The supposedly more upwardly mobile

While reading Arlene Davila's book one of the things that she briefly mentions, and that I was curious to hear more about is the stereotype of the upwardly mobile Cuban. I had never heard of this stereotype before I guess I am wondering what are its origins. As we all know stereotypes are often derived from truth that represents a few individuals. So when my friend was interviewed she mentioned that she thought there were differences among Latino groups in terms of who is more upwardly mobile and more motivated to succeed. The only reason that comes to mind from such opinions is what Davila mentions when the U.S. first began to have higher amounts of immigrants from Cuba, they were mainly middle-class citizens and were used to such status. Perhaps in this sense they may not have been much different from the U.S middle-class and this facilitated their integration into U.S. society. Needless to say that the key to success here in the U.S. is assimilation. Another reason that also has to do with assimilation is that approximately 81 percent of Cubans residing withing the United States identify themselves as white. I am not arguing against this because there are certainly a large number of Latinos that identify as white and technically there are Latinos who come from white European backgrounds or something similar. But this mostly likely plays a large role in their assimilation.

M&M's Commercial

When thinking back on this commercial I do think that there are certain aspects that can be considered cultural more than they are stereotypical. Most likely this commercial would have been produced by the Mars Company in Mexico and what to them is seen as culture we may interpret as stereotypes. A part of me knew that the image of Mexico that was represented was more than just the stereotypical Mexico, but for some reason I felt compelled to view it as a representation of stereotypes. As a society we have always been lectured that stereotypes are not true and that they do not represent a true population of people, but at the same time there is also a culture that people share that makes them different from other groups and it is this living in difference and different cultures that creates distinctions among people. There are certain traits that become part of a culture and at times may be considered stereotypes. For example the pinata, the boat ride, and the serenade are all things that are part of the culture, they are actions and something that people that visit Mexico hope to experience. They want to experience a new culture and these are all aspects that form part of this culture, and therefore they are not so much stereotypes as much as they are aspects and form part of the culture. For us when we watch these videos I think that we are so conditioned to reject anything that might be seen as remotely stereotypical and immediately dismiss it as just another stereotype, but in this case it is more of an issue in representing culture.