Spay-dar (Spanish Radar)
04/20/10
[Apologies for the failed attempt at cleverness with the title. I welcome suggestions]
Assuming things about people is a dangerous thing, but it’s human nature. I’m sure there is some evolutionary-psychological explanation for why we form opinions about people when we first look at them: group survival, territoriality, escaping potential mates going through midlife crises and carrying tons of emotional baggage, fear of commitment, and credit card debt. And as much as I consider myself an open-minded person, I too assume things about people all the time and I don’t like it, because it diminishes my ability to learn and appreciate.
Photo by Batara
Because of this, I’m also careful to raise my children with as little exposure as possible to any racial, ethnic, political, social, sexual, gender, or comedic bias that may permeate through what I inadvertently say. So how in the world do you explain my 2.5 year-old boy Gabriel going around, daringly speaking Spanish to strangers, based (seemingly) on the way they look?
It hasn’t happend just once, twice, or three times. I’ve already lost count. We’ll be at the park (we live in a pretty diverse neighborhood with a nice mix of white, black, hispanic, east african, american indian, and asian people), and a “hispanic-looking” person will walk by and be stopped in their tracks by a very forceful “Hola!” from Gabriel.
Bear in mind that I have several Latin American friends who look “white” (not all of them are cute black-haired little things like me,) and at the bilingual daycare my sons go to there are white children who partake in the Spanish-speaking. So I would assume that my boy’s experience is that people of many colors may or may not speak Spanish.
The most interesting part of this phenomenon has been that, every time, Gabriel has been right. So invariably, he gets an enthusiastic “Hola, ¿Cómo estás?” back from the innocently-racially-profiled person.
This past weekend, Gabriel and I were walking around the lake looking for geese we could taunt, when a young girl with fair skin and long, light brown hair mostly hidden under her helmet, rode by us on her bike. Gabriel looked up at her and yelled “Hola!” to which the girl gave an “Hola!” right back as quickly and as naturally as if they were two neighborhood kids running into each other at a park in Bogotá.
So I thought: “Aha! Your spay-dar is not infallible, you little stinker. You just said “Hola” to an ‘Anglo’ girl who just happened to know the word ‘Hola'”
Four or five seconds later, someone called out to the girl, in Spanish, from down the road and when I looked in that direction, I saw a group of people who appeared to be her family and whom we later found (when they caught up with us on the trail) to be speaking in Spanish to one other.
Some people find my looks to be “generically ethnic,” so I have been told I look anything from unequivocally Colombian to possibly Mexican, Middle Eastern, Romanian Jewish, Spaniard from Andalucia, Italian, etc, etc, etc. Once, a guy spoke to me in Arabic and then got frustrated with me when I told him I didn’t speak the language! But I’ll have to assume that if Gabriel didn’t know me and saw me riding my bike in the park, he would think I look like a kind, handsome stranger and greet me effusively “Hola!”
I plan to vigilantly watch for his ‘spay-dar’ to fail so I can give him an impassioned speech on open-mindedness and tolerance. Or maybe I should learn from him instead and say what naturally comes to mind, make that human connection, and shrug it off if I was wrong, because all that matters is that I made somebody smile.
Note: No, we don’t taunt geese.
My son who is now 5 has been practicing ‘linguistic profiling’ since he was 2. Not only did he do what your own son does, but he would also go up to a person and say “You speak Spanish!” when they were actually speaking English. He could identify a Spanish accent and would sometimes accusingly “out” a person in public. Or, if he could not identify the accent, he would go up to them and ask “what language do you speak?” This was not always welcome since the people he was addressing would be speaking English and would respond “I speak English.” He would shake his head in frustration and ask, “but what other language do you speak?” Sometimes total strangers would just walk away from him and I would have to stop him from following them with his questions.
I have now taught him to continue his curiosity with a little more subtlety. He asks “do you speak languages other than English?” What are they? Then, I’ve encouraged him to add, “I speak Spanish and English.” It is a work in progress and he often has to be reminded about asking a question and not making an accusation. LOL
Very nice, Mama. Thanks for sharing! Your son has a Turbo Spay-Dar. It’s interesting to hear that your son is so keen on identifying Spanish speakers and people with what he believes are Spanish accents, considering your other comment about his lack of desire to speak Spanish. These little people are such a wonderful mystery!
That made me think of my son. Let me first give you a little back ground. I am a RPCV who served in the Dominican Republic. I was trying to raise my children billngual but since the divorce from their Dominican father it has been hard to do alone. Saying everything twice just got too frustrating. Any way my kids speak a little Spanish, just enough for them to tell abuela, abuelo y tias Te amo. However my son does what your’s does but he is not always right. I just laugh and gently correct him when we are at Wal’mart and he says Hola to the Saudi or Pakastani children because they just look at him with a confused look.