Power and discourse: Otherization, cultural assimilation, cultural stereotyping

            I enjoyed reading Holliday A2.1-A2.3 because it discussed the concept of Othering and how “we should try to understand people before we can communicate with them” and “how easy it is to be misled by our own preconceptions, and to fall into the trap of Othering,” (p. 23). Oftentimes, when I tell people that I am a Bilingual Education major, I hear people’s stereotypes and prejudices against bilingual students, such as “why don’t you just teach them English,” and I am just shocked. I feel it is important that all bilingual students deserve a chance to be taught in their native language while they learn English. I think that to be able to effectively teach bilingual students, teachers have to teach without any biases, stereotypes, or prejudices. I am going to have to make sure that I do not make assumptions about a culture because my students may come from very diverse backgrounds and I have to be able to embrace that diversity in the classroom. When reading the section From stereotypes to Othering, I thought it was interesting that “many argue that it is natural to form stereotypes, and that they indeed help us to understand ‘foreign cultures’—that they act as a template, or as an ideal type, against which we can measure the unknown,” but I agree with Holliday’s view that “a major reason for this is that stereotypes are often infected by prejeudice, which in turn leads to Othering,” (p. 25). The one example that I found the most interesting was Jeremy the lecturer and Jabu, who was a black student from South Africa. In this situation, it is difficult for Jeremy to come across to Jabu as understanding and inclusive, but to Jabu, she feels as though she is being patronized and Othered by her supervisor. I don’t think that Jeremy realized how much of an impact his assumptions about black culture had on his supervision of Jabu, even though he thought he was helping and being understanding. I understand that we must careful what we say because “we may be unaware of the power our words may carry,” (p. 33).