Race: the power of an illusion

Race

Immersing oneself in a culture can be done by spending time with people in that culture. For this project, I visited a Mexican family while they ate dinner. I had a friend of a friend who agreed to let me participate. The dinner was not a formal one, and we went to a local Mexican restaurant.

The first thing I noticed was that since I don't speak very much Spanish (which is to say I can barely order a taco), I realized that I was going to be limited as to how much I would learn about the culture. Language seems an essential component of culture. I realized immediately that the family was quite religious. They were not overt about it, but it was clear as they referenced God and Jesus a fair bit and had iconography hanging from their rearview mirrors.

What struck me most was how close-knit the family was. Everybody was open with each other and it was clear that they spent a lot of time together. I think for me this was something that I had not expected, as it contrasts with most of my other friends. They kept the English-language discussion away from personal matters, however, and instead focused on the issues that interested them -- in particular they wanted to know about my project.

The father and mother both worked very hard -- the father with two jobs and the mother raising the family and working outside the home. The meal was a weekly ritual for them because it was the only time when the father and mother were both off work at the same time for a dinner.

I would not say that I made a big difference in their lives, but they made an impression on me. We hear a lot about Mexicans in the news, and a lot of what we hear feeds stereotypes. I don't think these stereotypes are very accurate, based on my experience. I saw a hard-working, close-knit family. Their culture may be a little bit different than ours, but they fit in quite well with American values of hard work and a tendency towards conservative thought on a lot of social issues.

I know that I will interact with Mexicans no matter what my career path, because they have a high population especially in some states. What this exercise means to me is that I will have a better understanding of their culture and their values (and their food -- I tried some new things). Ultimately it will be easier for me to deal with people from this culture having had just this one experience with them.

Another cultural exercise that I undertook was to visit a native reservation. This is a very eye-opening experience because this is another group of Americans that we often either do not interact with, or sometimes do not know that the people we are interacting with have native blood. Or we think of reservations as the places with casinos. I was a guest of the band, just to see what life was like. They said they had never really had a request like that before.

I guess the first thing that struck me was the poverty level, being much higher than the rest of the surrounding area. I spoke with people there, and they basically said there was no economy, and off the reservation they had a harder time than white people in finding jobs. Most of the people I talked to did not speak their own native language, and most of them did things like we do -- they eat the same food, watch football on the television and things like that.

I think that my actions again taught me more than it would have taught my hosts. I learned what life on the reservation is really like, and what native people think about the rest of Americans. It is not all bad, although I think for some people there is some simmering resentment. Still, I feel like I learned a lot from the experience, that all people in America are just people, and that we should have more respect for the cultural differences. I am just as strange to Mexicans and natives as they are to me.