Last week, we saw a flier advertising a lecture by renowned Latino film director Gregory Nava concerning the Latin American experience in America. We said to ourselves, "Hey! We're interested in Latin American culture! We should go!" We were not aware at this time that it was to be a chance to be oppressed!

That's right, we were oppressed. In his attempt to motivate Latino students and encourage them to celebrate their culture and love themselves, he felt it necessary to make very negative, sweeping generalizations about Caucasian people, who he dubbed "garabachos" and "gringos." For those of you not familiar with these terms, they are derogatory words used to refer to Caucasians, especially from the United States. Just for a bit of clarification here, we are two women, one Caucasian and one Caribbean-American of Haitian descent. We both experienced a sense of alienation when hearing such comments, especially when repeated pleas for the deconstruction of cultural stereotypes and barriers ("because we are all brothers and sisters in the end," says Nava) were framed with derogatory comments about "other" people, that is, "non-Latinos."

Among the stereotypes espoused by Mr. Nava: All Latinos where he comes from dance salsa and eat tacos although oppressed, whereas "other people" cry into their beers. "Young middle class white men" listen to death metal music and are suicidal.

Alarmed, we stood during the question-and-answer period of the event to ask Mr. Nava about his use of derogatory terms and his continuation of stereotypes. He conceded that the terms "garabacho" and "gringo" are derogatory, yet he insisted that he had not meant to be offensive. He admitted that he was making broad generalizations about Caucasians. Furthermore, he insinuated that as non-Latinos, we would not have been bothered by stereotypes about Latinos, but now that we were experiencing stereotypes about Caucasians, we were upset. Then he said, "Now you know what we [Latinos] go through. How does it feel?" And many of the Latino students of Notre Dame attending the lecture proceeded to APPLAUD this man.

We left. We freely admit that this was an extremely close-minded action on our part. Mr. Nava was given a fair chance to defend himself. Instead of indignantly walking out during the middle of the lecture, we waited until the end to see if he could perhaps clarify his position. After hearing his defense, we decided that it would be best to leave.

Iris Outlaw followed our departure to explain that Mr. Nava was brought to Notre Dame in an attempt to give all sides a chance to speak. She indicated that this was meant to be an educational experience for everyone involved. We asked, "What are we supposed to learn here, how to be oppressed?"

And she answered, "Yes."

We would like to extend a hearty Thank You to Notre Dame for this excellent Oppression Workshop. Our conclusions: If you are oppressed, get into a position of power so that you can oppress others.

Lindsay E. Van Loon

Stephanie V. Andre

Juniors

Farley Hall

October 5, 1999

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• How we learned to be oppressed