I love rice and beans, but who doesn't?

As part of Hispanic Heritage Month, Mi Gente, Duke’s Latino Student Association, in conjunction with the Center for Multicultural Affairs (CMA), has rolled out a new campaign to challenge Latino Stereotypes on campus. The posters are hard to miss because they seem to be everywhere and especially because many of the faces on the posters are familiar ones. I first saw some while drinking from a water fountain in the Bryan Center after noticing one of my friends’ faces on one of the posters.

Most of the stereotypes are ones that a lot of people probably already identify as stereotypes: All Latinos work as construction workers, all Latinos are Mexican or all Mexican-born Latinos in the U.S. are illegal immigrants. Then you have some oddball ones, like one with a Latino student looking at what is clearly a taco with the caption, “I don’t know the difference between a burrito and a taco!” I’m not entirely convinced, thinking he’s just a bad global citizen at this point, but there is another poster that seems more appropriate to me, where a Latina girl exclaims, “I LOVE rice and beans…but who doesn’t?”

Acknowledging her diversity and embracing it is a refreshing break in a long line of stereotypes simply being debunked. Stereotypes exist because they have some minimal basis in reality. So in acknowledging the reality that yes, Latinos really like their rice and beans; or yes, Asians are super smart and sleep in the library all the time, we’re saying yes, we are different. But it’s about the principle of diversity over hierarchy. At no point should our differences be held over us; at no point should we use our differences to hurt one another.

“The campaign takes a lighthearted approach to the topic," said sophomore Ricky Guerra. "It doesn’t lecture people, but in the same respect, it does make people have second thoughts about their misconceptions of Latinos on campus. I have personally encountered Latino stereotypes, but I’ve never taken offense to it. I am not doing this for myself, but I know these stereotypes affect many Duke students, which is why I wanted to participate.”

On a campus where there seems to be little discussion on topics like racial stereotyping, this new campaign from Mi Gente and the CMA has been long overdue. Another topic that is slowly generating a dialogue on campus is Occupy Duke, which, albeit far removed from the topic of Latino stereotypes, produced a response from junior Ian Harwood that neatly sums up the importance of campaigns such as the Latino Stereotypes one and Occupy Duke.

“I’m of the sentiment that this conversation just doesn’t happen unless you get in people’s faces.”

And Mi Gente and the CMA are doing just that.