11/13/2013 The struggle life of Rigoberto Gonzales.
Throughout history, stereotype has always been an influence to individuals. There are those who can and have been affected while there are those that cannot. Many people believe threat doesn’t exist in our daily life, but many of the research such as Steele do. In the memoir Butterfly boy: memories of a Chicago Mariposa, author Roberto Gonzalez tells a story of how Gonzalez grew up in a poor family. He moved back and forth between Mexico and California, because his mother side of the family doesn’t accept his father since he’s a drunk. Both side of his families dropped out of High school and never attended college. Gonzalez uses that as a motivation to finish his education because he doesn’t want to end up farming for the rest of his life. Sadly, he allows other people to bully him, which includes his lover, but eventually learns that it wasn’t okay. During his trip with his father back to Zacapa; Mexico, Gonzalez realizes that everyone is a just human being where they inevitably make mistakes from time to time. He then master courage to leave his family and lover and moves on with his life.
Being homosexual is already hard to deal with, but a combination of being homosexual and Latino only makes it worse. There’s bunch of stereotype threats going on around especially toward Latinos. Latinos are poor and unsuccessful in life. This tied into Steele’s author of Drive, theory of stereotyped threats. A stereotype threat is when an individual is aware of the stereotype and fail to succeed because he/she is too nervous or aware and self-conscious of other people opinions. Gonzalez had to deal with being gay and Latino especially when his culture wasn’t accepting of his characteristics. Even though the stereotypes were bringing him down Gonzales was still able to succeed and was able to go to college. Although Gonzales grew a lot of his own, he was still affected Steele’s theory when he was embarrassed of his culture. Steele’s theory states that most people are affected by the stereotype threat; they tend to feel afraid to express themselves. Gonzales is always self-conscience of his look because he’s afraid people are going to judge him base on the Latino stereotyped. He tries to go against the stereotype threat by hiding his own culture. Fortunately, Gonzales growth wasn’t fully affected by Steele’s theory because he learned to accept himself. However, he was still affected by Steele's theory because he was still embarrassed. Most people are embarrassed to embrace their ethnicity because of the stereotype that society had implemented in them. Ignorance by individuals is what contributes to this theory. Rather than taking the time to learn and accept someone's personality, we often automatically judge someone with stereotypes implemented into their race based on mistakes they've made or simple stupid thoughts simple-minded people come up with. Individuals who accept their self tend to be happier with their life. The only person responsible for their own happiness is themselves. We have fooled ourselves that we need to be accepted by society in order to feel happy. Rigoberto accepted himself as a homosexual, as he went around sleeping with different men. One of the men that slept with Gonzales is Gerardo. Gerardo was struggling to pass the class; therefore he cheated off Gonzales in order to pass. Eventually Gerardo asks Gonzales to tutor him. As Gonzales was tutoring Gerardo, he lean a kiss to Gonzales, which eventually led to something deeper. Most people who are afraid to express themselves as a homosexual would deny their homosexuality and push people away. Gonzales didn’t push Gerardo away, but instead accepted him. Another man that Gonzales messes around was with his neighbor. Gonzales was caught by his aunt doing intimate thing with his neighbor. He didn’t run away because Gonzales was caught already. He doesn’t express his gay side in front of women,