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Colin Maher
Professor Vana DerOhanessian
English 115
26 November 2014
stereotyping and generalization
All people are created equal, each person is their own unique individual with traits that
separate them from everyone else. This is what Americans like to think they live their lives by in
society, and in a nation full of immigrants, it would seem to be a truthful and meaningful
statement. But is it really how society works? Truth is America doesn't follow this motto very
well at all. Unfortunately Americans tend to divide up in groups and treat each group differently
and throughout history it has shown to be a nasty part of being an American. While we divide in
groups we also generalize others within the other groups as if they were all the same person. This
is not a new occurrence in the United States and in fact has been going on since the birth of our
country. It is a very important social issue that needs to be addressed in order to achieve a better
America to live in. Americans throughout history and in current day have the terrible habit of
generalization racial groups, discriminate against them and it has effected the lives of many
immigrants growing up in the U.S.
The American public love to generalize other racial groups throughout the country. This
can include harmless and harmful stereotyping of a race as a whole. Children growing up with
recently immigrated parents get the worse effect from generalizing. This is because the general
public sees how one immigrant family behaves and acts, and they assume that is how all families
after them are going to behave as well. The typical tendencies are to assume that because a

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family is recently immigrated that they are not as smart as the rest of the nation. This is what
Author Amy Tan goes through as an immigrant child growing up in the United States. She is in
fact well educated and is fortunate enough to speak good English. Unfortunately for her, her
mother has trouble with the English language and has trouble saying what she needed say. This
created hardships for Tan for she always had to deal with people thinking her mother was stupid
or in some way less than everyone else. Tan recalls moments like these from her childhood when
she states: When I was fifteen, she used to have me call people on the phone and pretend that I
was she (Tan 78). Tan had to do things like this in order for people to take her mom seriously.
People judged her mom and portrayed her as stupid because she did not speak perfect english
while if she were to speak Chinese, she would sound completely normal and no one would
question it. Even Tan looked down at her mother growing up; I believed her english to refelect
the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly, that her
thoughts were imperfect. (Tan 78). This is probably how most people looked at Tan's mother
and even how they look at minorities today when they hear a person speak with English as their
second language. Generalizing also made it hard for Tan to get into the profession she currently
has, an author. Further in her education people assumed her to do something that involved math
or science because she was Chinese. Being part of the Chinese race put her in the science and
math because that is what is to be believed as an excelling point for Asians. Tan addresses this
when she says, I enjoy disproving assumptions made about me (Tan 79). She states that she is
disproving assumptions, that is no one expects her to carry out an English major, they expect her
to have a math or even premed. The fact that she has to disprove assumptions is because people
were generalizing her and just assumed that she would not go into English because of her

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background.
The racial stereotypes throughout America have created and have always created
discrimination in our country. Only recently has discrimination gotten better, however this is not
to say that it is not there. It exists against all different kinds of race because it is easy to find at
least one type of flaw about a certain race and just blow it out of proportion. For years America
tended to focus their racial issues on African Americans. They were looked upon as less than
average just because some Europeans said so hundreds of years ago. Not that African American
discrimination is dead, but more recently in America is the discrimination of Muslim Americans.
Author, Porochista Khakpour recognizes this as a Muslim American. She believes the reason
from which all of the Muslim stereotyping came from was the events that took place from 9/11.
After that day there was an assumption that all Muslims are bad and that they are terrorists. As a
kid she brings in personal experiences by expressing, I knew my place. I was a freak
(Khakpour 526). As a kid she would feel the discrimination everywhere, including school plays
where she would only receive the roll as the villain when she would in fact be trying out for the
hero. This is because her teachers and peers viewed her as the villain due to her race and
background. She took issue with that, and believes that this can change by; raising awareness,
perhaps pursuing the idea that exposure in itself is a type of service (Khakpour 527). She
believes that the stereotype can be reversed, however it is in a way that just replaces one
stereotype with another, and is that really the goal? She wants to create a reality show that shows
the real life of the American Muslim so as to not lead people on to false stereotypes. This is a
good idea in theory but in reality just puts a new image inside the viewers heads. This will not
solve the problem because in America every Muslim family could choose to live their life

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anyway they please and a show will imply that they all live the same. This only keeps the
stereotypes alive, however improving the image of Muslims in America. I do not think people
mind a stereotype about their race if it is not all that bad, but stereotypes are still wrong and need
to be eliminated from being used in our society. If people would not judge off of race there
would be no need for meaningless T.V. shows to try and convince the viewer that there is nothing
wrong with a race.
The effects of stereotypes and discrimination in the U.S. has effected the lives of many
Americans growing up in a recently immigrated family. Authors Tan and Khakpour outline
personal experiences within their work and have first and experience on to how it has effected
them growing up and as adults. They can feel less than the typical white American based on how
they are treated and in reality they should be of equal status. The actions of others has created an
unfair disadvantage to recent immigrants in the United States, making life harder than it needs to
be. Finding a job could become more difficult if the employer is influenced by discrimination.
Just like Khakpour as a kid when picked last for a part in the school play. They may not be taken
seriously like Tan's mother growing up as a kid , has long realized the limitations on her
English (Tan 78). Her mother would not be taken seriously due to the way she speaks. It had a
negative influence on how she was treated. It also had a negative influence on Tan herself
because at points she became ashamed of her mom and did not want to be around her due to her
native tongue. In the case of Tan and Khakpour, they were able to notice what was happening
and stand up for what they believe needs to change. But what is to happen to the little kid of
recently immigrated parents who does not know how to take a stand? Does he live his life being
lesser than everyone around him? Without change in how America views minorities kids all over

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will be negatively affected by how they are treated growing up. The kids growing up may start to
feel as Khakpour puts it, that America was a pretty O.K. place for freakdom. (Khakpour 526).
What she means by this is that growing up she felt like a freak when she was supposed to be
feeling free. The origions of where she comes from changed the whole American experience to
living in freedom, to feeling trapped and alone for being different.
America is made up of immigrants so it would make sense that we would be the one
nation that is the most understanding of other cultures and their customs. Unfortunately this is
not the case due to racial stereotypes and discrimination. America has left the mass majority of
recently immigrated families feeling less than average almost as if they were freaks to the society
in which they also live in. They move here for a better life, but in return getting hated on and
discriminated for wanting something better. This may be because putting down someone could
make another person feel happy and accustomed with their own life. Knowing that someone else
is worse off can cause people to grateful they are not in their shoes. This causes America to
generalize racial groups, discriminate against them and affect the lives of many immigrants
growing up in the U.S. The only way to stop what is currently going on in how theses people are
treated is to not change how minorities are viewed but to change the mindset of how to view
people. If people would looks at others with the same mindset and not jump to conclusions there
would be no issues. All people were created equal in America and it is about time that we
actually showed it.

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Works Cited
Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." Across Cultures. Eds. Sheena Gillespie and Robert Singleton.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 26-31
Khakpour, Porochista. "Reality TV Goes Where Football Meets the Hijab."New York Times 11
Nov. 2011: n. pag. Print.

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