Have you ever felt discriminated? Have you ever
discriminated someone?
Probably the answer of at least one of these
two questions is YES. Why is that? You would probably have heard about some
typical phrases related to stereotypes that discriminate people by the color of
the skin, religion, country, social orientation or economic status. For
example, in Europe Chilean people are recognized as thieves (“If you see a Chilean
stealing, let him it is his nature”), and even here in Chile, mostly in the
north, immigrants from Peru and Bolivia often are discriminated. There is also
social and economic discrimination. Within the fifth region there are some “areas”
that have like a status. For example, there’s a notion that poor people live in
Valparaíso and rich people live in Viña (and I’m from Valparaíso). Maybe
because of the old architecture and the historical features that Valparaíso
has, and Viña is mostly a modern city, and especially in summer you can see
many foreign tourists wanting to expend their holydays in Viña. It is more
common to see luxurious and expensive cars in Viña rather than Valparaíso.
Not all the Chileans are thieves, there is rich
people in Viña and there is poor people in Valparaíso, but it doesn’t make it an exclusive place to
certain kind of people where everyone have the same situation. It’s just an stereotype
and appearance thing.
Why do people tend to gather with others that
look, think and have similar conditions as us? Why do we look as a “weirdo” and
reject someone who looks different than us?
I think it is our job as future teachers to
change the minds of the future generations and open their minds to different
cultures and the diversity of people that live in this world because “when we turn off the lights we are all the
same”.
I’m from Valparaíso too and of course I’ve felt this distinction for being from Viña del Mar or Valparaíso. It is understandable that are different cities and probably they have their own culture, but in my opinion, making such as huge division and put people into categories according to their city is a big mistake, after all, we live in the same country, in the same region.
ReplyDeleteI also think that even when we always say to be against these differences and stereotypes, we don’t do a lot of things in order to change this way of thinking. And worst, I’m sure that people is responsible for making these stereotypes our reality, for example; continuing with Viña del Mar and Valparaíso. In Viña del Mar everything is more expensive because is a city for “wealthy people”, and there are people who are willing to pay for those thing just because of the location. So of course prices keep on rising and this make Viña a city for riches.
It's really a shame that for a few all the Chileans are considered thieves around the world, I think that is one of the reasons why people discriminate or reject others because they already have been discriminated or rejected for others. It is like a counterattack that people do." If they discriminate us, we have to discriminate others"... it's a very naive philosophy.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I'm from Valparaiso too :), and I'm completely agreed with the things you wrote. But in my case I always linked this "discrimination" between Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, to football, "Santiago Wanderers" from Valparaíso, and "Everton" from Viña del Mar. Although it's just a sport there are sometimes when things get really tough especially when they match each other.
Oh yeah ! I forgot the football rivalry, another fact that points to the same issue, it increase the "hate" between the cities, and I have to admit that i get really angry when someone who supports Everton annoy me when Santiago Wanderers loses a game jaja because I support that football club. Its like to play "which city is the best" and that's where we underestimate the others :/
DeleteI think empathy and respect for others have been lost in our society or maybe we were never able to reach the levels we should to stop disctiminate others.About the differences between viña and valparaíso, I am from Rancagua and the last year I lived in Valparaíso and this year I am living in viña and not all the people in there are poors and of course not all the persons in viña are riches, I think it's just a thing of generalization and creating stereotypes but if we change it from a value-based education, we could end with all of the problems we have now, with all of the murderers in order to kill people just because they're "different" we could stop with all of this ignorance, so it's up to us. future teachers.
ReplyDelete