For your protection: Bullying it’s being monitored by a caring Mom.  Please proceed with CAUTION!

To his parents: You may not know that your son is acting like a bully. He may not know this either. Definitely, it is reasonable.  Acting like a bully is something that is learned when interactions from behaviors he observes in his home and community. Your son treats others unfairly, makes jokes about others, judges by making generalizations, and uses stereotypes to make others feel bad; just because of his lack of understanding of what equality, acceptance, compassion, and caring truly mean.  

To clarify: My son is not an immigrant, my son is not monolingual, my son is not from South or Central America, my son is not a roofer, lawn mower, or churros maker, my son doesn’t play hockey, my son is not idiot, my son is not a millionaire and neither lives in poverty, my son did not cross the river, my son is not illegal and neither are his parents; however, it sounds like your son is confused and uses my son’s looks, last name, cultural heritage, and preferences to bully him everyday in school.  By the way, WHAT IF my son were all the above? It doesn’t give your son the right to mess with him; it doesn’t empower your son to do what he does.  It simply doesn’t give him any rights to injure, offend, and diminish anyone.

Some culture: My son is Bicultural (Fully American, but embraces his family heritage); my son is Bilingual (English is his native language but also speaks fluent Spanish), my son is Bi-literate (Speaks, Listens, Reads and Writes in English but does the same in Spanish); my son was born in United States and has American citizenship as does his parents, my son travels to different countries and relates pretty amazingly when immersed into those cultures, my son has parents that pay taxes and do not ask for free social services; my son plays baseball, soccer, football, and basketball but he doesn’t like to play hockey; it’s not his favorite sport. My son doesn’t live in a trailer park, neither in a million dollar house but has friends from both sides and has a prosperous life; my son is smart and pretty much an average child.  My son is as handsome as yours, my son likes fishing the same as yours, my son has dreams the same as yours, my son loves his family as yours, my son has brothers with green eyes like yours, and has in front of him a wonderful future just as yours.

If you knew him well: Your son hates because he has been taught to hate. He sees differences in a wrong way because he was taught to see them with a negative connotation. He feels empowered because he has been given somehow a weird level of super power. He is cruel with the things he doesn’t understand. There is such a fine line between meanness, social isolation, and bullying and he has trespassed that line already. Yes, I know being culturally responsible is not an easy task; can’t be bought in a grocery store, neither developed by practicing it as we have our own bias, self beliefs, patriotic culture, and perceptions; but definitely can be manageable by having more empathy and some sort of sense of respect.

Do your research: Teaching your son about multicultural role models and ordinary people, serves as an effective method for demonstrating that people of all genders, ethnicities, and appearances can have a positive influence on the world and deserve to be respected and emulated; they are easy to find  just walk around your community, public library, search Google, visit his school; you will find tons of them!  Build Empathy.  Talk about the struggles all human’s face. Help your son to respect all people, especially those who may look, speak, act, or seem different from him.  Be a role model. Act the way you want your son to behave. Sons who hear adults using unkind or put down words to describe people that they do not like, will use the same language.

Teach respect. Respect my son’s desire to honor his family language, to love his country but also mine; to love Pop but Latin music too, to like baseball player Bryce Harper and Jose Altuve as well! I just want my son fostering global awareness and building acceptance within his friends. I don’t want my son to feel pressured to dispose of their bicultural norms, behaviors, and traditions in order to fit in with the prevalent social order where he goes to school. He won’t. He will always appreciate the wonderful things ahead of him due to his talents, bilingual skills, and cultural knowledge.

For Your Information: I will continue doing my part, please do yours; it will give your son a valuable life lesson.