Characters

Characters

Different people play different characters. When you first see someone, you imagine him as a character you've once seen; you expect him to be that character. Maybe you see a blond; you may imagine her as a naïve girl whom spends a lot of money. Or maybe an African American just joined your P.E. class, he may be good at sports, and just happen to love fried chicken. When you see someone, your brain takes the visual and makes assumptions based on their appearance. Luis Rodriguez is a child immigrant from Mexico. Growing up, he faced difficulties with racism, poverty, and fitting in. Luis sees White folks as oppressors, and Mexicans as laborers or rabble. "I would like to think that my dad was a lab technician, but he was just a lowly janitor". More importantly, because people see Luis as this "cholo"(gangster) character, he inevitably plays to people's expectations.

Just like people expecting Luis to be a gangster, he gives in and becomes on, people usually get what they expect they will. When one is about to shoot a basketball and expect it to in, it will go in. Where as, right when one shoots and doubts he will make the basket, he'll miss the shot. This is the same with people. People play the characters others expect them to play. The reason is something called the Pygmalion effect. In Greek myth Pygmalion was a sculptor who created a female statue and wanted so bad for it to be real that with the help of Aphrodite, it came to life. What psychologists now refer to as the Pygmalion effect is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. What we expect tends to come true. Even if that expectation isn't accurate, we will act in ways consistent with the expected outcome, and in the process our entire physiology and speech reflect this. People have a tendency to respond by adjusting their behavior to match ours. The end result is the expectation becomes true.

A "dumb blond" may not be dumb in the first place, but because people expect her to, she ends up saying or doing dumb things subconsciously. Like when Luis Rodriguez was a little kid, the teachers saw Luis and thought he was futile. Thus Luis subconsciously knew he was disregarded and didn't say a word, not even to use the bathroom.