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| One of the many proud Puerto Rican... |
When talking about the misconceptions of Puerto Rico, I felt very uncomfortable because in many cases we have to state things we do not like. A moment when I felt uncomfortable was when talking about the negative aspect people may have about the Puerto Rican women. There were characteristics presented as "demanding", "loud" and "hard to handle". In a way these words caught my attention because they might be seen as bad behaviors; still we all concluded they were true. It is hard for us to admit these kind of details that we might wish weren't true. As any culture there are positive and negative aspects of a group's behavior.
Being the one talking about your culture is one thing, but being taught about it gives another feeling. Hearing about how your culture might interact, creates an instant auto-evaluation about yourself. There are things we might not perceive unless they are told. We usually ignore what we might not like and there is the biggest issue and why we might not correct those things that give us a negative outside perspective. The criminality was a topic shared in presentations that gave me a sense of reality. I usually go out and do not realize that my island posses a lot of criminality.
On the other hand, there were a lot of positive comments that made me feel very proud of my culture. There is nothing that can take away the Puerto Rican in me. No culture is perfect, as well as nothing at all is. It is up to us to make ourselves known by the negative or by the positive characteristics we may have. The initial feeling of disappointment ended as the group concluded that we are a great culture and have many positive things that we should stand out more than the negative things people might know us for.
Being the one talking about your culture is one thing, but being taught about it gives another feeling. Hearing about how your culture might interact, creates an instant auto-evaluation about yourself. There are things we might not perceive unless they are told. We usually ignore what we might not like and there is the biggest issue and why we might not correct those things that give us a negative outside perspective. The criminality was a topic shared in presentations that gave me a sense of reality. I usually go out and do not realize that my island posses a lot of criminality.
On the other hand, there were a lot of positive comments that made me feel very proud of my culture. There is nothing that can take away the Puerto Rican in me. No culture is perfect, as well as nothing at all is. It is up to us to make ourselves known by the negative or by the positive characteristics we may have. The initial feeling of disappointment ended as the group concluded that we are a great culture and have many positive things that we should stand out more than the negative things people might know us for.
As I read this, what came to my mind was when one person of the audience as a fellow group presented, raised her voice to express her disapproval on what was being said.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult for some people to understand that sometimes what we present is not necessarily what we think and we might not necessarily be completely in favor of.
"it increases the tension as you are about to talk about your own culture" I don't really share this thought with you because I think that the more prepared and the more knowledge you have about the theme that you're going to present the less thesion you're going to feel during the presentation. Your culture is something that you have live with you entire life so you should be more than prepared to do it.
ReplyDeleteIt may be difficult at the beginning but its just a matter of time of taking a deep breath. Then having confidence and at the end leaving with the conquer, because when we present our goal is to conquer the audience's attention.
ReplyDelete