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Edith's history class prompts her to evaluate her identity and question the beliefs she holds about others.

Stepping Out of Stereotypes

By Edith Littvan

"Black students, step out," I heard my teacher command.

Everyone looked at someone else, and waited to see who would act. It seemed to me that they were trying to decide whether they were Black or not, because it took a while before anyone started to move.

Finally, when they did, I looked at the line and I still saw a Black boy and girl standing still. I wondered why they didn't move. Did they feel ashamed? Maybe they just didn't consider themselves Black.

Scared of Our Own Identities

Well, it was just a game, so no one should have gotten angry or upset. But it seemed like some of my classmates were getting irritated, because they started to complain about the game.

In the game, everyone stood in one line, and when our teacher asked a question we could relate to ourselves, we stepped out.

"Students over the age of 18, step out," our teacher said. Before crossing the line, most of us looked around to see who else was going to move. Were we scared of our identities?

There was a time when I had to cross the line by myself, and I felt very uncomfortable. But I wanted to be honest, so I stepped out.

The question was about being an immigrant, and when I stepped out, I was sure that I wouldn't be the only one crossing the line. But no one else moved.

My classmates stared and I could feel everyone's eyes on me. I felt my face turn red and I looked at the dusty wood floor.

The reality of who I was, and that everyone was watching me, made me feel uneasy.

Facing History-and Ourselves

Last year in my humanities class, we played that game as part of a history unit.

For the unit, I studied from a book, Facing History and Ourselves, which taught me about the Holocaust, when the Nazi government of Germany killed 6 million Jews.

But it also taught me the connection between myself and history, and more generally about the development of racism, prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes: words I knew but didn't hear until then.

I think we all knew these words, but we didn't really know their meanings until we thought about them in class.

To be honest, in the beginning of the course I wasn't very interested in what we were supposed to learn.

I never liked history. I didn't understand why we had to talk about the past, where such bad and fearful things had happened.

When my Humanities teacher, Stacie Smith, told us that we were going to study the World Wars and the Holocaust, I felt very bored. I had studied these topics in Hungary twice, and I didn't understand what else I could learn about them.

Soldiers, Dead People, Orphans: 'Boring,' I Thought

I had just flipped through the pages of my history book without any feelings for the people (soldiers, dead people, orphans) and memorized the dates and facts. I didn't care a tiny bit about them. I never saw all the people.

Besides, in my country, most of the history teachers assigned chapters and told us to memorize them, because we were going to have a test. The students never asked any questions and we accepted everything that the textbooks said. Often, after the tests, we couldn't remember anything about what we had learned.

But when we started to study the Holocaust using Facing History, I saw that the class was going to be different.

This Time, We Were Writing History

Stacie explained that we weren't looking for the right answers in the pages of the book. We were going to be reading, but we would also be learning from each other.

We were going to be the writers of history, because we would be trying to answer our own questions.

Plus, Facing History gave us a chance to explore and analyze our own environment.

Stacie also wanted us to keep a journal where we would write our thoughts, experiences and opinions.

Pretty soon, I was surprised, curious and full of questions. As a class we talked about the discrimination that we had experienced, or how we behaved in discriminatory ways.

Over time, I began to be more open-minded and to value the experiences of people from different cultures.

We Talked About Our Prejudices

The school I attended was filled with students from different countries, and except for the teachers and staff, no one had been born in the United States.

We explained what kinds of stereotypes we had in our countries and we realized that all around the world, from China to Honduras, people faced discrimination and stereotypes.

Some of the stereotypes were funny, like when one of my Russian classmates said that she had heard that "all the Hungarians love to eat spicy food," or when another student repeated a stereotype I hear all the time: "All Hispanic people like to talk loud and a lot."

Sometimes the Discussion Turned Serious

But sometimes the discussions turned serious, like when my Russian classmates got very mad and protested when someone asked if it was true that Russian refrigerators were full of vodka and that Russians start drinking vodka at an early age.

And students from India and Bangladesh weren't laughing when one student mentioned that he'd heard that people from these countries like to have cockroaches as pets.

As a class we discussed why we prejudge people, and where these judgments can lead.

We learned that not all prejudices result in discrimination. Some stereotypes are even positive, like that Black girls have beautiful voices and they dance very well. And some stereotypes have an element of truth.

But we came to understand that all prejudices have similar effects; they reduce individuals to stereotypes or categories.

And throughout the class, we talked about how stereotypes can affect how we feel about ourselves.

This Movie Was Mysterious

One of the classes that had the strongest impact on me was when we watched a movie called The Eye of the Beholder.

Often during movies, some students fall asleep, but now everyone seemed to pay attention.

Probably that was because this movie was pretty mysterious; the pictures didn't show the characters' faces, just their shadows.

The story was set in a clean, white hospital where a young woman-we could just hear her voice and see her from the waist down-was having plastic surgery for the umpteenth time.

We heard the doctors' and nurses' voices, but all we could see were their shadows.

At the end, they told the girl that the plastic surgery had not been successful, and she began to scream and cry because that meant that she would have to live separately from the other, normal people, because of her ugly face.

Then, for the first time, the camera panned up to the face of the woman. Everyone in my class cried out, because she looked more than beautiful. She looked like a scared fawn, with her big, wet eyes and clean, smooth face.

In Their World, The Pig Face Was Normal

Her long hair covered her fine body. We didn't understand what was going on; why did the doctors say that she looked ugly and that she had to live separately, when, to us, she looked so perfect.

But everything became clear when we saw the pig-faced doctors and nurses.

In that world, normal wasn't the human face, but the pig face.

The young woman became abnormal among the pig-faced people because she was different.

The young woman belonged to the minority group; that's why no one wanted to accept her the way she was.

Different Does Not Equal Bad

Watching the movie made me realize just how much we are affected by what other people think about us. Like that young woman in the movie, often when other people don't accept us, we think that the way to solve the problem is to change ourselves.

But sometimes people refuse to accept us just because we're different, not because we're bad or ugly.

It's all right to have opinions of other people, or even of other cultures. That's always going to happen.

But watching the movie and taking the class made me realize that it's also important to question those opinions and evaluate our own beliefs.

"Think About It":
Prompts for discussion and/or writing:

—The students in Edith's class seemed reluctant to associate themselves with a particular racial or ethnic identity, or other form of label. Has there ever been a time when you felt uncomfortable with the identity or category others had chosen for you? What was the label and why did you resist it?

—When is a racial or ethnic identity a source of pride? When is it confining or uncomfortable?

—Edith writes about the importance of questioning your opinions and beliefs. Think of a time when you questioned the opinion you had about something or someone. What made you question your belief? How did you belief change?