On March 24th, the professor showed us a distorted image of an Irish person depicted by American. In the picture, the Irish person had an ape-like face so that it sort of showed that they are inferior to white people. This really prompted me to think about the racism in general. Although the topic we discussed was specifically about stereo type, if one is perceived inferior to other races and people use stereo type as a medium to spread those inferior images to others, I believe it should be considered as more like an action caused by discrimination than just a typical stereo type joke that nobody gets hurt by. Since this is rather complicated and controversial issue, I thought I could use my own experience as well as my friend’s to talk about it.
Most foreigners encounter a language barrier as well as feel the difference of their appearance while they live in America. For instance, when my Japanese friend participated at a company’s cocktail party as an employee, he came back to me with a frown and told me that he felt like he was out of place at the party. He was the only foreigner there, and he could not encourage himself to interact with the others because he believed that he could not speak English well enough and that he didn’t have anything to relate to with them due to the difference in their background. These incidents prompted me to consider what causes foreigners to feel inferior towards Americans, and I realized that similar incidents are carried out by different people in different places.It is not strange that foreigners feel some inferiority when they compare his or her country with a strong military and economic power like the US. Foreigners from Asian countries are usually comfortable and act naturally with each other as if they have known each other quite long: this implies that the similarities in their culture and appearance seem to stimulate affinity to others who have similar backgrounds.
However, in the presence of an American, they tend to neglect a culture of another country and put more importance on impressing the American. When I first came to the States at the age of sixteen, I attempted to become friendlier with Americans than with the other foreigners because I wanted to be treated as an American in order to avoid the discomforts that often result from being stereotyped. I had heard some Americans saying “Asians always stick together” and I did not want to be like those whom they talk about. But as I grew older, I started to realize that I should not be judging a person from a single perspective, and I learned how significant it is to learn the other perspectives to fully interact with people.
Inferiority within the foreigners originally derives from the comparison of the authority of their countries with America on the basis of economic, politics, and culture. As I mentioned above, America is one of the leading western countries and attracts many foreigners to adopt their culture. However, when foreigners encounter a barrier of language and difference of appearance, the existing inferiority within them starts to affect their behaviors towards Americans. Therefore, America is a country that provides foreigners with a variety of hardships to overcome in order to become successful, but at the same time, living through hardships in America would also help them gain a different perspective to re-evaluate the culture of their home countries.
