Jack Lopez grew up in east Los Angeles where you became one of too things, a cholo or a surfer. At this time race wars were on the rise and there was a obvious hatred of the surfers by the cholos. If a cholo saw a surfer a fight was almost sure to ensue just for the fact that cholos did not like surfers. In fact this situation almost happened to Lopez as when he walked by a cholo in his surfer attire he was immediately judged and approached with the intent of a fight. However, as soon as Lopez mentioned he was Mexican the cholo backed down and the fight did not happen. Obviously race and stereotypes played a huge role in the reason many fights happened during this time and there are still examples of this today.
In my high school there were never any fights just because one kid was a different race or liked different things than another person; but it was very clear that stereotypes still existed all throughout high school. Of course there was the typical jock and nerd groups that formed almost immediately at the beginning of the school year and you could see the jocks making fun of the other kids just because they played a certain game or did something they though was "nerdy." However, there were also many different "cliques," that started up that in a way segregated the school into sections. If you liked sports you were in one group, and if you liked music you were in another group. Among all these groups the people within them often did not like people who were not in there particular group. Whether they made fun of other groups, or just plain ignored them it was clear that people were not becoming friends because of stereotypes.
As these stereotypes stopped high school friendships from happening, so did some of the same stereotypes stop a friendship on the streets of Los Angeles. In a different type of world maybe Lopez would have made friends with the man he walked by that day. But just because he was a cholo and Lopez was a surfer, an immediate hatred began and if it was not for Lopez's race a fight would have occurred. Unfortunately stereotypes like this occur all around the world today and people continue to judge people just by how they look, and unless something major changes within people its going to stay that way for a long time.
Thats my two cents for the day on stereotypes. Dejuah out.
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