Armenians in Vegas

My family and I are spending Christmas in Las Vegas this year. This was pretty much prompted by my aunt wanting to go to see an Armenian singer named Tata perform at the Paris Hotel (click link for a youtube video of him). Tata is a pretty famous singer in the Armenian community so having this performance in Vegas (the first of its kind) was a big deal and EVERYONE came. By everyone I mean the entire Armenian community- or at least it feels like it. Now every culture has its [stereotypical] flaws and such. However, growing up surrounded by Armenians, I have learned one thing- we are not cheap people. We are a part of a community that enjoys helping each other out. It is just a part of who we are and how we were raised (which is pretty much the same for all of us since a majority of the Armenians in the United States are 1st generation). Well imagine my surprise and disbelief when we were confronted with a taxi driver that said that us "Armenians are cheap and never tip".

You see, we are staying at the Venetian and were on our way to the forum shops at Caesars Palace. We were all chatting amongst ourselves and got in the taxi and realized as soon as well pulled away from the hotel that we had forgotten to tip the guy that opened the door for us. The taxi driver we had immediately asked if we were Persian. When we responded that we were Armenian, his reaction was something along the lines of "Oh, that explains it. You guys never tip." Really? I could have sworn that we had tipped pretty much everyone that deserved a tip all day long and yet once we forget to tip one gentleman, our entire culture is labeled?

Has no one learned yet that the action of one person does not represent their entire race? Have we not grown as a society? I think it is awful that we still label and stereotype people. I think it is even worse that during this trip (and in my first post actually), that I did the same thing. I jokingly will make fun of my own culture but I have never meant to actually stereotype them in a negative sense. It is just fun to poke fun at our little quirks.