Panethnicity

Over the years of its history, the United States has invented ways to categorize its citizens by race. This is evident, of course, in its creation of the Black and White race, which both rely heavily on color and appearance as the dominant characteristic. There has since been another major category of separation that was created: the Hispanics. Although Hispanics are not considered a pan-ethnic group and not a race, they are often given the choice to identify as either one of the United States' mainstream ones. In doing this, the Hispanic people are often forced to separate themselves along color lines and cultures. In spite of this separation, we still come across a common problem in the United States: ignorant grouping and stereotyping of the Hispanic population.

If one were to take several pieces of clay and combine them together, one would find that they look somewhat homogeneous. The newly formed piece of clay would appear to have unified properties all about itself. This can be said of the view that the United States holds toward its pan-ethnic groups. It is one of the recurring themes with any pan-ethnic group: irregardless of the vast differences among the group, they are lumped together into one seemingly homogeneous mixture. As an example, Hispanics are often seen as being the same or very similar across various ethnicities. It is widely known that the Spanish settled across vast areas of the Americas. The areas of South and Central America (including the Caribbean) are historically known to be the areas of strongest Spanish influence. This means countries as widely separated from each other as Argentina is from Mexico may share some common characteristics. Arguably, the most common characteristic is language and the second most common characteristic would be the way Hispanics might look. To one whom has their culture heavily rooted in the United States, it may be common place to mistake one Hispanic from another based on what they regard as common characteristics. As can be seen in the YouTube video by FailedActor entitled “My Very Own Stupid Sitcom: I'm Not A Mexican,” he sarcastically denies being a Mexican. This he claims is a result of all of the stereotypes, which he mentions throughout the video, that are thought to qualify him as Mexican. The United States' popular culture has widely accepted the stereotypes he mentions as being common Mexican stereotypes. Since most of the world is influenced by United States culture in some way, this has a far reaching effect; so much so that an author named Elaine M. Kim mentions in her journal article that “many Korean immigrants still refer to all Latinos as "Mexican."”(Kim, 1998, p. 3). This is highly ironic since Koreans (and peoples of the Orient) are often thought to look alike and hence thought to be alike. Kim, being of Asian descent herself, states that while growing up in Maryland during the 1950s “people continually joked about how "all Orientals look alike."” (Kim, 1998, p. 3). This type of thought process and stereotyping is still evident today among Americans in the United States. Thus, pan-ethnic groups, such as Asians and Hispanics, continue to be popularly categorized as a single homogeneous group.

In South Florida, the most dominate group of Hispanics happen to be of Cuban descent. Usually, assimilation of the United States' culture occurs as a part of the social conflict the Hispanics experience. In South Florida, however, just the opposite occurred. Cuban immigrants began to pour into South Florida by the thousands as Fidel Castro's regime would force the would be newcomers to flee Cuba. During the 1960s, a huge influx made it into Miami and began to solidify themselves in areas of society that would later give way to a better lifestyle than they would have experienced in Cuba. As more Cubans came, reverse acculturation began to take place as the once White American dominated South Florida would become a hub for Hispanics (especially Cubans). In the YouTube video by FailedActor entitled “My Very Own Stupid Sitcom: I'm Not A Mexican,” the actor reveals himself to really be a Cuban. As he also mentioned, he was being compared to and labeled a Mexican. Although these two groups have been collectively labeled “Hispanic,”