17 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3
Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5424 days ago
616 posts - 725 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish
| Message 17 of 17 23 January 2010 at 11:04pm | IP Logged |
Ncruz wrote:
This is a fascinating thread.
I was born in Puerto Rico, but have lived all of my life in the Colorado. My mom is American and I consider myself to be pretty bilingual (I use Spanish often to communicate with my Dad, and almost exclusively with my aunt who just moved from Puerto Rico and lives with us and the rest of that side of my family). English is certainly my dominant language, but nobody in Puerto Rico or any other Spanish-speaking country I have visited has really suspected me of being American. But, I'm sad to say, I have NEVER spoken Spanish at length with a native speaker at my high school or about town. The reason, sadly, is that I don't look like the Spanish speakers (mainly mestizo Mexicans) here think a "Hispanic" person should look(I have pretty pale skin,very light brown hair, and green eyes). I would love to speak Spanish with some of the Mexicans at my school because they're great people, but they simply won't let me and are constantly trying to change the conversation back to English. I initially thought that this was because they felt uncomfortable speaking Spanish or felt that my Spanish was unacceptable. I finally began to believe that it was a matter of ethnicity, rather than either of these two things earlier this year. In my French class, I was speaking Spanish with a girl who is learning Spanish and a Mexican kid in my class (who's always very nice to me and I consider to be somewhat of a friend) suddenly blurts, "You have a great accent, you sound like a native.......except you're white." Unsure of how to take this "compliment". I tried to initiate a conversation with him in Spanish to explain to him that I AM sort of a native,
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Haha I'm in the opposite situation pretty much, I have had (non-Hispanic) people ask me if I'm Hispanic (the Hispanics at my high school know I'm not hispanic, even though I have a lot of Hispanic friends) and I'm not (I also had someone ask me if I was a guido). I'm Irish and a small part American Indian, so I kind of look Hispanic. I just don't know Spanish...yet.
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