As societies grew and spread, race has been a major issue.  The acronym W.A.S.P. was created, where the first letter stands for white. On the opposite end of the spectrum were people of color who were projected as slaves.  However, as progress ensued, these ethnic misinterpretations were slowly broken down.

In today’s culture, race still plays some sort of role in everyday life.  Immigrants leave their country for better lives and come to America, but instead of diversifying the people in their environment they end up in locations where people of the same nationality reside.  This is understandable because people feel more comfortable with people of their race; however, this fear creates unseen barriers in cities.  For example, there are “white, Chinese, and brown” parts of Queens and that is how the majority of residents define their area.  I’ve heard stories of people walking into the “white” part of Queens and being stared at weirdly because it was “obvious” they didn’t belong.

The barriers we indirectly create have a lot to do with stereotypes that still exist.  Stereotypes have some truth to them sometimes, but as a generalization of a specific group is wrong.  Some people don’t realize the seriousness of stereotypes because a lot of them are created in environments where we are comfortable like around friends and family.  Even stereotypes that are thought of as good like “Brazilians are the most beautiful people on earth” can create standards that every person is judged by because of a few people.  In this way, stereotypes have created a misrepresentation of people.  People are judged by their ethnicity rather than their individuality.

Even though there is cultural misinterpretation, people today are trying to fix this.  Many people have friends that are of different races and backgrounds, which give them a broader idea of what different races are like.  In doing so, they develop a sense of understanding towards other people’s races.  For example, a lot of kids with nannies have seen me playing cricket and are able to identify the sport.  However, to people that are ignorant, cricket is regarded as a reason to make fun of a certain group of people.  The main reason certain people are oblivious to the cultures of other people is because they have not learned about them or refuse to.  For this reason, I believe the only way to fight misrepresentation of groups and individuals is to grant everyone exposure to different cultures.