Not Too Different, Are We?

My Caribbean background has often caused people to attach a variety of erroneous typecasts to my person. While most of the time I have considered them to be annoying, comments such as, “but you’re not black” still make me laugh.

I like to think that, like most people, I’m not what people expect when they judge me according to my ethnic background. I actually don’t possess many of the most characteristic features accorded to a person of Caribbean roots.

I am:
1. Not laid-back
2. Not loud (when I’m sober)
3. Don’t have a mixed, semi-distinguishable accent or latch phrase, like “Ju know”.
4. And unlike many Latino-Caribbeans, I am capable of speaking,pure English and pure Spanish without difficulty, rather than the odd colloquial mixture of both, otherwise known as “Spanglish”.

Like me (or so I would to think), Spain, COMPLETELY defied expectations…

Being from a colonial and post colonial background, where I myself have seen many a new Spanish settler position himself above my mulato race with a simple scowl, I was under the impression the Spain must be characterized by a superior societal and cultural refinement.

It was with great and almost vengeful pleasure that I realized, “Dang, Spanish people are LOUD and rarely sober. They are ultra-laid-back with undistinguishable accents, mad colloquialisms and absurd latch phrases”… Not to stereotype or anything.