Race:
The Division and Unity Among Latin Americans and Society
Just as culture is the soul of the peoples’, race is the prism
that divides and unites them. Race is a unique conceptual idea, in society,
that identifies individuals with others through similar interest and physical appearances.
In today’s changing world, it may be difficult to label different people as
being part of a race because of the process of transculturation that has been occurring.
Transculturation is the mixture of different races upon different regions of
the world. When taking said information into the Latin American world, one can
see that race plays an important role in the plethora of social dynamics throughout
its history: ranging from politics, education, and socially.
In the past, race was viewed by the elite members of the
Latin American society as a way to determine what social status certain
individuals had. To be more specific, the amount of influence that the European
culture had left Latin Americans was enough to have them label light skinned
Latinos as being the closest to being the riotous and most purest form of
being: Europeans are, for the most part, light in complexion when it comes to other
races and their complexions of skin. It was not until the neo-liberal period of
Latin America when transculturation had molded the Latin American culture into
one that reflects upon the nature of its people in order to determine a socially
acceptable individual according to his or her culture in Latin America: this is
not to say that racism, from dark colored Latinos to light skinned Latinos or
any other group in society, was extinct.
In today’s society, many Latinos, especially in the
United States, go on about their lives with the daily struggle of self-identity,
which leads to many other problems relating to their positions in the United
States society. In a website known as Racism.org, there is an article titled “Internalized
Oppression and Latinos”. In that article the author, Laura M. Padilla, talks about how Latinos don’t feel that they
fit in with today’s society due to the visible social spectrum of a black and
white world: many see two categories, those of being labeled “black” in society
and “white.” This very narrow view upon race, forces individuals, pertaining to
the Latino culture specifically, to exclude themselves from society and thus
rendering doubts upon their own self-identity and any other aspects of those
individuals that help define their status in society. In instances like these,
race can break up social groups due to the lack of participation on the behalf
of the individual that doesn’t see himself as part of the group. Race is not
only a concept that has assisted social groups in their decomposer but as well
as in its construction.
As previously discussed,
transculturation was able to place people on the same level of status due to
the equilibrium upon mixed race individuals: when placing transculturation in
the text of the neo-liberal stage of the Latin American World. In today’s
society transculturation may lead to something similar, but in the meantime the
embedment of different Latin American races has enriched the United States
culture with even more dynamic language, traditions, and social aspects. An
example of how the Latin American culture/race has enriched the U.S culture is
with its art like the type of painting presented by Frida Kahlo: as seen below.
Frida Kahlo was inspired by the lives lived in the United States and in the
Latin American World and brought colorful and symbolic images that inspired
future art work and style. Cite for image: www.frid-kahlo-foundation.org
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=frida+kahlo+paintings&view=detailv2&&&id=E056D64175BCF49A7ECEEC44556F226872BD1E19&selectedIndex=8&ccid=dg%2fKNAzr&simid=608031090338499224&thid=JN.7pCKdk0Sib3dUdohB5EWPA&ajaxhist=0
Recently, there has been an up rise in Latin American
recognition through the set of different organizations in schools such as the
one in the University of Indiana. The Indiana Latino Leadership Conference was
set up to acknowledge the involvement of Latin Americans in the University as
well as in its community. Further looking into their website one can find the
events that are set up in order to accomplish said goal. Organizations such as
these, aimed to the public eye will soon open up the prism of race and unlock
the potential in every race not just in the Latin American Community.
External Link to Websites used in Blog Post
Indiana Latino Leadership Conference:
http://www.indiana.edu/~iulec/events.html
www.frid-kahlo-foundation.org:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=frida+kahlo+paintings&view=detailv2&&&id=E056D64175BCF49A7ECEEC44556F226872BD1E19&selectedIndex=8&ccid=dg%2fKNAzr&simid=608031090338499224&thid=JN.7pCKdk0Sib3dUdohB5EWPA&ajaxhist=0
No comments:
Post a Comment