Foreigners Between Love and Hate

By Ivonne Mosquera.

From the country I come from we have some kind of fascination with  foreigners. It is very common to open our houses' doors to host them, to invite them to our table, and to please them in anything they need. We enjoy looking at their clothes, corporal expressions, and accents.  Even having a foreigner hosted in our home is a matter of pride and an object of envy in the neighborhood. There is a story about a foreign man who came to a small town in the north coast of my country. He identified himself as an "Indian ambassador". The people there believed he was what he said and every family wanted to honor the "ambassador" at their homes. So, everyday he enjoyed of the most succulent banquets, music and dance performances, and everything he pleased.   This expressive love to foreigners in my country, or the cordial and affective embrace to them is known as Xenophilia.  But what if instead of this warm embracement happens the opposite? Sadly there are subcultures in the world and in the USA that express their hate for the presence of others groups that no share their origin, race, religion, and other cultural aspects. We call this: Xenophobia.

Xenophobia can be seen as a cultural and social phenomena. In Our society, the USA, is very common to see how some reactions of social groups to foreign presence is reflected, for example in the laws of some states as the controversial Arizona SB 1070. This bill was criticized hardly because encourages racial profiling. Even it faced strong opposition by President Barack Obama who said that "it would undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe". Other example of xenophobia are paramilitary groups of "civil police" in the border with Mexico that enjoy playing target shooting, instead of giving human assistance to people who are starving and thirsty. Also in our beloved Philadelphia we were witnesses of a controversial sign posted on a Geno's Steaks' window that said: "This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING please 'SPEAK ENGLISH'". The  Philadelphia  Commission on  Human  Relations filed 

a complaint because they considered it a violation of the city's Fair Practices Ordinance. Arguing that the sign promoted discrimination in public accommodation. Even the same owner himself admitted that the sign were directed at the Mexican immigrants of the neighborhood.  If we continue analyzing the USA reality,  we can also  find numerous cases of xenophobia, among them, the hate to the muslim population, as is showing in the next video:

Xenophobia  phenomena is not new, in fact it is very primitive. N.Meza from monografias.com said that "is very common in ancient cultures, even the Greek, where the city of  Sparta, for example, avoid the entrance of foreigners to its territory.  He explains that prejudices, convictions without foundation, against anything that is foreign triggers or led easily to discrimination. It is materialized by discriminatory actions or omissions in detriment to them.  Also, he explains that xenophobia comes from the generalized ignorance of the population over the Human Rights that difficults a favorable environment of coexistence with foreigners. He notes that one of the characteristics of the Human Rights is the “Universalism", and it means that all human beings in the world have the privilege of enjoy of the same human rights, without discriminatory differences because of their social origin, nationality, age, sex, sexual preferences, religion and so on.  He pointed that this is an idealistic or utopic principle if analyzing the global reality, but I think if every of us change our attitude against others who look different to us, and if we overcome the fear to the unknown and embrace the innumerables benefits that offer the richness of cultural diversity, our community or even our world could  be a nicer place to live.