More than most Americans don’t know Spaniards are white Europeans. They also think Spanish comes from Mexico. Ignorance at its best…
Where did you get the statistics on these observations?
The former is unlikely; the latter, absurd.
You mean Carlos Estevez (aka Charlie Sheen) and Cameron Diaz aren’t Mexicans?
True fact - since I never left Texas until I was in my 20’s, I assumed that all brown-skinned, black-haired, Spanish-speaking people were Mexicans.
Then one day when I was in the Marines, I met a young girl from Florida named Castro. I assumed she was Mexican. Suffice to say, I was very strongly rebuked.
(BTW–I would have assumed that a person named “Ramos” or “Palacios” is from south of the border, too.)
Ill just re-iterate
Deduce it yourself moron.
P.S. when did I write that? I’m a U.S. citizen now but I never say I’m from the U.S…I’m cool with people from any spanish speaking country…and trust me, not the dumbest of the lot.
If there’s a good chance more than most Americans don’t know Spaniards are white Europeans, wouldn’t it be safe to say that nearly all of those Americans would assume Spanish comes from a Latin American country?
I was born in the U.S., but my parents are from Spain. When I tell people I’m Spanish and speak Spanish, they give me this “that can’t be” look because I’m white/caucasian and have light eyes. It happens everywhere I go in this country…
You are an ignorant fool - and your boss a bigger one.
You and I must not run in the same social circles.
You conclusion seems to rest on your hypothesis: most Americans don’t know Spaniards are white Europeans. I’d like to see some data on that, more than just your personal observations.
Has anyone (e.g., Gallup) conducted a poll?
I’m always struck by the fact that many people (albeit generally the less educated) in the New York area will say “she’s a Spanish girl” or “they’re Spanish,” when what they really mean is “they speak Spanish at home.” Usually, the people described as spanish are Puerto Rican or Dominican.
Perhaps 120 years ago, when Puerto Rico and Cuba were actual Spanish colonies (though I think the Dominican Republic became independent more than half a century before that), it was possible to say that such people were indeed Spanish, because they were subjects of the Spanish empire. Perhpas that language simply hasn’t changed over time. People say it because their parents said it, etc…
On the other hand, growing up in California, where Mexicans are definitely the dominant spanish-speaking group, I don’t recall anyone calling Mexicans “spanish,” though we still said (accurately) that they spoke Spanish. I didn’t really understand until later what “Chicano” meant for a long time (as far as I can tell, it means “Mexican cultural background, but living (and often born) in the US,” which makes much more sense out west, since about half of the West was taken by the US in the Mexican-American War, which is the only true war of territorial conquest that the United States aggresively pursued. When the US took Mexican territory, lots of Mexicans were still living there.
As an aside, one can make an argument that the genocide against native americans was also a war of conquest, just never declared.
I think it’s true that lots of Americans encounter so many Spanish-speakers from Latin America in daily life and hollywood stereotypes that they can forget that there are also Spanish-speakers from Spain. I think they talk funny, but it’s a cute accent, and I have to say that I have a soft spot for Andalusian woman. I hear the accent and think “pleath, talk thome more!”
Lots of Americans also don’t seem to realize or remember (Shakira? Sofia Vergara? Lionel Messi?) that there are many Latin Americans who look basically white, including much of Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, the upper classes in Mexico and Peru and Cuba (Fidel looks pretty white). On the East Coast of the US, I suspect it is because the Latin American groups are dominated by carribean spanish speakers, which generally have more miscegination between the Spanish colonials and the native and former slave populations, and on the West Coast, whiter Latin Americans find it advantageous to “pass as white” when they can.
Mexico is a particularly interesting case study in race relations. You have “white” Mexicans down to the darker, more Mayan-type looking Mexicans. The caste system is still pretty strong there.
My take is that obviously americans know spanish comes from spain. They also get that spaniards are from spain (europe). The confusion comes from the skin tone. I think they assume the skin tone in spain is slightly darker than it is. This is not totally out of the question as obviously Europe exists on a spectrum just as north america does, with people in maine and alaska being all pasty and gross and people in arizona and socal having some deep tan, just as italy and spain both have populations with generally darker skin (and generally darker hair, although i understand that blondes exist in both populations) than say people in the UK, Norway and Ireland.
It’s just the degree of tan (or lack there of) in Spain that sometimes catches people in the US off guard. You also have to realize that most of our perceptions are based on movie casting if we haven’t seen it first hand. Which is why everyone thinks I’m in the military when I travel overseas, I just look like the cast type. Also, in the middle east and a few other non european countries I always ran into the idea that people assumed all americans were crazy fit, which puzzled me at first, until I realized this was primily based on the movies they watched and the fact that people who travel to far flung non-traditional tourist places are typically not lazy and obese. I always laugh and correct them I don’t htink they take me seriuosly. It’s the same reason we think all Spaniards look like Penelope Cruz. If we need a Spanish person in a movie, they cast someone who obviously fits the perception.
Yeah, I spent a few months in Costa Rica and Mexico back in my college days. Trying to get into any club in Mexico with one my black classmates was consistently an infuriating experience. Costa Ricans are all, “no, no, we’re white, the Guatamalans are black” with all the associated undertones. I love Latin America, but the open racism is pretty cray, although to be fair the US is just more covert about it so I’m not trying to say we’re better.
I doubt it’s documented. It’s just been my experience when dealing with the public.
What’s sad is that some of the successful lawyers I work with had no clue about Spain or Spanish culture until they met me. When I told them I’m half Basque and half Castilian, I got the blank stare. More than most people I meet in public think I’m Italian because of my southern European features. I’ve even been called a Swiss guy…
This guy at work once called me white, I had to remind him i’m a Jewish-German-Italian-Russian-Turkish-Swedish-Welsh-American
Gets so annoying correcting these foos all the time!
I agree with this observation. Skin tone has nothing to do with being caucasian. It’s your bone structure that makes you look the way you do. If you painted Lebron James white, he would still look black/African. Mediterranean, Alpine, and Nordic types all have different skin tones - probably due to climate conditions over thousands of years, but they all fall into the same group. Some anthropologists have never been able to figure out why the French are darker on average than the Spanish though the French fall into the Alpine type and are further North. I’ll add that Arabs, northern Africans, and Western Asians (Iranian, Pakistani, etc.) also fall into the caucasoid type - again, examples of skin tone having nothing to do with bone structure.
The rest of the world always give us unfair flack in my mind. A lot of countries in Europe are roughly the size of US states and they give themselves credit for being international because they’ve gone from Spain to Germany or Italy, etc (not saying this is your case) all within Europe. Then they turn up their nose at Americans’ that travel within an equally diverse nation but haven’t been to Europe. They say, well Europe is more diverse. Really? The five boroughs of NYC are more diverse than parts of Europe. Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, California, Florida and Iowa are least as different from one another as any two countries in Europe when you consider the population and geography. I get the cultural heritage thing, but that’s just as arrogant and self indulgent as the attitude they’re attributing to the US. I have people in Portugal talk about how people in the US don’t know the capital, but they can’t quote the capital of Ohio which is both larger and more populated. Someone in Morroco was suprised I knew about the geography because most Americans are ignorant to her and I asked her what states neighbor Texas. Same deal. The point is that’s great that the world have some level of familiarity with the US because of the current state of affairs but I’m not going to walk up to our CEO and give him shit for not knowing who I am. Particularly when my actual knowledge of the individual is no more detailed than their knowledge of me. Just calling your peripheral state within the Euro a country doesn’t automatically increase its population, geographical footprint, or actual impact on current events so it wouldn’t hurt to ease up on the American thing.
Wait until they learn that the Basques have bagpipes.
HAHAHAH!! On top of that, wait until they learn we invented Jai Alai and run with bulls for fun…
It’s not absurd though. The original essay could have been written better if the person had a deeper understanding of where we come from…but that does not really change the truth of its conclusion. The results of the experiment are in; perhaps some gains from diversity, but lots of tensions between the tribes. The various human tribes were separated by around 1500 generations (that’s the real issue). That was just enough time for some differences to form. And the differences are just enough that you can’t just throw those people together today and expect it to run smoothly. This also gets into the tribal nature of humans, and perceived differences of “those people” vs real differences. But it doesn’t really matter real or perceived, same outcome - social discord. Of course everyone is going to say the cliche things they have been programmed to say by their culture, the “politically correct” thing, but I just point out the truth - the experiment shows material tensions persist between tribes despite brainwashing that “we are all the same”, and there are reasons for that (see paragraph two).
Then why do the same tribes in different countries get along differently?
not gonna wipe ma tears. look at me. am not racist.