The more I travel, the more I realize I may have chosen the wrong profession. I should have been a spy given that people from all over the world approach me in different languages in assumption that I am from a certain region. I call myself “ethnically ambiguous”. When I was deployed in Iraq, our local partners would just start speaking to me in Arabic although my uniform displayed my very Latin last name. When I was in Southern Thailand, people spoke to me in Thai like I was their neighbor. When I was working in Senegal, the Tuareg nomads we were working with thought my parents came from Mauritania. From my years of living abroad in Belgium, South Korea, Germany, and Japan I would get into a similar discussion:
Local: “Where are you from?
Me: “I’m American”
Local: “Yes, but where are you REALLY from? Where are your parents from?
Me: “I grew up between Puerto Rico and New York, both part of the United States of America. No, really I am American”
I don’t think people do it with ill will, they’re just fueled with curiosity on how this brown girl that doesn’t look like anything they’ve seen in imported American television ended up in their part of the world. My circle of friends from college are mostly children of immigrants. I travel a lot with my Chinese-American best friend, Jaime. When some folks saw us walking together in Brussels, Paris or Cologne, speaking plain, non-accented English… they looked puzzled.
My most recent trip was to Sicily last week. On my way back to Amsterdam, I had to make a stopover in Rome. The ladies sitting next to me on the flight were Moroccan. The lady next to me gave me that “I wonder where she’s from” look and started small talk with me, telling me that she’s Moroccan and headed back home to visit family. She asked me where I was from. I said New York because I truly had no energy to break down my ethnic origins, she looked kinda dissapointed. I know she was digging deeper to know if I had Northern African background and perhaps to start a conversation in order to make the flight go faster…
When I chat with my other friends who are Asian or Latino in the USA, many encounter the same experiences abroad. It starts with a simple “Where are you from” and Queens or Florida doesn’t cut it if you look “other”. Like I said before, I don’t see these questions in a negative light, people are just naturally curious. For many outside the United States, America is black and white – this is what they see in TV shows, magazines, and other imported entertainment. The interesting part is that as more culturally diverse we become in our society, our media (especially travel media) becomes less reflective of what the reality on the ground is, especially in my current home city of Washington, DC.
This year, given the current political climate there has been a discussion of what’s really considered to be “American”. Every country I have visited, locals have an opinion, some positive, some negative of what being “American” means. In many ways I feel I am an informal ambassador to a side of America that many people outside of the country don’t get to see. I usually tell them that America is many things, most importantly, it’s a land of 300 million people who have a wide spectrum of customs, beliefs, and origins. Those are some of the things that makes me feel the proudest of being an American: the diversity. Although it takes a little explaining sometimes, it is fun to share that English is not my first language, that I think both in English and Spanish, I speak both languages without an accent, my parents, although born in Puerto Rico (a US territory) have been US Citizens since birth, and I grew up on a little tropical island called Puerto Rico. Despite the fact that people don’t get to see that side of America abroad because the media doesn’t care much about it, I am American.
More about my experiences living and working abroad, read my “Latina Abroad” story.
Oh I can very much relate to your story! Thanks for making this point!
Thanks for stopping by!
Story of my life!
I’m Dominican-American, born in New York but raised in Santiago. You can only imagine the level of difficulty that is trying to explain my ethnicity/identity to folks. I often times just boil it down to a very blunt “New York” answer because sometimes it’s just easier and truth be told, it’s what I identify with most these days.
Cheers!
Chels
http://www.chelseaasoflate.com
I know that feeling! So frustrating when “I was born in NY” or “I live in DC” doesn’t cut it!! LOL
Fascinating amiga! Beautifully put. How lucky you are to have that amazing background. Thanks for sharing! XO
http://cafesocietyxxi.blogspot.de/
I totally agree with your sentiments about feeling like an ambassador. I spent 40 days in Europe this summer and have never answered so many political questions in my life. Folks are so curious and I blew folks away by telling them I was straight from the USA. It’s nice to blow stereotypes out of the water though. Keep it up!
Thanks! Yes, this summer was a tough one with all the election questions… ugh! Don’t they know I was on vacay!
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