Race_and_Your_Community

Race and Your Community Aniushka Caraballo Reimondez Axia College of University Of Phoenix For those of you who do not know me, my name is Aniushka C. Reimondez, I was born in Lansing, Michigan, but I was raised in Caracas, Venezuela. I grow up in a very open minded society, were the color of your skin, or your country of origin those not represent who you are. I can be described as white with European heritage, a mix of Spanish, French and English. I was taught by my parents to see beyond the color of the skin, and to never judge a book by its cover. I moved to Miami 7 years ago, and I was surprised to see how quickly someone can be boxed into an ethnic group, suddenly I was no longer Venezuela, I was Latina. I also notice that the city was divided in different areas, in which different communities lived, worked, and socialized, and most of the times they did not leaved the invisible bounders that they had established. Little Haiti (a Haitian community), Little Havana (a Cuban community), are examples of this division. Within theses communities, live and business are conducted in another language, and traditions are kept among families, store sell products from their native countries. I even found a Venezuela colony in the City of El Doral, thanks to this I ask my mother to stop bringing me items from Venezuela, as I was able to get them here. During the pass seven years I have lived in different parts of the city, where most of the times I had neighbors from different countries of Central and South America, and thanks to this, is where I found myself boxing people up, depending on how they looked, how they talk, and even their religion. Currently I live in the city of North Miami Beach, this city as a very large and diverse population. I can found Haitian, Chines, Hispanics, as ethnic groups, that according to Schaefer (2006) are “groups set apart from others because of its national origin or distinctive cultural patterns”. I can also see Jewish and Muslims as Religious groups, which are people that are grouped together for their religious views, more than for their country of origin or physical characteristics. However Haitians are the predominate group in the area where I live. When I moved to this city I intermediately started to dive people, here are the Jews, here the chines. I thought that all this communities had to get along, as they all share a very limited space, however, this does not happen. People from the different groups do not mix, in the community center near my house I saw first had this. The Haitians had a Basketball coach, and the Hispanic another, an none of them spoke English. Children were unable to play with each other because they could not understand each other. And this happens with all the activities in the park, I have yet to see a true community event that involves the whole community. Stereotypes run very deep among people in this area, specially against the small Muslim community. Schaefer (2006) defines stereotype as an “unreliable, exaggerated generalizations about all members of a group that do not take individual differences into account.” I spoke with Juan Jose Sifuentes, the owner of a paint shop a few blocks of my house, and I ask his opinion regarding the Muslims community, I when to him because his store is located next to a very small Muslim mosque, so small, that is no more than a store front. Mr. Sifuentes answer was very negative, he refereed to them as “a bunch of terrorist” and that they should all be sent back to their country. He also said that since they are in there, is business as suffered, and that because of that he ask the landlord to “kick them out” however he did not succeed, he blamed the Muslims for his problems, this reminded me of the scapegoating theory, this theory is used when someone blames another person, or a group, for his/her problems, in an irrational matter . Along the main avenue of the city, all sort of businesses can be found, restaurants, grocery stores, toy stores, among many other. Most employees are Haitian, as most of the store are focus on the Haitian community, the reaming store, independently owned, not from big corporations, like McDonald, are run by members of the other groups found in this are. The Jewish bakery employs only Jewish girls, and close early un Friday and all Saturday. I like this bakery, and I go there a lot, and so far I have never seen a Haitian go inside the store. The same goes for all other ethnic stores, they employ people from their local community, and are frequented only by members of their own community. It is not common for someone outside their community to go to this stores. I have always like to go and try different thing, specially food, and this area has many different restaurants to choose from; however, every time I go to one of them I do not fell welcome as a costumer, I am always look at and treaded rudely, and that is with everyone that is different from them. For what I have seen on television, not all groups are represented equal, news covers mostly bad news in which black people are involved, achievements by the Hispanic community are portrayed as a triumph, as a big deal. I do not want to take credit, or merit to the achievement; however, the media always makes a show out of it, and that alone takes the merit out of the achievement. Regarding the leadership of this city there are some differences, the majority are white, same as me, and the rest are Haitian. However, among the whites representatives, 3 of them are Jewish, and I am catholic, the forth member, is an American lady. The city is a pool of nationalities and religions, there is no only one minority group, but many, therefore, whit such a small group of leaders it is difficult to represent all of their interests. In my opinion, the two groups that are represented the most among the leaders would be the Jewish, and the Haitian, the other groups have no active members in city hall, and no one looks after them. Thanks to the pluralism of groups in the are, police are more careful on how they handle any situation, specially if a black person is involve, however always someone is going to says that the person is innocent, and that the culprit is in jail because is black. In addition, the law enforcement seem not to be enough, especially when the city has one of the hight crime rate in the country. Most children attend together to the local schools; however, Jewish children attend to their own school, in which no one outside the Jewish faith is allow to go, this can be seen as a discrimination against people of other religions. Interaction among the different ethnic, and religious groups is something that I would like to see in this community, it is important for a better community that all its members can see eye to eye in a common ground. This could be possible if, for started, the activities in the community center where gear to unify the community, for example the sport clubs should include kids of all groups, and the couches should speak English to all of the children, in this case in would be easy for the children to understand among them, as they enjoy sports, and are able to learn from other children about each their cultures. This will allow the children to grow with a better understating of the world around them, and in the future they will be more rounded individuals, without prejudice tores other people and their cultures. By teach the children now, we are preparing a better future for all of us. References  City of North Miami Beach. (n.d). City of North Miami Beach. Retrieved from http://northmiamibeach.govoffice.com/index.asp'Type=B_DIR&SEC={DFE536FB- 4D32-48D8-9EF2-7F0E0812D116} Neighborhood Scout. (2001-2009). North Miami Beach. Retrieved from http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/fl/north-miami-beach/crime/ Schaefer, R, T. (2006). Racial and ethnic groups (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Sifuentes, J,J. Local Community Member (Personal communication, December 6, 2009)