Ethnic Stereotypes

The ones about people from California.
We can all walk to the beach and live next to movie stars and drive past Hollywood everyday.

No, we all do not.
I live in freaking San Francisco, that's a 7 or 8 hour drive for me to get to L.A.

Since everyone is doing their states... I thought I'd include one of my personal pet peeves: New Jersey stereotypes.
Yes, I'm Italian. Yes, I live about five minutes from the beach. Yes, I frequent Philly and even New York (City). Yeah, I do know people with ties or former ties to the Mafia. And yes, I regularly use the Garden State Parkway.
That's basically all that applies to me and most people I know.

The truth about New Jersey:
-We don't all have "Joisey" accents. That's actually a small percentage and they all live right near New York City. What people think is a New Jersey accent is really a New York one - and even that's sketchy because it depends on the neighborhood and upbringing. We do not say Joisey, okay?
-What turnpike exit do I live off of? I HAVE NO FREAKING IDEA! I just get off where it says Atlantic City. It's not like my house is right off of a highway, it's in the middle of a suburb!
-Our beaches ARE clean. I've never seen a needle or used condom on the beach or boardwalk. When our beaches close, it's because meds were dumped in New York or there's a shark alert. Both are very rare.
-There are places in Philly and New York that actually take our water because it's better. It IS clean. I don't drink tap, but at least I can't taste sulfur or fluoride in it.
-I've never seen a nuclear plant.
-The Mafia is really quiet. Nothing ever happens to be totally honest. And the families with the big names? They're regular people who happen to have an interesting grandfather or uncle... The last thing I heard that had anything to do with it was some bust at the Borgata. No big deal, no big names, no big anything. It's a dead (or dying) practice nowadays... Not that it's a bad thing. But life is NOT the Sopranos.
-Apparently it smells here? I think this one comes from the smell of the bays. We have loads of them - I live by one. If you're within a block or so of one, it smells at low tide... like a bay.
-We do not pump our own gas. We have attendants by law. If you ever see someone sitting at the pump as if waiting for something... They're probably from New Jersey or Oregon and don't know they have to pump their own gas. Or they don't know how. Gas here is actually pretty cheap compared to a lot of other states. Except on the islands - because they'd have to get off the island to get gas.
-I ALWAYS see "You know you're from New Jersey if you know there are no beaches in New Jersey - it's 'The Shore'".... NO! Never ever say that to me. It doesn't even make sense! "The shore" is wherever the sea touches land. That has nothing to do with beaches! The whole east side of New Jersey is not one beach! The only people who call it the shore are people who are not anywhere near "the shore". (Yeah it does piss me off that much)
-It's New Jersey, not Jersey. Jersey is a British island near Normandy. However, most people still like to call New Jersey simply Jersey.
-We do have farms, beaches, inner cities, vacation resorts, and mountains in this small state.
-We're nothing special. Ignore the idiots who think anyone who is not from here isn't worth being here. In reality, it's not worth being here because it sucks here. Go home not because I don't want you around, but for your own sanity.
-We have malls galore.
-Speeding is when you go more than 15 miles over the limit.
-South Jersey and North Jersey are different to us. Or rather, everyone but me. The only difference to me is that we have too much freaking farmland and more islands. They have more rough cities. The further south you go, the more you'll hear the awful "wadder" instead of water and up north is more the painful "Joisey" rather than Jersey. New Jersey people like to think it's two different states. They have to get over themselves.
-Wawa and Shop-Rite are huge. Donald Trump is mentioned in the newspaper often.
-We're aggressive drivers. But seriously, who isn't?
-We get mild hurricanes, lots of Nor'easter, and wild fires show up in the paper sometimes. But we've never seen a tornado, tsunami, earthquake, or volcano.
-Olive Garden is good. And I keep hearing that we call it Great Adventure and never Six Flags... My friends and I all call it Six Flags.
-We don't all have attitude. But there are way too many who do.

I think I covered the most important ones. Now you know more than you ever wanted to. If you read any of that...

I'm from California and far too many people believe that automatically means i'm blonde haired blue-eyed and love to shop and party every day. They also have this bizarre tendency to believe that LA is close, that we're all very well off if not incredibly wealthy.
Then taking a look at my heritage i'm 3/4 mexican so people automatically assume that i'll look and act like what they believe a typical mexican is. Then of course comes the great debate of my hair, it's long and curly so i must either be jewish or irish which i'm not. For the most part i have to say i find the whole thing rather amusing, it's interesting to see the conclusions people draw on their own and even more amusing when you let them in on the truth. However if your asked the same question over and over again in the same day i could definitely see how it would quickly become annoying. Kinda makes me feel bad for all the exchange students we have on campus.

According to all of these "You know you're from New Jersey if..." lists online, everyone lives in the 80s and women have big hair. Let me tell you now that everyone I know is all about what's in and popular this very second. And if you don't have stick straight hair down to your butt, you're not worth looking at.
I have thin, short, naturally straight hair and I get asked all the time why I don't grow my hair out and what straightener do I use? Because I like it like this and straighteners don't do a thing to my hair. The funniest thing is when I get a body wave and scrunch my hair into curls or waves. My hair refuses to have any body to it, so by the end of the week it's straight again. It messes with their heads.

I'm South Korean. People automatically assume I'm good at math, play piano, aim for IV League Schools, and incapable to annuciate my "r's."

I sucked at math during high school; I played piano for two years before I quitted; I was born and rasied in the U.S; and I go to an art school XD

I'm Native, but my tribe is Apache.

So far all the stereotypes I've heard are:
-We still live in tepees. (Apaches have never lived in tepees)
-We ride a horse everywhere.(Nah, we use cars.)
-We don't know how to speak English, so you have to talk to us like we're stupid. (That happened to me more than once.)
-We're great trackers. (I'm not gonna lie I'm an amazing Elk tracker but yeah.)
-We're wild Indians who will kill you. (Uh, I don't even know.)
-We're wise and can solve all your problems with magic. (The medicine man can but not everyone.)

The more modern Stereotpes are:
-We're all drunks. (There's winos everywhere.)
-We're all fat asses. (Look around, we're not the only ones.)
-We're freeloaders and get everything handed to us. (The US Gov. screwed us over & tried to massacre us. It's the least they can do.)