The Organization for Latin American Students (OLAS) hosted an event on Tuesday evening in Kessel Student Center’s Butcher Suite to inform Pace University students on the “ignorance” many people have when it comes to stereotypes about different races in American society.

The members of the OLAS executive board each presented pictures of people of different races and asked the students in attendance to guess what race they were.

They challenged students to question the basis on which they form their stereotypes of other people and made them aware that what they think they see might not always be true.

Students had their own opinion on what stereotypes were.

Freshman Jeremy Soto believes that stereotypes are based off where you are from.

“If you live in an area that you mostly see one race you’re not going to be open to different cultures and ethnicities,” Soto said “I’m from Patterson, New Jersey and there is a variety of Italians and African Americans, Hispanics, and Arabs.”

Soto explained that at Pace University he sees very little difference in stereotypes than where he is from.

“I feel like the campus is really diverse,” Soto said. “But race-wise they sort of guess what race you are before actually seeing you or asking you.”

OLAS addressed the problems of people making assumptions of a person’s race or background based on what they look like and asked what students think when someone assumes that they “look Dominican.”

Senior Imerlyn Ventura thinks that people have false interpretations of what Dominicans look like.

“The issue is when people think that there is only one specific feature for Dominicans, we don’t have one. Christopher Columbus came and colonized Española, which is now the Dominican Republic/ Haiti,” Ventura said. “So we’re a mixture of African Americans and Europeans, we really have no actual features. It’s so funny to me when people say you look Dominican because I’m like, what does that mean?”

OLAS Senator Brandon Stephens feels that at Pace there are a lot of stereotypes in all different aspects of campus life.

“There’s stereotypes in Greek life, there’s stereotypes in classes, there’s stereotypes between students and teachers,” Stephens said.

However, Stephens says that informing the Pace Community about stereotypes through events like “Stop the Ignorance” is a way to help.

“Pace can’t really stop stereotypes because stereotypes are such a broad and global aspect. But I feel that people should be more comfortable in explaining what they mean instead of hiding behind a stereotype,” Stephens said. “That’s what a stereotype is. It’s people not understanding what one culture does compared to another or compared to themselves.”

Stephens encourages more students to come to OLAS events and be involved in making a change on campus.

“You don’t have to be Hispanic, you can be white, black, Asian, you can be anything.” Stephens said. “You can come to OLAS tell us your story, how you grew up, how you handle stereotypes because were not you. You have to show us, you have to put us in your footsteps for us to understand that we are people and that we all have our own problems.”