Category Archives: Class Pages

Opportunist Beauty in Japan

Posted on by
Miss Universe Japan 2007 wins Miss Universe 20...

Miss Universe Japan 2007 wins Miss Universe 2007 crown. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Mitsumi Yamamoto

Every year a number of Japanese students in my university decide to participate in a study abroad program (mainly to the US, Canada, and Australia). They usually start to prepare for the coming life in foreign countries by packing stuff or setting up their goals during spring semester in Japan. It was such a time when I often saw the female students dying their hair black again, although they used to have their hair dyed bright colors such as blonde and brown. I asked some of my friends how come they would do so and they answered, “Obviously that is because black hair represents Asian beauty.” Meanwhile within Japan, there is a huge boom about biracial people referred to as “hafu”, especially referring to people of half-Caucasian and half-Japanese (one parent being Japanese and one parent being of Caucasian heritage) (Okamura, 2009). Recently you can see hafu models and celebrities a lot on TV and in magazines, and many Japanese women try to achieve a western-looking face due to their adoration for hafu’s appearance.

Those two standards of beauty that Japanese women have, “Asian beauty” and “Western beauty,” seem to be the opposites of each other. However both standards exist simultaneously as the dominant viewpoints when thinking about what is beauty for Japanese women. Why?

This phenomenon can be explained with a case of African American women competing in the Miss Bronze or black beauty contests during the 1960s and 1970s, when the Civil Rights Movement flourished against discrimination towards black people. Maxine Leeds Craig, a professor of Women’s Studies at the University of California-Davis, pointed out that  at that time black women in the Miss Bronze pageant would realize views of themselves depending on how whites saw blacks, but at the same time this helped them to see the structure of racism (Glenn, 2009). Therefore in order to accept and reject this hierarchy, contestants who had dark skin tone were crowned as winners of Miss Bronze since the 1960s, rather than those with light skin tone, who were considered as the closest color to whiteness. The black beauty came to be used as a demonstration of the value of black people.

Related to this case, what about the pageant of Miss Universe Japan? In spite of the domestic hafu boom, almost all participants of this contest attempt to show their beauty as Asian with typical images of Asian women (e.g., long black hair, slit eyes) (Miss Universe Japan). The same thing can be said of women who stay in foreign countries outside of Japan. Even if the women used to prefer western-looking (e.g., bright colored hair and round eyes) inside of Japan, they somehow start to focus on “Asian beauty,” showing their Asian features to foreigners.

Hence this coexistence of the seemingly opposite standards of beauty and switch between them depending on the situation look similar to the case of African American women. It seems that Japanese women, as representatives of Asian women, would think of themselves as inferior to whites in racial hierarchy and this consciousness would help accepting and rejecting this hierarchy. Therefore Japanese women who have chances to live in an environment filled with Westerners try to behave as one a representative of Asian beauty, although once they are in Japan, they still tend to have the feeling of inferiority toward white people with an ideal to Western-beauty.

References

Okamura, H. (2009). ハーフブームと『ハーフ顔』? [hafu boom and hafu face?]. Retrieved from http://www.kreuzungsstelle.com/column5_10.html

Miss Universe Japan. Miss Universe Japan Official site. Retrieved from http://www.missuniversejapan.com/

Glenn, E. N. (Ed.). (2009). Shades of Difference: why skin color matters. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Related articles

American Mythology and Racism

Posted on by
One in a series of posters attacking Radical R...

One in a series of posters attacking Radical Republicans on the issue of black suffrage, issued during the Pennsylvania gubernatorial election of 1866. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Deanne Walters

Nations are imagined communities, with in an imagined community there are often myths that do not always match up with the reality of what that imagined community is like. The example that will be explored for this blog post is America and race. The myth that America presents is that it is multiethnic society where all races are equal. Yet this is far from true. The history of racism is clear throughout American history and this continues to modern day. Racism has created negative stereotypes of people of color and especially African American people. What do the creations about the imagined community of America show about how America sees itself?

Language, especially slang, can show how Americans think of the races. A kind of covert racism is associating the colors white and black with good and evil. For example, seeing something as black and white is seeing something as all bad or all good. Covert racism can extend to the description of people. Fair when used as complement again reinforces the connection between light skin and beauty. Language can also be used in an obvious form of racism using words like the negro or slant-eyes. This reduces people to a physical characteristic taking away their humanity. They have been used as slurs against enemies, as seen during World War II and the Vietnam War for the slurs against Asians. These words are also used against Americans who have Asia or African ancestry. In that way while America would like to be seen as multiethnic and equal nation, however when we look at its language and slang we can see it still clearly has racism.

What could be a better example of what America stands for than Miss America? For 2014, there was the first Indian-American crowned. There was also a huge backlash on social media saying that she was not “American” enough and instead holding up Miss Kansas (who has blond hair and white skin) as what a true American should be. While this is only one example, this idea runs much deeper in media. When looking at media that is about a group within America, the majority of actors are white. Only 4 percent of Oscars have gone to African Americans and only 14 percent of characters in television and film are African American. If America was a multiethnic and equal community, why is the nation’s diversity not repressed in film? There is still racial bias in American media and that bias extends over all of American society.

The final area is the idea of white as a default person. When talking about other races in America it often said African Americans or Asian Americans, but that contributes to the idea that then when you say American they are white. By thinking that white is the starting point it means that they are the people who get represented most in television and film. This is another bias that shows the racism in American society.

Apart from all these examples the negative stereotypes of people of color are common in the American society and they still affect people of color. The myth that America tries to promote of being multiethnic society and an equal society it is just that, a myth. America does have people from many ethnicities and races, however they are not equal. Racism is still major problem that needs to be addressed.

References:

Goodykoontz, B. (2012, February 24). Despite oscar notice, black actors still hit limits in film. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/movieawards/oscars/story/2012-02-24/race-in-hollywood/53238028/1 

Hafiz, Y. (2013, September 16). Nina davuluri’s miss america 2014 win prompts twitter backlash against indians, muslims. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/nina-davuluri-miss-america-religion_n_3934428.html 

Moore, R. B. (2006). Racism in the english language. In O’Brien, J. A. (Ed.), The production of reality: Essays and readings on social interaction (pp. 119–126). London, UK: Saga Publications, Ltd.

Richardson, K. (2013, April 25). How can white americans be free?. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2013/04/25/how_can_white_americans_be_free/ 

Related articles

Media and Image: The Influence of Biased Images of Whites and Blacks on TV

Posted on by

by Yukako Ikezoe

Whenever we watch TV, don’t you feel any biased images or pictures are always produced to the audience? Personally, I do. Think about the images you have in your mind when you think of some American dramas or movies. What kind of roles you guys think black people represent mostly? What about roles of white people?

When we think of roles of black people in movies or TV dramas, it is easy for us to picture roles of black people which tend to give audience negative images or not really good images as white characters have. The “Magical Negro,” for instance, is one of the most remarkable characters mostly played by African American men. Those characters are always helping white characters to let them have better lives without considering about their own lives but for white characters. There is also the tendency that black people are regarded as the very actors for playing criminals as we often see them breaking laws such as drug dealers in movies and TV dramas. On the other hand, characters with good images such as a hero, popular students at schools tend to be played by white actors.

When talking about roles of white women, the show “Gossip Girls”, one of the great hits among American teen shows and continuously won many Teen Choice Awards from 2008 to 2010, is also a clear example. All the main characters are white, and white women in the drama are always having fun with guys, fashion, and make-up (some-girls.com, 2011). White girls on screen always make us feel jealous or desire to look like them as we see many articles or tutorials about how to look like them taken up by magazines and blogs on website. Women, especially teen girls, are really sensitive to that kind of information simply because whites seem like they most likely play gorgeous characters on TV and are regarded as role models or as good looking women. The image of white females on TV as roll models of being beautiful women, are repeatedly produced by TV to the audience so much that it is widely prevalent among other races including African American women.

Watching TV does play an important role for African American people, as the data complied by EURweb in 2010 shows that the average of African Americans watching TV was 7 hours and 12 minutes, more than the US average of 5 hours. It also shows Blacks are spending time on TV much longer than other races and its tendency is seen remarkably from the age of 5 up to teen. Based on the fact, TV is obviously one of the most important parts of their daily lives (Burton, 2011).

Hence, as Verna M. Keith says in her chapter “A Colorstruck World” of the book Shades of difference: why skin color matters, whites do not really see shades of difference in black skin, but blacks make a lot of distinctions. The strong desire to have lighter skin for Black women is also to come from the influence from Media. Whites distinguish only between Black and White because they do not have to care about their skin tones. It is easier for them to have similar looks as white women characters in dramas comparing to Black women or other races like Asians. In fact, it is hard for me to have a look like Whites who have completely different looks including different phenotypic characteristics. We do not really have to try to look like them, yet many women think they have to do so to look like whites, beautiful women. The majority of women do still desire to have lighter skins like Whites, which is because of the images and beauty standards of “Whites are beautiful” constantly produced and taught by media on which we casually spend time in our daily lives.

References

Burton, N. (2011). Nielesen study: Blacks watch more tv than any other groups. Retrieved from http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2011/04/nielsen_study_african_americans_watch_more_television_than_any_other_group.html

some-girls.com.(2011). Success of gossip girl. Retrieved from http://www.some-girls.com/success-gossip-girl-success.html

Glenn, Evelyn Nakano (Ed.). (2009). Shades of difference: why skin color matters. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Structured Values, Inescapable Privileges

Posted on by

by Oscar Manzano

Despite social demand for equality and a society free from racism, prejudice and discrimination, it should come as no surprise that such things remain prevalent. Recently the topic of preference for lighter skin has been bothering me, irritating me, like a metallic screech in my brain that echoes within my skull. Why? Because I, like many others, cannot fathom how such overt discrimination over light skin and the privileges associated with it can still persist. Yet, even in a hypothetical world where preference for lighter skin is crumbled and demolished from our minds and society, the outcome, a society where we are judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character, as Martin Luther King Jr might have wanted, would not seem very different from the world of color. I think at this point my professor would advise me to give an example and go into detail in order to prove my position (and get a good grade).

Let us take an example of skin color and privilege, such as what is considered beautiful in society. In terms of physical beauty for women, many believe that those with lighter skin or with some type of European-associated characteristics, such as blue eyes, are considered to be attractive and beautiful. Women who have acquired these desired attributes can then trade them to find a romantic partner who has other desirable social resources, such as income. Privilege for ‘beautiful’ women may also extend to higher chances of employment. The point I wish to highlight with this example is that as a society we give certain features or social resources certain value that we deem precious and hand out privileges to those individuals who have attained that of value.

When members of society demand the end of discrimination based on race or color and the end of privileges associated with color or race, they demand that society should instead look towards other criteria to judge and handout rewards, for example education or skill. What we are really doing now is simply rearranging the worth and values of attributes or characteristics. We are not changing the framework of how society works we are simply using a new measuring tool. It is the same problem but with a different mask. This fact is what tears me apart. Making the switch from judging based on color to one based on ‘higher’ more moral qualifications does not eliminate discrimination or inequality at all. If we put a higher value on being short and round and see it as more beautiful, don’t we now discriminate against tall and thin people? Or how about handing out employment based on the most qualified and hardworking people? Aren`t we now imposing our definitions of qualified and hardworking to other people, who may or may not hold the same views? I believe that my frustration for all this stems from the fact that we as a society see the problems but don’t want to change the structure. Is there a way to make things fair without discrimination in some other way?

Look Good, and Get a Job?

Posted on by

by Kyungyeon Chung

One thing I have personally noticed recently while attempting to write curriculum vitae both in English and Japanese is the requirement of attaching a photo on Japanese CV. It was actually a refreshing shock for me that photos – like the type you would attach for passport application – were not a requirement at all when writing a CV in English. I think this may have originated from differences in cultural practice whereby in Japan, more emphasis is put on how ‘appropriate’ and ‘decent’ you should appear. This idea that appearance is quite a big matter in such formal processes as recruitment procedure, however, can result in much more pervasive outcome than simply putting a little more effort in ironing your suits. In South Korea, the ultra-competitive job market has encouraged so many young college graduates, females in particular, to go under knife of cosmetic surgeons.

How has the competitive job race related to the increasing popularity of, and almost-blindsided trend following cosmetic surgery? With much vulnerable and unpredictable economy conditions, it has been more and more widely believed that good looks give you an edge in securing jobs or marriage. According to an article in one mainstream English-language newspaper in Korea, over a quarter of college students are said to consider cosmetic surgery for this reason, according to a recent survey by an online career portal site (Kwaak, 2013). In one survey of over 600 job-seekers, conducted by one clinic reported that around half of the job seekers are getting surgery exclusively to get a job, including non-operational procedures such as Botox or filler injection (The Chosun Ilbo, 2009).

Unfortunately for recent graduates, it is increasingly becoming a very common conception that such procedures are now being perceived as “investment” before entering a competitive race to market yourself better, for your own sake. Amongst the tide of young women receiving the procedure, those unable to afford, those with physical disabilities or with a darker skin are excluded further (Kwaak, 2013). Many of cosmetic surgeries’ ultimate aim is to give the patients certain types of features that are distinctively considered ‘beautiful’ by the set ideal of beauty as perceived in South Korean society today. The definition of ‘beauty’ here is closer to a Caucasian face. One Korean cosmetic surgeon, in a comment on what has been the most demanded facial ‘type’ by patients, said that “(t)hey are seeking to have westernized face, high profile nose, slender nice cheekbone, and mandible bone” (Lah, 2011).

In the chapter “A Colorstruck World” in Shades of Differences, Verna M. Kieth argues that complexion operates as a form of social capital that can be converted to human capital assets (p. 29). Just as light-colored skin is more preferred than darker skin in many aspects in the American society, in case of South Korea, the most-frequent judging standard by which preferences are given is the Westernized standard of beauty. Having phenotypes and skin tone that fit this standard, even by going under knife, are ‘rewarded’ with more stable job opportunities. Whether this hypothesis is true or not will be very difficult to attest – yet it will act like a self-fulfilling prophecy, an ‘assumed truth’ as long as people believe in it.

References

Kieth, V. M. (2009). A Colorstruck World. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of Difference (pp. 25–39). California: Stanford University Press.

Kwaak, J. S. (2013, June 5). Making a case for cosmetic surgery. Korea Real Time. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/06/05/making-a-case-for-cosmetic-surgery/

Lah, K. (2011, May 24). Plastic surgery boom as Asians seek ‘western’ look. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/19/korea.beauty/

The Chosun Ilbo. (2009, November 30). More Koreans pin job hopes on plastic surgery. The Chosun Ilbo. Retrived from http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/11/30/2009113000646.html

Skin Tone and Achievement in Education

Posted on by

by Sten Alvarsson

There is a clear relationship between skin tone and levels of achievement in education. Lighter skin tones achieve higher levels of education and employment on both a personal and family basis (Keith, 2009). Advantages and disadvantages of skin tone relative to a particular group or individual within a society are based on perceived ideas of beauty and status and their associated connotations. The advantages of having lighter skin can be passed down through family networks, as children receive the privileges of the structure they are born into.

Educational advantages of a lighter skin tone relative to others in their environment can be present from an early stage. Teachers can judge students with greater attractiveness to also have greater levels of intelligence (Keith, 2009). Since skin tone often plays an important role in perceived attractiveness, teachers may have higher expectations, give out more encouragement and give higher marks, amongst other preferential treatment, to lighter skinned students resulting in superior academic performance.

Children are highly perceptive to these socialised messages regarding skin tones. When darker skin tones are devalued the affect can be equally as damaging as the extolment of lighter skin tones are advantageous (Elmore, 2009). Adolescents in particular have a heightened sense of self-consciousness in relation to their physical appearance and the socialised messages they receive in the classroom can have a great impact on their academic performance and opportunities for socio-economic mobility later in life.

Research shows that lighter skin tones are often linked to higher socio-economic status to the extent that, “Complexion operates as a form of social capital that can be converted to human capital assets” (Keith, 2009, p. 29). This is supported in research by Joni Hersch which shows that, “On average, being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education” in relation to employment earnings (as cited in Nair, 2010, p. 25). In fact, Keith (2009) highlights a direct relationship between lighter skin tones and increased levels of education. Such research has been questioned by academics like Gullickson (2004) who state that, “Colorism itself might still remain, but structural changes in larger race relations have reduced the advantage it previously gave to lighter skinned individuals” (p. 22). However, Keith (2009) argues that both media images and academic research do not show a decrease in the importance of skin complexion as a marker for achievement.

As has been demonstrated, skin tone is an important marker for achievement in education. Skin tone based social messages, behavioral norms and patterns of thought within the classroom are a powerful force in children’s development. Subsequently, skin tones also play a prominent role in later outcomes in areas such as mate selection, economic opportunities, occupational status and health conditions (Keith, 2009). Therefore, there needs to be a focus on education at a young age working towards combatting skin tone bias in order to lessen its prevalence with each new generation. Ultimately, we are all embodiments of living experiences and an end to skin tone bias would be an important step forward toward an existence without discrimination.

References

Elmore, T. G. (2009). Colorism in the classroom: An exploration of adolescents’ skin tone, skin tone preferences, perceptions of skin tone stigma and identity. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from UMI Dissertation Publishing. (3395695)

Gullickson, A. (2004). The significance of color declines: A re-analysis of skin tone differentials in post civil rights America. Retrieved from http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/~aarong/PAPERS/gullick_asa2003_skintone.pdf

Keith, V. M. (2009). A colorstruck world: Skin tone, achievement, and self-esteem among African American women. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters (pp. 25-39). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Nair, M. (2010). Social awareness in selected films. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Aveiro, Portugal.

Myth of Beauty: Facial Features and Skin

Posted on by

by Sheena Sasaki

In her book Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, Nancy Etcoff (1999) wrote that in many parts of the world, big eyes, high cheekbones, small chins, and full lips are features of beautiful woman, and each of these features combined represented youngness. I believe this is partly true. Cosmetics invented today helps women to have these facial characteristics to raise their self-esteems that they are beautiful. However, the trend of beautiful facial characteristics changes from place to place and time to time. For example, in old time Japan, ‘otafuku-gao’ was considered to be women’s beautiful face which consisted of the followings: round face, thin eyes, low nose, wide forehead, small lips, and very plump cheeks. Nonetheless, less people consider the face with such features to be beautiful in Japan today. There always exists certain trend of beautiful face.

Then, what about skin colors?

Whenever I step into a drugstore in Japan, my eyes always catch the word ‘美白 (bi-haku),’ which directly means ‘beautiful white,’ in cosmetic section for skin.  However, I do not find any word which represents ‘beautiful black.’ This means to me that the concept of beauty, at least in Japan, is naturally tied to whiteness of the skin. Referring back to old literature of Japan such as The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu from the 11th century, women with white skin are considered to be beautiful. Moreover, there exists a proverb in Japan which says, “White skin hides seven flaws.” Thus, beauty of white skin has been practiced for long period of time. This is not only limited to Japan. The world’s famous beautiful fairytale princess Snow White has skin which is as white as snow. Nancy Etcoff (1999) also writes that the beauty of white skin is commonly believed throughout the world and overcomes the beauty of facial features. This brings me to another question. Why is white skin considered to be beauty in the first place?

If it was the period when most of both men and women from the lower and middle class worked outside under the sun, white skin represented wealth.  Hence, it is not hard to predict that men were more attracted to white-skinned women who could spend their money and time on their physical appearance.  Yet, this prediction does not fully fall into the society today where increasing number of people work inside of the office buildings. Many people do not clearly know why they prefer to have whiter skin, or why white skin is beautiful. In this case, I believe “I don’t really know” is the best answer as people say. In this technologized society, media controls one’s sense of beauty and values. As a result, the cycle is created. Women follow similar conception of beauty because someone on the media said it is beautiful, more people follow after because everyone talks of the same beauty, and the media reflects upon and introduces the beauty concept believed by the audiences. The word ‘美白 (bi-haku),’ became too common in Japan to extent that almost no one bother to question the beauty of whiteness.

Reference

Etcoff, N. (1999), Survival of the prettiest: The science of beauty. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Names and things

Posted on by

by Janic Kühner

I grew up in a surrounding in which I was given much time that I could spend according to what came to my mind. Educators of mine, as part of this environment, exerted few pressure to make me learn since they mostly regarded my output as good enough. Different activities were interesting to me at different points. I started some, stopped others after having lost any drive to engage in them or picked up them up again when my interest came back. Today, most of these actives as such would not earn me an instant yaki-soba. However, I believe that there can be meaning and maybe also value in everything we do, even if it is hard to measure with the rulers we used to use in mathematics class.

People with physical appearances that some might easily point back to an origin from foreign countries were as present in my life as there where those people others would or could not tell apart. Reflecting, grouping people based on an idea of valid relations between physical appearances and who these people actually are, was not a trait that would become significant to govern how I behave. Today, so it is, I believe to not only know that establishing such relationships is in most cases imprecise and too generalising but also that I feel it.

Reading scholarly texts about discrimination that focus on skin colour or race pose me questions that stay unanswered. Why IS this person black if we are talking about the person’s skin colour? If we’d copy to a piece of paper various skin “colours”, would any of these “colours” actually ensemble black, yellow, white? Why do authors talk about, let’s say, “Veracruzanos”, “Asian Americans” or “Germans” as if they were single entities? What is a “lower class” and why does everybody wants to get out of it? Why is it valid to measure lives or the quality of live in occupation, income and “education”?

I wonder, are these questions unworthy of consideration?

Post scriptum:

Making sense of this post as a whole might not be easy. However, I was preparing it with consideration and I would enjoy to hear about any advised reaction.

Colorism in Latin America; Not about Race

Posted on by

by Oscar Manzano

If you are reading this blog about colorism and you already have prior knowledge on the subject, chances are that you don’t agree with the title of this piece. This may be because Latin America’s preference, or more specifically the preference in México and Brazil, to talk more freely about a person’s skin color as opposed to race may seem like a contradiction to you. Why? I suppose it is because many believe that skin color or other characteristics that we attach to race, in order to be able to identify and categorize people, are indicators of race. It is this idea that I believe is incorrect, which leads me to believe that when Mexicans or Brazilians talk about skin color they are not talking about race as an American might see it. In this context I believe that color talk in México and Brazil is not the equivalent of race talk in America.

My reasoning for questioning color talks being the same as race talks draws upon human history and humans themselves. Humans have always had a history of migration and settlement. This alone prevents us from applying skin color or other characteristics to a certain racial group. So, unless we believe that Whites with certain characteristics grew out of the ground in Europe, and Blacks in Africa and Browns in Latin America and they all remained stationary, then can one possibly make a correlation with race and physical characteristics. However this is not so, and when we hear Mexicans and Brazilians talking about skin colors so nonchalantly, we believe that they what they are really talking about is race.

So if Mexicans and Brazilians are not talking about race, then what are they talking about when they refer to skin color? I believe that when Mexicans and Brazilians refer to skin color, they are acknowledging the great diversity and mixture of physical characteristics that have been as a result of human migration. Not physical characteristics of race but characteristics of human diversity. In saying that color talk is not a talk about race does not mean that colorism is preferred or more desirable over race talks, or that it is immune to social and moral problems that race deals with. On the contrary, the problems that color ideology faces are similar to those that race ideology faces. But the problems are not similar because racism and colorism are the same thing; rather, the problems stem from the fact that we have been socially trained to see physical differences and categorize them under a racial stereotype, confusing color and race.

A second reason as to why racism and colorism share similar social problems is because both are the result of global inequality. This brings up the issues of colonization. Why were White European countries the ones able to colonize? It would be difficult to say that Europeans were able to be the colonizers simply because their skin was white or their race was a certain specific one. It goes beyond that, and the ‘why was Europe the colonizer’ question involves a multi-sided understanding to find the answer to. Possible reasons include the amount of wealth, resources or strength those countries had and as a result, once colonization was achieved, the aggressors implanted various forms of discrimination based on race and color. In this sense it is possible that racism or colorism didn’t create inequality but inequality created racism and colorism.

Mestizaje and the social gap

Posted on by

by Yuan Mingyang

Villarreal (2010) conducted research on social stratification by skin color in Mexico, and found that people with lighter skin usually have higher education than people with darker skin. Villarreal also found that people with lighter skin usually have occupations with better social status and higher salary. Navarrette (2012) also noticed that the jobs with higher salary are usually for people with lighter skin. The author suggested that people can see people with lighter skin “on television, in politics, and in academia”, while people with darker skin are often found “on construction sites, in police forces and in restaurant kitchens” (para. 11).

What’s more, the ideology of mestizaje in Veracruz, which makes people try their best to “clean the race” and lighten their skin color (Sue, 2009), may further enlarge the gap of education, financial power and social status between people with lighter skin and people with darker skin in Mexico. According to Sue, many people in Veracruz prefer lighter skin and European body features, even for those who are dating people with darker skin. Therefore, a large proportion of people in Veracruz would choose people with lighter skin as their partners. The author also mentioned that it is not acceptable for everyone to marry someone with lighter skin. The author claimed that many partners of men with darker skin who are rich or have high social status usually have lighter skin.

Since Villarreal (2010) argued that there is a stratification of skin color in Mexico, it is a reasonable conclusion that the number of poor people with darker skin is larger than the number of wealthy people with darker skin. Therefore, the descendants of this relatively small proportion will leave other people with darker skin behind, who are expected to be poor, and become people with lighter skin. As a result, the financial gap between those who have lighter skin and those who have darker skin will be enlarged. The situation in Mexico is not like that in the US where White people tend to get better jobs.

In Mexico, two trends of force enlarge the gap. People with lighter skin can get better jobs in Mexico, which means that they are wealthier. In the same time, the skin color of wealthy people is getting lighter and lighter. The ideology of mestizaje gives no chance to most of people with dark skin color in Veracruz, who are treated unequally while still believing there is only one Mexican, since there is race blindness in Mexico, according to Sue.

References

Navarrette, R. (2012, November 20th). In Mexico, racism hides in plain view. CNN. Retrievd from http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/20/opinion/navarrette-mexico-racism/

Sue, C. A. (2009). The dynamics of color: Mestizaje, racism, and blackness in Veracruz, Mexico. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of difference: Why skin color matters (pp. 114-128). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Villarreal, A. (2010). Stratification by skin color in contemporary Mexico. American Sociology Review, 75(5), 652-678.