Self-stereoptype?

                            

    The story of “Desperate housewives” happed in a rich community that most of the residents are white. This short funny video is about a Mexican family which living in the white community when the parents are trying to enroll their girl to a private elementary school.  The school officer expressed that he is willing to admit their girl since he hopes the school can become more diversified. The little Mexican girl is confused by the “diversified” and ask her parents: “Am I Mexican?”, Her parents are so surprised that she doesn’t know she that she is a Mexican, then the girl said: “I think I am an American.”

    Later on the parent find out the reason their girl doesn’t know her race is because they are living in a white community, they argue about which schools they should send their girl to when they back home, the father thinks they can send her to a elementary school which is fill of Mexican children, so that their child can know what her race is, but the mother refused him and insist to send her girl to a private school which most of the students are white, because she don’t want her child to get along with “those children”.

    This short story reflect a general phenomena of rich immigrant families-not just limited to Mexican family that, they has a tendency to send their child to private school which most of the students are white, because they believe the child can get better education there. This phenomena shows the self-stereotype of immigrant families, on one side they against the stereotype from society regarding their race, on another side they are trying to reduce the racial characters on their children, so their culture identities can become more acceptable to the main stream society, for example, by enrolling their children to private school which most of the students are white. Many children from immigrant family only speck English and would more like to described themselves as American, and know little about the culture of the countries their parents come from.

    When the media is reporting racial stereotype in the society everyday, should the immigrants also exam themselves that, whether they are stereotyping themselves or not?