Orientalism

Orientalism, based on Said's definition, is the political differences between the structure of the East and the West. The Europeans, who once dominated the Middle East and Asia, see the people from those lands as sly, impossible to trust, incapable of concrete practical organization, or rigorous, detail oriented analysis. In summary, simply strange people, and Westerners see themselves as "better" than them.

I believe that today, we still stereotype anybody who doesn't live and behave in the same way we are used to as strange. Whether it is that the Westerners see the Easterners dress, religion, and food as strange or vice versa. Even though we are all human and have more similarities in culture than differences we still use the media to determine how someone really lives. For instance movies like The Wolverine, The Mummy 3, and The Karate Kid portray almost every Asian character as some sort of ninja or martial arts guru.

My 5th grade teachers were fascinated by Indian and Nepali culture, and traveled there every summer, so we spent most of the year studying their gods, culture, and history, which was one of the first times my mind was fully opened to another culture. We watched historical movies about famous Indian people like Gandhi and documentaries about Indian culture and how it would be like to live there. It really shattered the idea that they were different from us because they lived in a different place, for me. Ultimately, we all get up, go to work/ school, and go to sleep. Still, orientalism is still at large and in many forms. We are scared to let immigrants into our country and want to build walls (*cough cough Trump) to keep our country "safe".