According to Vasquez-Tokos and Norton-Smith, controlling images are anything that, "reproduce racial, class, and gender inequality." (Vasquez-Tokos & Norton-Smith, 2017). This could include various ethnicities as well.
My neighborhood and my public high school were very diverse. One of my best friends from high school, who ended up going to CNU with me, is Puerto Rican and Honduran. We'll call her Ann because she wanted to remain anonymous.
Now, you would think that because we both come from a pretty diverse area of Virginia that there wouldn't be as much prejudice as other areas of the country, but you would be wrong.
My neighborhood and my public high school were very diverse. One of my best friends from high school, who ended up going to CNU with me, is Puerto Rican and Honduran. We'll call her Ann because she wanted to remain anonymous.
Now, you would think that because we both come from a pretty diverse area of Virginia that there wouldn't be as much prejudice as other areas of the country, but you would be wrong.
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| Credit: AP/Orlin Wagner |
In high school, many of our teammates would make inappropriate jokes toward her. Originally, Ann would just laugh them off and not pay attention to them. To our teammates, they weren't coming off as malicious or anything like that, so they continued to make these jokes.
For example, because of Ann's Latinx background, they would target that aspect of her identity. One time, before one of our games, we were just having fun and listening to music in the parking lot of our high school. As we were fooling around, Ann got into the trunk of our friend's sedan and closed it. As a joke, one of our teammates opened the trunk and said, "Ann, stop trying to sneak into America by crossing the border." Ann laughed this off, but she obviously wasn't okay. It wasn't funny, but everyone else thought it was.
Like many other Latinx students across the United States, Ann was subject to prejudice on the basis of her ethnicity. This relates to the use of controlling images that reproduce stereotypes because she was typecast as an unauthorized immigrant when in fact, she wasn't.
Artifact Type: Personal Experience
Artifact Type: Personal Experience
Works Cited
Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica and Kathryn Norton-Smith. (2017). "Talking Back to Controlling Images: Latinos' Changing Responses to Racism Over the Life Course." Race, Class, and Gender: Intersections and Inequalities. Ed. Margaret L. Andersen, Ed. Patricia Hill Collins. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2019. 435-441. Print.
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