Thursday May 1, 2017

1)    How are some of your beliefs and attitudes regarding appearance, food and social practices potentially ethnocentric?

When it comes to food I can be very close minded when the offer is on the table to try new things. I automatically think “the food I eat now is great so I don’t need to try anything else.” I also automatically assume that it’s not going to be good. I do this with American foods now and so I am sure that I will be faced with the same conflict when I am in Ecuador. That can be seen as ethnocentric because I am assuming my American food is better and not giving the Ecuadorian food a chance.  

2)    What are some stereotypes you have heard/seen about Latin-Americans?

Stereotypes I have heard in the past about Latin Americans were that they all have large families and that Latin American’s have fiery personalities and can be very hot headed at times.

3)    What are some stereotypes you think Latin-Americans might have about your culture?

One of the groups during group presentations talked about politics and how it’s typical for Ecuadorians to believe that everyone in the United States supports Trump because he is our current president. And with that they would assume that everything Trump stands for us as Americans will stand for as well, which is not true.

4)    What challenges do you anticipate encountering in Ecuador?

I always want to try new things in my head, but it takes a lot for me to actually push myself to actually do the new thing. I feel like this will be a constant struggle for me because there will be opportunities to try new things throughout this entire trip and I will consistently be fighting this internal battle to get be to take this new and exciting opportunity that has been offered to me.

5)    What rewards do you hope to gain?


I hope to gain an understanding for another countries culture. I have travelled outside of the United States twice but I was younger both times and was never interested in learning about the countries culture. This will be a time for me to experience a whole other country and hopefully take in as much of their culture as I can.

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