Bradford Nicholl
August 2, 2013
Multiculturalism Sparks Difficulties
California is a severely diverse state,
a truly multicultural region. Residents can enjoy food of various
cultures, be thrilled by different cultural-themed entertainment, and
share methods from each others backgrounds. However, one must be
warned that California often hides great tensions between these
cultures. Three forms of work will be examined throughout this essay
– a novel, a play, and a movie. The novel, American Son,
by Brian Ascalon Roley, follows two teenagers who attempt to find
their cultural identity in a multicultural land. The play,
“Bordertown”, by Culture Clash, shares multiple stories of unfair
treatment toward different cultural groups by others. The 2004 hit
movie, Crash,
directed by Paul Higgis, follows the experiences of discrimination
and stereotypes of various cultural groups that live in a common
society, and how their lives connect in that society. Through these
three works, the artists are demonstrating that in a multicultural
society, one is likely to face discrimination and stereotypes.
Within
the novel, play, and movie, we can see many cases of discrimination
and stereotyping enacted upon Hispanics in a multicultural society.
For example, in “Bordertown,” two Americans who came off as
Mexican
are incorrectly assumed to be
illegal
Mexican immigrants by a militia man. This militia man had stereotyped
the appearance of being Mexican to be affiliated with being an
illegal immigrant, in which these people are discriminated on by the
militia man. He believes the area, East San Diego County, is the
“gateway to the Great White North” (15) and nearly turns the men
over to Border Control, calling them “possible drug runners”
(12). These actions by the militia man toward the Mexican-looking
Americans demonstrate the tensions that may exist between cultural
groups in a multicultural society, especially near the
border,
where cultures
clash and
“there's
just too much violence” (47).
Another
example in the play of discrimination and stereotypes of Hispanics
occurs
when an American man and a Mexican woman are lying a bed. The
American man feels that he is superior to the Mexican lady, informing
her that he is “the best thing that's ever happened to you. You
need me. Your children need me” (42).
Speaking
to the audience, the man admits, “I am embarrassed of her. I'm
secretive. I take advantage of her. I cheat on her” (42). He is
telling how he thinks less of her due to her Mexican background,
justifying his actions with, “I
don't trust her or her children. They want too much from me. I can't
take my eyes off them for one second, her children of the serpent and
the eagle. Her children of the sun are sucking the tit of this
country dry and I feel cheated by that goddammit!” (43). The
American man refers to the negativity of their Mexican background,
referring to it by describing the Mexican flag which displays a
serpent and eagle as well as the large amount of hot, sunny weather
in the country. He is discriminating against her Mexican background,
believing that because she is Mexican, she and her kids are using him
because he is American and superior. We infer that he is affiliating
their background with illegal immigrants who steal jobs for lower
wages and do not pay taxes, and he feels they are trying to cheat
him. The discrimination of the American man toward the Mexican woman
demonstrates the experience that many Hispanics share in a
multicultural society.
The
movie, Crash,
also shows discrimination and stereotypes of Hispanics in a
multicultural society that occur frequently. A Hispanic locksmith is
rudely approached by a white woman, questioning how much longer he
will be to replace the locks on their doors. During this
confrontation, she takes notice of some minor tattoos on the young
man. Immediately, she informs her husband that she wants the locks
changed again in the morning, accusing the Hispanic locksmith of
being a gang member who is going to sell the key to their lock to
other criminals. Shouting very loud, the young man had overheard her
accusation, but respectfully turns over the key to the lock and
leaves the house. The white woman had stereotyped his Hispanic
background and the presence of a tattoo to be associated with gang
affiliation and ill intentions, in which the Hispanic locksmith was
visually disturbed. The respectable exit of the locksmith
suggests
that the white woman was wrong about her
accusations.
This scene in the movie represents the possible discriminating views
of cultures in a multicultural society and how those views can be
purely incorrect, stereotypical comments. Another example of
discrimination toward Hispanics by the same white woman is directed
toward the housekeeper. The white woman treats the housekeeper with
little respect, frequently complaining and snapping at her. Nagging
when gone only two hours and yelling for not having the dishes in the
cupboard, the housekeeper is not treated very well due to her
Hispanic background and the white woman's unwelcoming view of
Hispanics. This demonstrates the repeated cultural discrimination
toward Hispanics, including those services industry such as
locksmiths and housekeepers, in a multicultural society.
Middle Eastern people often find discrimination and stereotypes made
toward them by different cultural groups in response to the war and
killings that take place in that region of the world. Crash
exposes the bigotry toward Middle Easterners through the character of
a Persian man and his family, a wife and a grown daughter. The
Persian man experiences injustice when attempting to purchase a
handgun for protection in the store he owns with his family. After
hearing the Persian man speak in a foreign language, the white
gun-store employee orders him to leave the store and “take [his]
jihad somewhere else.” Jihad is a term used to describe a
duty of Muslims to fight against non-believers, a reason for many
killings in the Middle East. By saying this, the white gun-store
employee is essentially calling the Persian man a terrorist,
stereotyping his background and culture to be affiliated with
terrorists. He becomes very offended, experiencing injustice and
discrimination from stereotyping. In another instance, the Persian
man experiences prejudice after his store is broken after a failure
of the door to correctly close completely. The inside of the store
was pillaged and a message referring to the Persian family as “Arabs”
was written on the wall. The person who had wrote on the wall had
assumed that just because they were Middle Easter that they were
Arabs. This is similar to a Hispanic woman who is assumed to be
Mexican by her black partner, but in reality, she was part Puerto
Rican and part El Salvadoran. In both cases, the recipients of the
attacks take great offense and are effected by the prejudice aimed
toward them from these other cultures.
Discrimination
is often given toward
Asians
in a multicultural society, and this is represented through the
movie, Crash,
and the novel, American Son.
In Crash,
an Asian woman has her accent mocked by different people. After an
accident, she is teased about her pronunciation of the word “brake
light” as “blake light.” Later, she is degraded in a hospital
when a nurse questions whether she speaks English after yelling her
husband's name. The nurse assumes that just because the words she
pronounces sound Asian and she has an Asian accent, she questions her
ability to speak English. In both cases, the Asian woman is disturbed
by the stereotyping of the other culture groups, showing the
difficulty that Asians experience in a multicultural society. In
American Son,
the mother experiences stereotyping in that one of the children
refers to the mother as the maid of the house rather than the mother,
and people believe him. People stereotype, or affiliate, Asians with
maid jobs because they are seen as less masculine. As a result, the
mother is destroyed on the inside because her son is ashamed of her,
and furthermore, people are going with it. They
are
too blinded by the stereotype of an Asian as a maid
to
look past that and realize that she is the mother.
People
often assume that just because someone is white, they are immune to
discrimination and stereotypes in a multicultural society. Generally,
people assume that the white person is always the one to initiate
these prejudices. However, white people can often be the ones to
receive and experience discrimination. For example, in “Bordertown,”
a white lady, La Jolla Woman, enjoys volunteering in her diverse
community, where 23 different languages are spoken. Unfortunately,
these diverse cultural groups repeatedly tell La Jolla Woman to go
home when she attempts to help her community. She is told, “a white
woman of fifty six can't have anything to do or say about problems
that face a certain neighborhood”
(19).
We
can infer this to be because many people
view
whites as racists, in which these people are prejudice themselves,
quick to judge a white person of whether that person will judge. In
this case, the white person is experiencing the effect of
discrimination. In another part of the play, two American men near
the border are stereotyped by a drug trafficker to be members of the
Drug Enforcement Administration, the D.E.A. They are assumed to be
white based on their lighter skin color, and they are assumed to be
the authorities as it is a stereotype that the numbers in law
enforcement agencies are overwhelming white. The drug trafficker
stereotypes the American men as white D.E.A. agents, but is proven
wrong when they show they can speak Spanish
and
learns that they are Chicanos, people with a Mexican background
living in America. Following this change in how the drug trafficker
sees the two American men, viewing them as Mexicans, he asks if they
have drugs, or would like any. The words of the drug trafficker go
from, “Eres D.E.A. verdad? Vas a morir” to “Tienen drogas? Do
you have drugs...Do you want drugs?”(40). This demonstrates the
prejudice toward the American men, as when depicted to be white, they
were assumed to be D.E.A. agents, but when viewed as Mexican, they
are offered drugs. It should be noted that the two Americans were
almost killed as a result of being stereotyped to be authorities. The
drug trafficker had discriminated against the two American men,
treating them entirely different based on whether he believed they
were white or Mexican. This demonstrates the discrimination that
white people experience in a multicultural society, which is often
overlooked or not recognized by other cultural groups.
One
major form of injustice and discrimination presented in Crash
was
directed toward a white detective. An incident had occurred in which
the white detective had shot another black detective to death,
claiming that he had shot at him first. Prior to the incident, the
white detective had two suspicions of murder of black people on his
record, but he was cleared for both. The assistant to the district
attorney decides to choose the side of the dead black detective,
asking, “do you have any reason why we shouldn't hang [the white
detective] for this?” The assistant is attempting to try to the
white detective for murder; however, he did not pick this position
based on the evidence. The evidence suggested the black detective
had, indeed, initiated the conflict, showing that he was far from
home, had $300,000 in the car that he was driving whose owner had
mysteriously fled that morning, and was likely to be found with high
concentrations of drugs in his blood from the coroner's report. He
chose this stance of defending the black detective as a method to
avoid “feeding the flame,” in which he is referring to the
tensions between blacks and whites. The assistant does not want to
stir riots or disputes between blacks and whites, basically
attempting to keep the peace. He defends his position, rhetorically
asking, “What do you think those kids need? To make them believe,
to give them hope. Do you think they need another drug dealing cop or
do you think they need a fallen black hero.” The assistant is
suggesting that the outcome of the black detective as a hero will be
viewed better, and maintain the peace, than if the white detective
had acted in self defense against the black detective. As a result of
this injustice and discrimination toward whites in this multicultural
society, an innocent white man will potentially be accused of murder.
There
are many
occasions of discrimination, stereotyping,
and
injustice towards
blacks in a multicultural society within the movie, Crash.
The first major incidence is performed by a white police officer who
follows a black couple in their car. Even after being told by his
partner that he did not need to follow that car, the officer was
specifically targeting that couple due to their black skin color.
Eventually, the officer pulls their car over, sexually assaulting the
female of the couple by rubbing his hands all over her in a sexual
manner when frisking her. The white police officer had targeted their
car, discriminating them from all other cars on the road because of
their race. This couple's experience models a real issue in the
country in that blacks are often unjustly discriminated against, and
targeted by, law enforcement. Another major case of stereotyping
occurs in a studio where the husband from the same black couple that
was discriminated on by the white police officer is directing a film.
After successfully completing a scene of the film, the producer, who
is a white gentleman, has an objection about the scene. The white
producer tells the black director that he wants another take, but
this time, he wants the black character in the scene to “dumb
down.” The white producer feels that the black character came off
too “white,” or intelligent, stereotyping blacks as being less
intelligent, or “dumb.” As an order from the producer, the black
director had no choice but to film another take of the scene. Even
though the black character seemed intelligent, the white producer
wanted to emphasize the a sense of stupidity in blacks. One could
observe that the black director was disturbed by the matter. This
demonstrates the stereotyping and discrimination that blacks
frequently experience in a multicultural society.
Through
“Bordertown,” American Son,
and Crash,
we witness a pattern of discrimination, stereotyping, and injustice
in a multicultural society. These are experienced by all cultural
groups, and the act of performing these are not always realized by
the offender. Within these works, the
artists reveal that one will likely experience discrimination of some
form in a multicultural society. Those who are debating of
immigrating to California, or any region consisting of a
multicultural society, should consider the negative obstacles of such
discrimination presented in the essay as possible experiences they
may encounter.
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