Opinion: Stereotypes, Identity and Language

Anna Lee Mraz Bartra / Peninsula 360 Press

When I was 5 years old I told my parents that I was half Mexican, half American and half Catalan. They laughed at my terrible math skills (to this day) but accepted the thrust of my statement which is that I considered myself part of all three cultures. 

My father is American, grew up in California in the 50's, met my mother in the 80's in the US and moved with her to Mexico City where I was born 5 years later. 

My mother was born in Mexico to Catalan parents who fled the civil war in Spain. 

I grew up listening to The Eagles, Joan Manuel Serrat and some Cuban salsa. My mother would sing me nursery rhymes in Catalan and I would listen to her talk to her mother, brother and cousins in Catalan. 

I don't have a drop of Mexican blood in my body. I have blue-green eyes and yellow hair that I inherited from my Catalan grandfather. I don't look "Mexican," but I open my mouth and I can recite the entire alphabet of slang swear words, I sing all the lyrics to Café Tacuba songs, and my accent is no different than any other accent in the southern part of Mexico City.

I haven't always understood that this came with privilege, white privilege. Even though I don't come from a wealthy family and my parents have earned every penny they own through hard work, they've probably had it easier than people who look indigenous, brown or black.

Every time I get into a taxi in Mexico City, the driver usually asks me where I am from, I answer truthfully "from here around the corner", - "you speak with an accent"-, he reacts, I laugh and wonder what accent he is referring to, the conversation ends there. I understand that people see a white woman and that doesn't always match their description of Mexican, so for them, there must be some other explanation. Yes, they charge me more at the market because white in Mexico means rich. 

But I understand that being treated differently also comes with getting a better job and having access to certain places that come with a lot of benefits (i.e. privileges). Even though I don't have a lot of economic advantages, I know that I have more formal educational advantages than migrants and people of color. I can only try to use those advantages to step aside to make a way for them and learn from disadvantaged people, to level the field. 

The language is not what makes me Mexican. It's my memories as a child in my parents' kitchen eating jicama, cucumber and carrots - sometimes even tomatoes, which I learned from my oldest and closest friend - with lemon, chile and salt. 

I am American not only because my father made an effort to speak English to me, but because we cooked a turkey together for Christmas Day and often visited friends and family in the United States. When I went to live in the U.S. house in the Cité Universitaire in Paris, I asked my friends if they thought I had an accent when I spoke English. They said it was more of a "twang" than an accent. Later that day I joined everyone in the kitchen for dinner, opened the door excited with the news and announced loudly, "Timothy and Julia say I have a big "WANG" (penis)! Everyone started laughing, of course. Then they had to explain to me what the word "wang" meant and the difference with "twang". This became a joke for years to come. 

I've always felt Catalan, as I used to travel to a small village outside Barcelona twice a year to be with my grandmother until her death and I kept certain traditions like the caga-tiò, even to this day. But I understand that to some Catalans I don't seem... original, in a sense. Catalans despise the children and grandchildren of the Civil War refugees who spread all over the world when they fled Spain. To begin with, our language is misplaced. We learned a language that was in vogue last century and most of us look different because our other half probably mixed in some other DNA from another part of the world. I know this is the case for my whole family. After spending time in Catalonia I would come home and teach my cousins the "correct" pronunciation of the letter "ll", the other day my cousin who lives in Australia reminded me of this when I asked him what they spoke at home. "While my partner speaks Spanish to our daughter, I speak Catalan because it's part of who we are".

So I understand the identity issues. In a sense, I can understand the cultural identity issues that some people in the Latino community in the United States experience. They struggle to navigate between the two cultures, never fully fitting into one or the other. I understand that language can be a sensitive issue for Latinas who don't speak Spanish.

I agree with the author of "I'm Hispanic... but I don't speak Spanish" Nicole Stanley: 

"Although language is an important part of one's culture, it is not the only important thing. Culture is about your family and its traditions: food, stories, music, and faith. Even if you don't know the language, you can still participate in the culture and embrace it. You are a part of your family and its history, no matter how good your Spanish is." 

I completely agree with this statement because not speaking Spanish does not make you any less Latina and part of our culture; neither does my lack of melanin. 

But I will also argue that language shapes the mind in a way that shows you a different perspective on life and ways of looking at it. This is why some words are not translatable. Like saudade in Portuguese, for example. O wabi-sabi in Japanese, including sakura in this same language. Words that, if I start describing, I would need several paragraphs to get the meaning across. I will say that "sweet and sour" is a mediocre translation of saudade. That wabi-sabi is a way of life, and sakura is not just a flower, but a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life. 

Besides, learning a language is a lot of work. Like most things that are worthwhile in life, and are a fruitful and rewarding experience in the end, like dancing or cooking. It requires patience, discipline, interest and curiosity. 

When I was 18 my parents and I lived in Rio, Brazil. When my parents saw me dance they looked at me with embarrassment, then pointed their index fingers at each other, but still couldn't understand how on earth they had produced a girl with so little sense of rhythm, when they both considered themselves good dancers. 

I myself questioned my lack of rhythm, being a Latina at the end, I set about the immediate task of catching up on some Latin steps. It was work. I started with samba, and of course, I liked it so much that I then took some Forro and Capoeira. When I got back to Mexico I took belly dancing classes and added salsa, then merengue, bachata. I got so into dancing that I became a teacher, and then we won a university competition. Now it's as much a part of who I am as language and food. It was hard work, but it was worth it in the end. 

My husband grew up in Mexico but moved to the US in his early twenties, he spoke no English at all. He took ESL courses and, when he was able to communicate, decided to go to an accent course at the University of SF. Yes, this is something. 

He learned to pronounce words better and eventually began to lose his Latin accent, which is when he stopped going. He understood that being Latino was an important part of his identity and decided he didn't want to lose that. 

I recently saw a video on YouTube that questioned Sofia Vergara's accent... Is it fake? Well, the video argued that Sofia went to accent school when she first moved to the U.S., but then landed her role on Modern Family that required it, so she dropped the lessons and went on to somewhat exaggerate her accent for the role. We'd have to ask her, but I'm willing to bet it's become part of her personality now and, well, it sells. 

This doesn't bother me in the case of Sofia Vergara because she is, in fact, a Latina. She can speak however she wants and in whatever language she wants, as far as I'm concerned. However, I am bothered by the fact that some people ride, or try to ride the minority bandwagon in order to get something out of it. One example is the now well-known case of Jessica Krug, the George Washington University professor who claimed to be Afro-Caribbean from the Bronx and was, in fact, a white Jewish woman from the suburbs of Kansas City. 

A colleague of his told the Washington Post that he had defended Krug in the past against suspicious colleagues. In retrospect, he recalls clues to the deception including his "obviously inexperienced salsa dancing" and his "horrible New York accent".

My great-grandmother, who was a white woman from somewhere in Oklahoma, stated to my father's Indian friend, Robert Chakanaka, that she was 1/8 Cherokee. Robert, who was Cherokee, laughed and said "yes, everyone is or wants to be part of the Indian culture now". 

It can be an endearing story when the old woman wants to be nice and engage with her grandson's friend. But when cultural appropriation is used for political self-interest, or even accusing people of similar ethnic descent of being racist for political reasons or martyr tendencies, it becomes a problem. 

I am proud to be half Catalan, half American and half Mexican. All my cultures have traditions to be happy about and they are all part of what makes me what I am. I would not be who I am today without them. I understand the pros and cons of all my cultures, the privileges and struggles of each, and I take it all in. 

People might tell you that you're not really American or you're not really Hispanic, but don't put yourself in that box. People are curious and questions aren't used as a means to attack you, they could just be inquiry. Accept being who you are, and work to be the best version of who you want to be. 

Like I said, work. Don't like something about yourself? Whether you weren't spoken to in a certain language growing up or you lost the rhythm in your Latin steps, work to change it. It's not about whose fault it is, it's about whose responsibility it is. 

It's not just language that makes someone part of a culture. It's the different perspectives that bring something to the food, music and traditions of your new home. 

As we move towards a more hybrid world we need to be open to erasing old stereotypes about language, color, and ethnicity in general. We need to accept that diversity is what truly constitutes us, ourselves, and makes us stronger as a society.

Anna Lee Mraz Bartra has a PhD in sociology and is a university professor. She lives in Redwood City.