Now that we have finished Unit 2, I want to reflect back on it.
Learning about the Cuban Exodus was really interesting to me. I remember hearing about Cubans crossing through the waters to try and get to the U.S. but I never understood why. The four waves as a summary seemed a little simple at first because we had only covered the main points of it. After the lecture through the readings and researching online out of curiosity, I thought about it more in depth and how overwhelming it must have been for both the Cubans and people in the U.S. at the time...
Also last week on Thursday I went to a play in East Hall about a Cuban who wanted to come up to the U.S. and become famous as a rapper in New York. He told his story with a Cuban-American from California he met along the way in a bilingual-rap-comedy show. I know it seems like a contrast to the Cuban Exodus, but I found it very interesting that this man, Julio, was really struggling in Cuba like many other Cubans during the exodus - and that Cubans are doing everything they can to make a better life for themselves in the U.S. I think the relation between the two is very similar, and I found it extremely interesting especially since we had just finished Unit 2.
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I also went to Representa! and found it interesting to see the situation from a Cuban's perspective. It opened my eyes to the struggles they had because of discrimination from the U.S. as well as from their own people. An example of that was when Julio was harassed by a police man; He was accused of being a hustler selling drugs. Julio was talking to a foreigner and was automatically assumed to be a criminal. With people criticizing them everywhere they go, Cubans have a hard time breaking from their position in society. I feel like they are trying to find a better life any way they can yet encounter so many obstacles from society that make it that much harder.
I really liked Mrs. Silvia Pedraza's lecture. I was going to take her class this semester, but dropped it because I wanted to take another class instead. I think she is a great lecturer and all the information she presented was very interesting. My most interesting part was when she spoke about the wet foot/ dry foot. I don't understand why they did not do that for mexicans. Maybe I'm just being biased but, I still don't understand why they never passed a law like this one for Mexicans. Maybe one day...
A close family friend of mine is Mexican, and her dad recently encountered a situation like that of Julio and the policeman from Representa. He is an American citizen, but the harassment aspect made me stop and think about this criminal stereotype that has developed on the Latino image. It really makes me sad that just because Latinos have a certain phenotype, some White Americans still to this day resort to this stereotype.
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