Stereotypes In Mother's Tongue By Claude M Steele

How important are stereotypes to you? Do you find yourself listening to stereotypes? Stereotypes are a big part of life because almost every group has them. We can even find ourselves to believe a stereotype to be true. In the book Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes Affect Us And What We Can Do by Claude M. Steele, Steele introduces the concepts of Identity Contingency, Stereotype threat, and stigma to his readers. These ideas are also well shown throughtout the short essay “Mother’s Tongue” by Amy Tan. In “Mother’s Tongue” Amy’s mother deals with identity contingencies of being Asian, she also faces the pressue of sterotype threat. Finally, Amy’s mother deals with the stigma of her language speaking. These two piecies of writing deal with

The author Claude M. Steele first introduces the idea of identity contingency on page 3. He says “This book is about what my colleagues and I call identity contingencies-the things you have to deal with in a situation because you are (o)ld, young, gay, a white male, a woman, black, latino,politically conservative or liberal, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a cancer patient, and so on.” Essentially, Steele is saying anyone of these or more identities will deal with identity contingencies throughout their life. The author also gives his own example of his experience with identity contingency. At the beginning of chapter 1 Claude talks about the time when he first realized he was black. He learns that because of his race he was only allowed to go to the swimming pool on Wednesday afternoons. (p. 1,2) According to Claude he takes this situation as being a condition of life. He says” I was recognizing nothing less than a condition of life- most important a condition of life tied to my race, to my being black in that time and place (Claude, 2).” Secondly, he then talks about stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is the fear of confirming a stereotype. In the book stereotype threat is described as being a standard predicament of life, Claude explains that as a society we have a good understanding