Discrimination In New York City Essay

Compared to all the cities across the United States, New York City is the most ethnically diverse (Kasintiz). Various races, religious practices, and social class live within the city and they are able to respect and accept each others differences. However, this does not mean discrimination and stereotypes seizes to exist for people living in New York City. These stereotypes and encounters of discrimination affects how people view themselves and the choices they make. Ultimately these effects are most significant among children and teenagers, who implicitly and explicitly encounter discrimination in the world around them. The youth of New York City experience first hand some sort of discrimination whether it is towards them or their parents. It could be small gestures like someone rolling their eyes when an immigrant minority’s parent speaks broken English, or the when they are on the street/school getting teased on because of a stereotype that is attached to their religion or race. For this reason, as
children grow older and start making their own decisions they may opt for a subculture that is neither American culture or their parents’ culture (Kasintiz). It is a form of assimilation and in a way separates them from the stereotypes that comes from their ethnic culture, yet not accepting the mainstream culture which in some cases is the source of the discrimination. This is what makes New York City’s culture different because of the large percentage of youth from different countries who chose this subculture. Nevertheless, this subculture does not minimize the affects stereotypes and discrimination has on a child or teenagers.
When a child is exposed to this one of two things can happen, they can either accept that what was said to be true or pushed themselves succeed to distance themselves from the stereotypes. According to Jennifer Keys Adair, what children lean at a young age about their identity, abilities, and capacity stays with them their whole lives, and being exposed to discrimination can negatively affect personal development and education. This means that when a child hears that they will not succeed since their race incapable of doing so because they are lazy, their performance in school will start to decline because of their negative of themselves. On the other hand, a different child may be told they will not succeed for the same reason; however, they may take these negative comments and use it the drive themselves to succeed and prove others
wrong. In either case, there are ways to decrease stereotypes and discrimination by putting an end to economic and social inequalities, and improving the quality of education for everyone. From these suggestions the improvement of education is extremely important because in order to shape the future, the focus should be set to teach that discrimination and stereotypes are not true and should not be tolerated and emphasis how important education is not only to the students’ future to the city as well. Once that occurs, the extreme difference of economic and social inequalities can decrease as well, because a increased number of ethnicities furthering their education beyond high school, which can open more job opportunities. From personal experiences stereotypes and discrimination does affect how you look at yourself, and depending how you handle it untimely can affect you approach certain aspects of your life. Minority groups face a high percentage of discrimination and prejudice on a daily basis. Realistically, discrimination will always always be present; however, there are ways to decrease it by spreading awareness to about it especially to the children and teenagers. Ultimately, improving the quality of education for children can lead to a domino effect of improving life for immigrants and minority groups.