Perceiving to be Equal
In Helping, Fixing or Serving?, Remen states perfectly the differences between helping, fixing, and serving. “When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken” (Remen, 1). This statement pertains to putting people into a category of “the other” because when you help or fix, you’re changing what YOU think is wrong and how YOU think it would be better. This constructs people who are “helped” as others by putting them into a category of being weaker than the person who is helping. During the service learning orientation, we talk about how one will be serving the community, not helping them. This is because “a helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality” (Remen, 1). One should not be doing any favors for others because the other will feel like they need to repay you somehow, thus feeling the inequality.
Illich pleads Americans to not come to Mexico to help because he feels like Americans are being hypocrites. Americans have “Sentimental concern for newly-discovered poverty south of the border combined with total blindness to much worse poverty at home justified such benevolent excursions” (Illich, 1). Americans go into Latin American countries with the intentions of bringing good and changing their society for “the better”. “You, like the values you carry, are the products of an American society o achievers and consumers, with its two-party system, its universal schooling, and its family-car affluence” (Illich, 2). Sometimes unconsciously, Americans go into different countries to sell these ideas that they don’t realize, are ideas that are not always possible to achieve. This puts Mexicans into the group of “the other”.
At first, I wasn’t sure what my role was at Young Moms Marin. But, as I got more involved I realized I was serving them and not just there to help or fix. I’m sure that at the start I was categorizing the mothers as others, but as I got to know them more, we became equals. I started learning from them as much as they were learning from me. Regardless of us having our differences, I saw the similarities, which helped me serve them rather than trying to fix them. “When we serve we see and trust that wholeness. We respond to it and collaborate with it. And when we see the wholeness in another, we strengthen it” (Remen, 1). Fixing them would mean I see them as broken, and not because of their personal problems, but because they don’t fit into the picture society has created. Therefore, I look at the wholeness behind each person and we work together to be better overall. By being with these mothers for the last 3 years, I feel like I am becoming one with this group. Remen states “serving requires us to now that our humanity is more powerful than our expertise” (Remen, 2). I took this as using my humanity to be with these girls rather than looking at how I may be better at certain things than them. Humanity is what allows one to serve, otherwise it is helping or fixing, which is a more selfish act than selfless.
At this point in the semester, I believe that the people at Young Moms Marin see themselves as “the Other” due to the fact that they are mainly Hispanic and young mothers who are living at the poverty line. They do not see themselves as equals, mainly because dominant culture oppresses them. Calderon states, “Certain individuals or groups have the power to define dominant culture, and therefore the power to oppress or liberate others” (Calderon, 1). The “certain individuals or groups” are the, [for lack of a better description], white, educated families. They are the ones who put these mothers into groups and make them different and oppress them. An example of this occurring was when one of the mothers went to pick up their child from school and other mothers looked at them in disgust. Most of these perspectives toward young mothers have been influenced through television and through one or two encounters. People have tendencies to have very little experiences but to create generalizations, which lead to having set perspectives.
I, for one, was able to practice perspective-taking and relate to the mothers. “In this way, the practice of perspective-taking becomes a useful tool in understanding the beyond. Students learn to value the perspective of the “other”: the poor, the worker, the oppressed, the immigrant, or the person of another color, class, gender, or sexuality” (Calderon, 4). I also do not agree with some of the perspectives the mothers have, regardless of the experiences they have had. Two negative perspectives do not make a positive one. I agree with Calderon when he states that democracy is “‘the ideal that all human beings have equal value, deserve equal respect, and should be give equal opportunity to fully participate in the life and direction of the society’” (Calderon, 1).
For the second half of the semester, and my final time with YMM, I would like to see if their perspectives have changed since I first met them 3 years ago. Now that they are 3 years older, 3 years more mature, and 3 years more experienced in life, have their perspectives on the world and people in their communities changed? I know they have gotten stronger by creating a stronger friendship within their group, and by just being stronger individuals. If I could learn this from them, I know I’d be okay because I do not know anyone who has gone through as much as each one of them have had to deal with. This is how they will have served me.
