Information Activism is what happens when people use information to promote positive social change. It is what happens when we have the information to confront a problem, understand the solution, and choose to take action. In our global interconnected world this means using information and communications technology. It means using the internet and cellular phones.

In 2011 the United Nations estimates that 2 billion people use the Internet and 5 billion use cellular phones world-wide. The Internet was conceived in a US Weapons Research lab during the cold war. Almost since the beginning activists have used the medium to communicate, colaborate, and share information. In the early years activists sent e-mails to lists of supporters, maintaind Usenet message boards, hosted FTP file sharing sites, and used internet relay chat (IRC). Later they put up websites to represent their cause, wrote blogs to diseminate alternative information, and pioneered online outreach for fundraising. In more recent years the web has become a medium for conducting research, lobbying government officials, and for cultural production of artistic works such as videos and photos. Cellular phones and SMS have become the primary tool for coordinating direct action such as street protests.

A case in point: youth and technology have combined in the past year to change the mideast forever in the revolutions know as the “Arab Spring”. One of the most helpful tools for understanding what is happening in North Africa is this interactive timeline which shows the path of each of 17 mideast countries and the important protests, political moves, international response, and ultimately regime change in that country.

Mohammed Bouazizi was a young unemployed college graduate who was trying to get by selling fruit from a cart in Tunisia when the police confiscated his goods because he did not pay a fee. In the ultimate act of protest he set himself on fire in front of the governors building on December 17, 2010. His friends shared cell phone video of the resulting protests on YouTube.  These videos were then shown by the traditional media like CNN and Al-Jazeera. Only 28 days later President Ben Ali was forced to flee the country after 23 years of repressive rule. This was only the beginning.

In Egypt there were two important tools used to organize and communicate the protests. The mosque for the older generation and Facebook for the younger generation. Facebook, text messages, and cell phone cameras enabled communication within Egypt, but also helped to bring international pressure on President Hosni Mubarak to step down which he did on February 11^th after 29 years in power.

The governments of Lybia, Syria, and other countries were not caught by surprise and the ongoing fight has been longer and harder there. Interestingly where governments have tried to block access to cell phones and the internet it has pushed more young people out into the streets to protest. Most young people see access to information as a fundamental human right.

Technology’s role in the Arab Spring must not be overstated. Technology empowers people for good or for bad. It serves to amplify the messages but it does not create the messages. However, without a doubt, it has had an impact and we see the change.

You don’t have to want to overthrow the government to adopt the techniques of information activism. Many problems, big and small, local and global, can be confronted with the techniques of information activism.

The information age is here and with it comes the power to all of us to change things.

I have been reflecting a lot about reaching my first anniversary of living in México as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  What a year it has been!  Full of both exciting successes, difficult challenges, and everything in between, just like your lives back in the US.  Serving and representing the United States in México as Peace Corps Volunteers has been a honor and pleasure. To me, quality programs like the Peace Corps represent what is right and good about our country.

I have been very fortunate to work at a Mexican government agency that assists and oversees state agencies that provide a variety of services to people of their communities.  It is called La Junta de Asistencia Privada del Estado de Querétaro (or something like the “Counsel of asistance for private social agencies in the state of Querétaro).  There are 120 agencies around the state of Querétaro that are part of the Junta.  18 of the 31 Mexican states have this type of agency.  These agencies are closely linked the the state and federal social services type agency called DIF-Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (or Essential development of the family). I work at the Junta 3 days a week.

My job at the Junta has been very interesting.  I have completed or helped with a number of projects to improve their infrastructure, allowing them to better help the agencies, ultimately helping the people of the state.  I developed/improved a data base of the agencies, helped develop and now help maintain a web site, and currently I am working on a fantastic project to develop a system to link people interested in volunteering at the 120 agencies with projects at the agencies, through the Junta.  VERY COOL project…plus I get to work closely with Brian, as he is developing some technology to complement the organizational parts of the program. We should have it up and running in the next month.

My other job is quite interesting as well.  Two days a week I work for the state delegation of the Mexican federal government program called SEMARNAT -Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (or Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources.) I work in Environmental Education on a solar cooking project.

I wrote and was awarded a grant through USAID- United States Agency for International Development– for this project.  The goal is to decrease the use of firewood to cook food thus achieving some major objectives, including prevent diseases and illnesses associated with inhalation of wood smoke while cooking, decrease deforestation, prevent erosion, maintain biodiversity, and assist low income families to decrease the funds needed to purchase firewood or gas to cook.  Currently my counterpart Julian and I are working on finding a more efficient and less expensive solar cooker than the one used for this program in the past.  Since we are currently in the rainy season here in central México, we have some time to work on finding or developing a solar cooker that provides the most watts/peso.  We are planning a competition with university students, community members,  and members of the 18 municipalities in the state of Querétaro to design the most effective and low cost solar cooker.  The gold standard: able to cook beans!!

Brian is doing GREAT and has been AWESOME with all of his great IT projects for his job at CIDESI-El Centro de Ingeniería y Desarrollo Industrial (or Center for engineering and industrial development), for Peace Corps México Volunteers, the Junta, etc…  He is greatly enjoying tutoring his coworkers in English. His broken ankle healed well and he is almost back to normal. He had a GREAT Spanish language day today!

We have been in our little house (La Casita) since late March and are loving it.  I finished painting the remaining two walls last week and it is so cute.  I love when our Mexican friends see the house for the first time and say, “Muy Mexicana!”  because of the colors and decorations.  Some wall are a a nice shade of azure blue and others a buttery yellow.  Plus we have “papel de china”  (rectangular pieces of colorful tissue paper about 18″ x 14″ and 8″ x 6″ cut in designs and hung from a string)  hanging in several places.  Brightly colored local art and pictures, and an amazing rug from Oaxaco (a southern Mexican state)…not to mention our green apple colored love seats!!  It is fun, very bright and cheery.

We are making a lot of great friends in our jobs and community as well as among other Peace Corps volunteers.  When possible, we have tried to do some traveling.  Even with our travel restrictions (due to areas considered unstable or unsafe due to Narco-trade/violence) we are able to get away many weekends to see different places and learn about México.  So far we have been able to visit around 10 different Mexican states.  Such a diverse and interesting country.  There is so much more to México beyond the beach resorts!  We have been trying to visit the “Pueblo Magicos” (small unique cities with amazing history, architecture, and culture) and the major archaeological sites….but have also slipped in two beach vacations .

I am learning to like tamarind, guava, nopal (cactus) and tuna (cactus bud).  I no longer even consider drinking water from the tap. Seldom miss driving (prohibited for all Peace Corps Volunteers) and have learned most of the bus routes in the city of Querétaro. (Probably a good thing as PCVs in México live on a very modest  $700 dollars a month and could not afford a car).  I have even gotten myself adjusted to eating my second meal of the day (“comida” the main meal of the day) between 2:00 and 4:00, and dinner (“cena” a light meal or snack–often an ice cream cone from the little local shop) at 8:00 or 9:00 pm.

Learning Spanish continues to be a major goal/challenge for me.  I have been pleased with my progress, but the more I learn, the more I realize I have so much more to learn.  (I guess like any other educational endeavor). I do enjoy being able to have increasingly more intellectually stimulating conversations in Spanish.  I am diligently working on learning and using the “subjunctive” in Spanish. If you have no idea what the “subjunctive” is, consider yourself lucky.

As we finish our first year in México, Brian and I have been thinking about and discussing the “NEXT” for our lives as our 27 months in Peace Corps México is about 1/2 over.  Hummm… Any interesting ideas???

Hope to hear back from you and what you and yours are up to!

Saludos y abrazos a todos!!

Kelly

Last fall we went to the local fair and they had a show with around a dozen large bears doing tricks like standing on balls and riding bikes. Now these are things the bears probably didn’t enjoy doing and it seemed to annoy them a bit. The barrier between the testy bears and the tasty audience? Well there wasn’t any. Is that safe?

Mexicans are not just fearless of wild animals, but fearless of other deadly things too. We had a power outage at our house a few weeks back and asked our host mom, Maria, to call her friend the electrician. He happened to be in the neighborhood on another job and came right over. He checked the breaker. It was not the breaker. He checked the meter. Nope not the meter. He climbed up on the outside wall and started to cut the insulation off the main wire that runs from the pole in the street to our house. I stepped back a few paces. Yep that was the problem. He re-spliced the hot wire and we had the lights back. Sadly I did not get a picture. But was that safe?

What about just walking in the street? Some of the streets are cobblestone and women of all ages navigate them daily in the highest high-heel shoes I have ever seen. But several less street-savvy volunteers (including me) have ended up at the emergency room from twisting, or even breaking, an ankle on the uneven sidewalks. So is walking in Mexico safe?

I have many other examples of Mexican kids and adults doing things here in Mexico that if they were in the US would be cause for alarm or maybe even a 20/20 investigative report. The culture of “safety” at all costs in the U.S. seems a little ridiculous from a distance. I may be a little cynical having grow up well before the current car safety seat, bike helmet, warning label, peanut free, baby-on-board sign, safety-fascinated, litigation-averse era back home. Things are a little (sometimes a lot) more relaxed here.

Oh and about that drug violence thing? Well it turns out you have better odds of dying in a car crash in the states (9000 to 1) than dying from drug related violence on a trip to Mexico (179,000 to 1). Where you go makes a huge difference as well. In Puebla, a city of a few million people about 2 hours from our town of Querétaro, it is 730 times more likely you will die driving your car in the US than being shot by narcos in the 4th largest city in Mexico.

So all of you back home please be careful. We worry about you.

Postscript: Here is a link to the study on drug war violence at the fantastic blog/book Geo-Mexico.

These NGOs address a variety of social problems including drug and alcohol addiction, access to healthcare, services for the elderly, shelters for at-risk children and women, help for people with disabilities, education, and community and youth development. Essentially they serve the most vulnerable groups of people in the state.

My community partner on the grant is the Junta de Asistencia Privada del Estado de Querétaro. Their primary function is the promotion, development and preservation of these NGOs by providing management consulting, training, legal, accounting, tax and any other services. In addition, the Junta advocates on behalf of the NGOs to other federal and state government agencies as well as private organizations. My spouse Kelly works at the Junta as a NGO Development Specialist and will continue to be heavily involved in this project.

The key technology partner in this project is Google. They are providing the platform, Google Apps, at no cost to these NGOs. The Google Apps suite includes e-mail, group calendars, contact management, discussion groups, web site development, document sharing, and multi-media such as photos and video. In addition we will be developing a volunteering and fundraising system based on Google Apps.  Because these applications are provided as a service, in the “Cloud”, the NGOs do not need to purchase, install, or maintain hardware and software. The applications are accessible from any computer with a web browser. This greatly decreases the cost and complexity and allows these NGOs, who mostly are on a shoestring budget, to adopt world-class technology.

Prior to receiving this grant we assisted the Junta with a web site implementation. The website project began with a workshop to assess the needs of the Junta, continued with multiple prototype review sessions, and concluded with hands-on administrator and user training. The website is available at www.juntadeasistenciaqro.org and provides the first of its kind online directory of the NGOs in the state of Querétaro along with many other sophisticated features including automatic language translation. The process and technology proven on the project for the Junta is the model for implementing this project for the NGOs.

We have high hopes for this project. There is a great scene in the movie “The Right Stuff” where one of the Mercury astronauts rhetorically asks a NASA director “You know what makes this rocket go up?” and then answers his own question “Funding! That’s what. No bucks, no Buck Rogers!” So grab your space helmet we are about to blast off.

If you want more information about this project please go to www.ongtec.com (pronounced Oh-N-Hay Tech) ONG is Spanish for NGO.

Starting in 1992 Mexican directors as diverse as Alfonso Arau (Como Agua Para Chocolate or Like Water for Chocolate) and Robert Rodriquez (El Mariachi which he remade as Desperado with Antonio Banderas) found commercial success in the United States. The international success of films such as Amores Perros (2000) by Alejandro González Iñárritu and Y Tu Mamá También (2001) by Alfonso Cuarón helped define the new era of Mexican cinema. The Cannes Film Festival last week honored Mexico with the screening of three films. Maybe to be expected all three selections dealt in some way with the subject of the violent drug war in this country.

So for your viewing pleasure, and in addition to the films mentioned above, here is a short and diverse list of my favorites of Mexican cinema.

Rudo y Cursi (2009) by Carlos Caurón – Tells the story of two brothers working on a banana plantation, but with dreams of becoming big-time fútbol stars. Dramatic, funny, profane, tragic, and muy Mexicana.

El Estudiante (2009) by Roberto Girault – Shot in the stunning city of Guanajuato, an elderly man enrolls at the University and his life intersects with those of five young students during the stage production of Don Quixote de la Mancha.

El Santo Contra las Momias de Guanajuato (1972) – El Santo (The Saint) is an iconic masked Mexican wrestler superhero who solves crimes and battles evil wherever it is to be found. In this case evil is found in Guanajuato among the mummies. This film is more Mexican than tacos.

Arráncame la Vida (2010) by Roberto Sneider – Set during the post revolution Mexico of the 30′s and 40′s, this sweeping love story examines power, love, sex, betrayal, and revenge. The title translates roughly as “Tear This Life Out”.

El Angel Exterminador (1962) by Luis Buñel – One of the best films by one of the best directors of all time regardless of nationality. Guests at a dinner party strangely find themselves unable to leave and while trapped for days their true human natures are eventually revealed.

Frida (2002) by Julie Taymor – While not technically a product of Mexican cinema this is the story of the life of artist Frida Khalo and her muralist husband Diego Rivera. With the incredible Salma Hayek in front of and behind the camera (actor/producer).

El Crimen del Padre Amaro (2002) by Carlos Carrera – The actor Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries, Amores Perros) is amazing in this story of a young, small-town priest tempted by a beautiful girl.

Sexo, Pudor y Lágrimas (Sex, Shame, and Tears) (1999) by Antonio Serrano – The vivid, awake world of two young couples and their friends in Mexico City with all the complications.

El Padrecito (1964) by Miguel M. Delgado – No list of Mexican cinema would be complete without one of the 55 comedies starring Cantinflas who, like Charlie Chaplin, represented the good and innocent everyman.

This list is just a taste of the many wonderful films from and about Mexico. I hope you find one of these, maybe on Netflix, and it inspires you to watch others. As for me I am almost ashamed to admit I have not yet seen Presunto Culpable (2011) a documentary about the Mexican judicial system gone wrong, Oscar-nominated Biutiful (2010) directed by Iñárritu and starring Jarvier Bardem, and Revolutión (2010) which is 10 short films by 10 different directors who take various and contemporary views on the Mexican Revolution so far.

Maybe that 3 DVD special at the Mercado sounds pretty good after all.

What I saw in the town of Taxco in the state of Guerrero this past weekend was a different kind of penance altogether. It was a difficult, physical, immediate, and painful kind of penance. It was demonstrated in fervently Catholic processions of hundreds of people including stooped barefoot women walking with chains around their feet, men carrying heavy bundles of thorns tied to their back and arms, and men kneeling and flagellating their backs with nail barbed whips. The pictures certainly do not do this justice, but I don’t think I have any words that would either.

I had mixed emotions about sharing these photos because I worry someone may mistakenly think Mexicans are a violent people, which they are not. Semana Santa is a public religious observance to remember the suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection in the last days of Jesus Christ. In this celebration, and in many others, Mexico has kept their rich culture and traditions alive in a way many countries and cultures have not.

I have spent a good bit of the past 8 months walking hunched over to pass under trees, signs, and doorways. I often take two seats on the bus because my legs only fit sideways. At football (soccer) matches I worry I will get punched because I block the view of some rowdy fans behind me. A polite kiss on the check is the standard greeting between men and women in Mexico. However, with me it’s a strange cross between Japanese and Mexican customs. First I bow down and then I kiss.

There is an amazing range of physical characteristics in the Mexican people: light-skinned to dark-skinned, blond, brunette, and red-headed, thin and thick, blue, green, and brown, almost black, eyes. Sure there are some very tall Mexicans, but tallness is not typical among them.

The average Mexican man is 5’4” inches compared to 5’10” for the average U.S. male. Among women, Mexicans average 4’11½” in versus 5’4” in the United States. In Mexico even my spouse Kelly feels tall.

Interestingly Mexican-Americans in the U.S. are also significantly taller than Mexicans in Mexico (5’7” for men and 5’2½” for women). Individual height is influenced by genetic factors, but at a population level the largest influences are environmental factors such as nutrition, maternal health, and child labor. These factors are certainly at work here in Mexico.

On the other hand, height, in turn, influences environmental factors like the frequency of tree trimming and the legroom available on public buses. Does height maybe help explain why football (non-Americano) is so popular here in Mexico while basketball is popular in the United States? Probably no, but tall people do have an advantage in Basketball due to being closer to the basket, reaching over people, etc. Most of the best footballers are of only average height (except maybe at the goalkeeper position). So I am thinking about starting a basketball club: the Querétaro Caucasians. Who’s with me?

Thankfully Mexicans are too polite to ask “Cómo es el aire arriba allí?”

Extra: You have to watch this mock advertisement from the 1990 movie Crazy People: “Sony: Because Caucasians are Just Too Damn Tall”

Our lovely colonia, or neighborhood, is in the historical center of Querétaro between the ancient aqueduct (Los Arcos) and the central plazas (Plaza de Armas). It is a very short walk to shops, restaurants, theaters, churches, even Starbucks. Basically everything you need is just outside your door. During the week we each catch a different local bus to work. Because the downtown was created before cars, it is easy to navigate without a car.

This past week we have been housesitting for a friend and looking after her cats and her daughter’s little dog. Her beautiful house was built in the old style of a hacienda, but is in a modern privada (private, gated development) more conducive to cars on four wheels than people on two feet. We are still able to get around fairly easily, but it is more of a challenge. Other friends live far out in the suburbs where a car is mandatory, just like in most parts of the U.S..

Peace Corps policy is the reason we don’t drive. One of their objectives is to keep us safe. Before this policy went into effect, automobile accidents caused the greatest number of deaths and injuries among PC volunteers globally. But there is another philosophy at work here as well. Peace Corps wants its volunteers to integrate into their communities, interacting especially with average people. There is a stark difference between standing at the bus stop with the gente and gliding into your privada in your Audi.

Another consideration is that owning a car is expensive. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that it costs the average person in the U.S. $7,359.96 per year to own and operate a motor vehicle.  That includes purchase costs, financing, gas and oil, insurance, maintenance, repair, license fees, etc. For comparison our bus costs us 6 1/2 pesos a trip (about 50 cents) and walking is free, so our annual expenditure is less then $700. Thanks to our friends at GapMinder.com, we find the annual cost of owning a car in the U.S. is equal to 65% of the average income in Mexico (US$11,250) and is about 13 times the average income in Malawi (US$866) where Kelly first served in the PC.

People love their cars. Beyond the obvious utility, they are associated with power, wealth, status, freedom, and sex. Today there are about 1023 cars per every thousand people in America. In China, there are only 9 cars per 1000 people. In India, 11 cars per 1000 people. You have to wonder what the world will be like with another Billion cars on the roads.

But more on that later. I gotta go catch my bus.

Certainly the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps is a reason to celebrate. JFK’s vision of Americans serving abroad in the cause of world peace and friendship has inspired over 200,000 people to devote two years of their lives to helping the people in 139 countries. Next Tuesday there will be over 700 official “House Parties” around the globe. For example next Tuesday evening we are attending an event at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. ¡Feliz Aniversario, Cuerpo de Paz!

But the world has changed in 50 years. In 1961 the global population consisted of 3 billion persons with the majority living in rural areas. Today there are over 6 billion persons who mostly live in cities. Back then the average woman could expect to live about 48 years (under 30 in some countries). The main cause of death was infectious disease (think smallpox). Now the average woman could expect to live 66 years (over 85 in some countries). Death comes now predominantly from the chronic diseases of old age (think cancer). Then a person might never leave the village or meet a foreigner during their lifetime. Now a person is likely to have talked on a cell phone and possibly surfed the internet. Access to education, health care, and economic opportunity have likewise increased. The world we live in was unimaginable to the people living 50 years ago.

There have been changes in the United States as well. In 1961 the Peace Corps was a unique organization. Today there are thousands of volunteer organizations working abroad. International trade and travel has exposed more Americans to people of other countries and vice versa. American popular culture has permeated almost every corner of the globe.

In this new world is Peace Corps relevant? In a word: Yes.

Although there have been major strides in development, there are as many as 2 billion people who have largely been left behind. The need for trained personnel is still great in many countries and areas of the world. Although the people of other countries know more about America today, they likely have many misconceptions from films,  music, and the media. Although some Americans have been exposed to other cultures through travel, most U.S. citizens never travel internationally and cultural stereotypes of other peoples are the norm in our country. These represent the three goals of the Peace Corps, which are as relevant today as they were then albeit in a somewhat different way.

And Peace Corps volunteers are making the most impact where our world faces some of its most difficult challenges. Our best programs include  Environment (addressing food security and climate change), Health (addressing HIV/AIDS and other diseases), and Youth (addressing education and many social ills).

And Peace Corps is not static, it continues to evolve and change. A recent agency wide assessment recommended Peace Corps allocate more resources on countries and programs where there is the most need and it can have the most impact. The report also recommended improvements to recruiting, training, security, and operations. But the assessment found that the unique model of the Peace Corps (long assignments, cultural immersion, community involvement, volunteer integration, etc.) was found to be its greatest strength, even in our profoundly changed world of today.

Now about the cost of Peace Corps.  To put the cost in perspective in 2008 the total annual budget was much less than the cost of fighting the war in Iraq for one day. What would you rather have 1 day of war or 1 year of peace? I know what I would choose.

Another way to look at the cost of Peace Corps is to look at the per volunteer cost. Dividing the total Peace Corps budget of about $400 million by the 9,000 currently serving volunteers and you get a total cost per volunteer of about $45,000 per year.  It sounds like a lot, but it comes out to about a $1 and change per year per American.

One analysis showed about 30% were direct costs of the volunteer (living allowances, training, travel, medical care, etc.), 50% was spent on in-country posts (staff salaries, office space, host country national salaries, security, etc.), and 20% was headquarters costs (recruiting,  finance, administration, etc.). Any non-profit that delivered 80% of funding directly to programs in the field would be considered highly efficient.

Remember these numbers please, because some of your representatives in Congress would just as well do away with Peace Corps. Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that.

Happy Birthday Peace Corps. Here is to the next 50 great years. Salud!

The first U.S. Ambassador to Mexico was Joel Poinsett who is remembered best for bringing back from Mexico the “Flor de Buena Noche” (Christmas Flower) now know as the Poinsettia. He also brought home an unflattering stereotype of the Mexican People that endures to this day. In an 1829 letter to Martin Van Buren he described the Mexican character as “Uneducated”, “Lazy”, “Ignorant”, “Immoral”, “Debauched”, “Pagan”, and “Wretched”. He also commented that Mexico had not progressed at all from the time of the Spanish conquest to the Mexican Revolution. All the while advocating for the future U.S. annexation of Texas and California.

Almost 200 years later we have the hosts of the popular British car show “Top Gear” in a recent episode say that if the new Mexican-made Mastretta MXT sports car reflected national qualities it would be “a lazy, feckless, flatulent oaf with a moustache, leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle as a coat.” The Mexican ambassador formally complained and the BBC issued an semi apology saying basically that is was all just jolly good fun.

I have talked with quite a few Mexicans who have seen this episode and their reactions range widely. One friend said that she thought it was funny and no different than when Mexicans make fun of the Spanish. Another friend was really, really angry and felt the Mexican ambassador had not complained strongly enough. Someone else said that Mexico is dealing with very real, very serious problems and doesn’t have time to worry about someone’s feelings getting hurt by some stupid television program.

One of our Peace Corps friends pointed out that, in the U.S., racism is a frequent topic in the media in a way it almost never is here in Mexico. I think he makes a great point. Here you will see people who look like fair-skinned, blue-eyed, northern europeans as well as people who are brown-skinned, brown-eyed, indigenous indians, but all people here identify themselves as Mexican. They are proud of their history, share a common religion, and have forged a unique culture that is a blend of the old and new worlds.

It makes sense we would be more sensitive to racism in the U.S.  After all, we have a long history of immigration and multi-culturalism.  We collectively share a shameful legacy including Black slavery, Indian wars, anti-Semetism, anti-Irish Catholic riots, Japanese internment camps, and others. More recently discrimination against Hispanics has taken the form of “English-Only” movements, “Minuteman” border patrols, and the Arizona “Papers, Please” law. However, there may be reason for hope in the future. New research shows that younger generations reject racial stereotypes and are embarrassed by the overt racial views more common in their parents and grandparents generations.

So are stereotypes ever funny? How should one react when they hear a comment that is Xenophobic (a hatred or fear of foreigners)?  As we were leaving for the Peace Corps, one of our in-laws said, “I wouldn’t go to Mexico, there are too many Mexicans there”. I was silent and didn’t respond. After all he was just making a bad joke. Right?

Next time I will have the “Play Dumb” response ready. “Huh? I don’t understand. Why is that funny? Can you explain that to me? I don’t get it. Do you really believe that?” At least I won’t just sit there feeling awkward. Try it and let us know if it works for you.