What makes a community safe? What makes it unified? Is there even a way to determine the level of badness within a city? Hartford has this big stereotype that it is one of the most dangerous cities in Connecticut and that it is very unsafe. However one can never truly believe these stereotypes without actually going into the city and experiencing it for themselves and talking to the people within the city to hear their stories and their perspectives on the city. Hartford has been known to be a place where it’s dangerous walking outside alone no matter what time of day. However, by exploring the city and talking to residents of the city, one is able to deduce that Hartford is a beautiful city that is nothing like the predetermined stereotypes. There is a beneficial relationship between the Hispanic Community and Hartford, a welcoming sense of community due to the people’s interaction with each other and their history in Hartford; that is the best strategy to get rid of the stereotype of Hartford that is bad.

Language plays important role in defining a community’s sense of communication, successfulness, and unity. In the Hartford Community, Spanish is the language most commonly used. There are many Hartford residents who can only speak Spanish and not English whatsoever. A young lady who works in the Cubanitos Bakery did not speak English and when asked if she ever wanted to learn how to speak English she responded by saying: “Yo no lo necesito, it is not necessary to learn it”. She then later explained how in the community she lives in, everyone speaks Spanish and talks to each other in that language because it reminds them of home and from where they come from or migrated/immigrated. By speaking Spanish with each other, the Hartford residents are demonstrating a sense of communication with each other to make sure everyone, those who do or do not speak English, still feel included in the community and thus showing how welcoming they are and united.

“You’re going to an amazing school, but make sure you stay on campus because Hartford is a really dangerous city”. When accepted to one’s first top choice for college, it is reasonable for one to feel excitement. However, if others would first say to be careful in the city the individual is going into school, it is clearly shown that there is a huge stereotype with the city of Hartford because these other people may have never even been to the city itself.  If this is how outsiders from Hartford view the city, how do Hartford residents view the city? The young lady from Cubanitos responded to this question by saying: “He escuchado todos los estereotipos pero no los creí porque necesitaba experimentar Hartford por mí misma (I heard of all the stereotypes but I wanted to experience Hartford myself to see if these stereotypes were true). She explained how when she arrived here and her first few years living and working in Hartford, she saw how everyone who came to work in Hartford came from somewhere else and weren’t residents of Hartford and, for that reason, she thinks these stereotypes are still alive because these people aren’t staying in the city and interacting with the community. With these answers, one is able to analyze why these stereotypes become stronger. The people who come to work here would see all these people outside in the streets and would automatically think that they are criminals when in reality they are out because they have no shelter or in poverty. Walking through the city, one is able to see how even Hartford residents were helping helping out their own by giving the last dollar they had to the homeless and making homeless shelters from abandoned buildings. This young lady from Cubanitos explained to me how only the residents of Hartford help the ones in extreme poverty out in public because everyone else who believes in these stereotypes are too scared to go inside the community and help out.

Through the help from within and the use of Spanish as their main language in the community, Hartford is able to highlight their sense of unity and through this can defeat or combat all of these stereotypes by inviting outsiders to come and experience Harford by first hand.