But to tell you the truth I have a confession to make, I’m the one who is thin-skinned. You may have noticed that I am a little bit sensitive to topics relating to Americans in Spain, how we are perceived, opinions about us in the print and other media, and of course, in “real-life”. My thin skin has developed over the years - basically due to hearing the same stereotypes over and over, ad nauseum, and by having the same tired discussions in bars, living rooms, and …. where ever.
For the first 15 - 20 years of coming to Spain, and/or living in Spain on and off, I would just do what I always did. Patiently try to convince one person at a time that No, we are not all morons, and No, we are not all fat, and Yes, there actually are political liberals in the U.S., and I actually did not vote for Bush or Reagan, but I will try to explain why many people did, and why I do respect our political system - even flawed as it is, etc…. (Example list of current topics here).
But now I’m tired and it's hard to be nice. I keep hearing and seeing the same misconceptions offered up with glee. Spanish people will argue with ME about how life is in America (when they have never been there) or about our history – while conveniently forgetting their own - and I don't even know them! This I can’t take.
There was this one time when I had to get my air conditioning in Madrid fixed and the guy selling me his services came over to my house (with a stuffy nose). He didn’t know me from Adam but, as usual, he asked me where I was from, and then proceeded to tell me that he had a cold due to, “All the bad things that the Americans bring.” He was a big fat guy and seemed to be living pretty well to me – the Americans weren’t hurting him too much it appeared. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the presence of mind to tell him on the spot that his job exists because an American invented air conditioning!
What got me on all this .... John at Iberian Notes was posting some reader’s comments from a favorite newspaper that he loves to hate – La Vanguardia based in Barcelona. Now, comments on the internet can be pretty nasty and very hateful to Americans, etc. They usually blame the U.S. for pretty much everything under the sun – in outrageous ways. These particular ones weren't as bad as some I've seen on 20minutos.com. John was asked if he thought that many Spanish people think like the La Vanguardia readers. So he answered that Yes, he thinks that many people DO think this way in Spain. This set off a round of comments – some very angry, on this topic (the angry ones disagreed – and were shocked that he would come to this conclusion!). I tried to put my meager two cents in (very poorly, I’m afraid).
What I was trying to say in my lousy comment on Iberian Notes, is that if you are not American, you are not going to experience the kind of interactions that we (Americans) experience in Madrid/Spain. If you are British, the air conditioning repair-man is not going to start giving you crap about the rotten Americans. If you are meeting Spanish friends of friends, and there is that guy with the group who wants to give you shit about Bush and anything else he can think of, he would not be doing that if you were from Bangladesh. Also, as Americans, our ears prick up when we hear nonsense about the U.S., and yes, my own personal thin-skin comes into play due to hearing knock after knock about Americans over the last 24 years.
O.K., I really have to work on this. Hey! That’s what the blog is all about.
5 comments:
I was tough on my younger brother when we were kids but if anyone else picked on him I would kick their ass. I have the same sort of relationship with the United States (Although I avoid violence these days). I remember one drunken roundtable discussion in a Greek café when an Austrian girl mocked the U.S. for electing Reagan, an actor, as president. I didn’t like Reagan at all, didn’t vote for him twice, but an Austrian mocking our president because he used to be in films? I pointed out that their leader (Kurt Waldheim) was a fucking Nazi, and not just a fucking Nazi but SS.* He who is without sin shouldn’t live in a glass house, or something like that.
*When it became public that Waldhiem had been in the SS there was lots of spin put on it by the Austrians. They had all sorts of claims that he was just a desk jockey and that he was stationed in a sleepy backwater. Dave Barry had the best take on this when he offered up the excuse that Waldheim had missed the entire war due to car trouble.
I had many a discussion about Reagan when he was president. People were convinced he was going to end the world. Guess what happened? Nothing.
Spaniards are some of the most ignorant people in Europe, which is why no one really pays any attention to what they think or say.
Just the other day the New York Times published a devastating article about how irrelevant Spain has become on the world scene since the knee-jerk anti-American Zapatero has been in office.
Spaniards love to blame Americans and everyone else for their problems, but their self-righteous hypocrisy has backfired because now no one (not even fellow Europeans) takes them seriously anymore.
Spaniards have traveled so far down the path of willful ignorance that this generation, in case, has completely lost touch with reality.
Best advice, therefore, is not to lose any sleep over the Spanish, because they simply are not worth the trouble.
welcome to the real world, mate, this happens to all of us, no matter our nationality!
You wouldn't believe the crap I have had to hear in my travels around this wonderful continent called Europe.
I'm Spanish, by the way.
Dear Anonymous,
I believe you. It must not be fun to hear, say, a German's stereotype of the Spanish.
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