west side rich kids who have all the breaks. People judge their personality just based on where they live, and what they look like. Stereotyping is an unfair way to judge people because you never know their whole story.

The Myth of the Latin Woman explains the negative impact of stereotypes on Latin people from the point of view of the representative of this social group. While Cofer does not provide statistical or scientific information, her personal experience is enough to understand the severity of the situation and the influence of both sides on it. The author tries to reach out population through emotions, which can be explained with her poetic

Throughout “The Mexican in Fact, Fiction, and Folkore” examines the term “Mexican” as it is applied in Southwest literature and argues the Anglo society has made a conscious effort to misrepresent Mexicans (Rios 60). He states the people of Mexican descent are viewed as un-American because they are perceived as filthy, lazy, and dumb. Ricatelli adds to the conversation of Mexican stereotypes by examining the literary expressions of Chicanas and Mexicanas in the literature of both the United States and Mexico. In “The Sexual Stereotypes of The Chicana in Literature” Ricatelli explains how in Yankee literature, the Chicana is referred to as the “fat breeder, who is a baby factory” meanwhile the Mexican is described as an “amoral, lusty hot tamale” (Ricatelli 51). He makes note of these stereotypes in order to highlight the ethnocentric and nativist points of view that dominated Anglo literature. Furthermore, he describes the multiple forms of control Chicana women face when he states, “The Chicana is first of all oppressed economically, socially, and politically by virtue of her being a woman. Secondly, the Chicana as a member of an oppressed ethnic and/ or racial group is limited to the same extent as the Chicano by the dominant Anglo society” (50). However, he fails to mention the experiences of queer women, which implies how the Chicano

Generalizations take after specific individuals for the duration of their lives. Judith Ortiz Cofer is a Latina who has been stereotyped and she delineates this in her article, "The myth of the Latin lady: I just met a young lady named Maria." Cofer depicts how pernicious generalizations can really be. Perusers can understand Cofer 's message through the numerous explanatory interests she employments. Cofer utilizes moral and, enthusiastic interest to communicate as the need should arise to others that the generalizations of Hispanic ladies can have negative impacts.