Stereotypes

I am from a different country and culture and due to my appearance and accent, I was stereotyped many times. I knew I would be stereotyped in America, especially because my favorite sport is basketball and not soccer. However I did not anticipated that the strength of stereotyping was so great. This all started when I made the basketball team in high school, which was fairly good. As I am Latino, short, and not strong, when I told my friends that I made the team none of them believed it. A few people believed me after I told them many times that I was not playing, and that I was really in the basketball team. However, most people only believed me when they saw me playing in the first game. There were a few people that even after watching me playing did not really believe it. I thought that could not get any worse, however, the worst was yet to come. One game day, I and some team members were in the school talking with some girls. As it was game day we had special clothes that only the basketball team members could wear. As it was getting close to the game time, a teacher approached our group and said that from that moment on only the basketball players could stay on the school. The teacher said you girls and you, pointing at me, have to leave. Only after checking with my team members she believed that I was in the basketball team. The opposite happened with the soccer team. I heard from many people that I was the best soccer player of the school, when I had never played soccer in America before. I did make the soccer team but I barely played because all the other people were way better than me.