Diversity and Addressing Stereotypes

Today was the third day in the week where we discussed human rights and diversity in the U.S. During our pre-speaker session, we discussed stereotypes and how they can influence people’s lives. We played a game where we all got a character and we were supposed to figure out who stole a bag of money in a restaurant. After the game, we discussed how stereotypes played a role in choosing our suspects.

For our speaker session, Dr. Myriam Torres talked to us about Hispanics and Latinos in the U.S. She gave us a lot of statistics about different Hispanic groups, which really put a lot of things in perspective. A good example of this would be how many Hispanics there are in the U.S. In 2015, 18.1% of the U.S. population was Hispanic or Latino. This is a lot less than what most people would probably think based on the media, which is why it was really nice for us to hear the actual numbers.

Our post speaker session was given by Lilian Ortega, which was a really fun and lively session. We divided the group into two and every participant got a balloon with a piece of paper in it. We had to sit on the balloons so that they would pop, and form a sentence with the word written on the piece of paper. The goal of the competition was to be the first to write 11 sentences with the words written on the papers. All the words had been discussed during the speaker session, so it was a really fun way to summarize what we had learned that day.

All in all, it was a very fun and interesting day where we learned a lot about the history and struggles of the largest minority group in the U.S.

After the sessions, we prepared a program for our second service activity that week, which would be at the Boys and Girls Club. We put together a program with lots of different games and even an arts and crafts table, so that the kids could really enjoy their time and be as active and creative as possible. Our efforts proved to be successful that Friday, when the children at the Boys and Girls Club were so excited and happy to play our games.