The Ease of Blending In

I recently had the strange experience of traveling to a far-away island and being mistaken for a native.

It’s much more usual for me to be mistaken for a “foreigner,” with my light brown skin, black eyes, and unruly, curly hair.

Growing up in New York City, I was regularly presumed to be of Latin American descent. Which made sense, since my mixed heritage includes African, Spanish (from Spain), Russian, and Native American. I look like the product of multi-generational miscegenation. Because that’s what I am.

But my high school Spanish classes didn’t prepare me to respond capably to the rapid-fire queries of all those pretty brown people, lost in the city subways, expecting me to help them find their way. I tried: “No comprendo. Habla usted inglés? (I don’t understand. Do you speak English?)” Which would meet with a dejected “No.”

Did they think I was trying to pass? Disavowing my native tongue?

Late last month, my family and I traveled to Puerto Rico.

In preparation, my husband tried to scrape together some key Spanish phrases. His favorite: “Pregunta mi esposa. (Ask my wife.)” Our daughters claimed to not know any conversational Spanish, in spite of five years of elementary school study. So I tried to brush off the buried remnants of the Spanish I once knew, the native language of my beloved Grandpa Juan. We figured we might be mistaken for Puertorriqueños, and I wanted to be prepared.

In the taxi to the airport, I practiced my Spanish with our Ecuadorian driver.

My family was shocked, never having heard me converse in anything but English before. The driver and I discussed our children, their relative ages, and how they would each be spending the summer break. It was hard work, but I did all right.

Landing in San Juan, we were no longer tourists.

We blended seamlessly into the sea of brown faces. Nearly everyone we encountered addressed us in Spanish. Not text book Spanish, but the fast Puerto Rican flavor, with lots of dropped vowels and English slang. By the end of our week, our ears were well tuned to it, though we were grateful for the ease with which most of our contacts could switch to our native tongue.

The big thrill for me was how well we fit in.

The people of Puerto Rico come in all shades of brown. And for this brown girl, it was the first time I have traveled anywhere and not felt “other”. I’ve been to every state in the Union, except Hawaii, and have often felt like an obvious outsider; in a quiet, clear way, like a visitor from somewhere else. Not white. Not black. Possibly not American. I’ve been called “exotic” a few too many times.

In Puerto Rico, I found an unexpected comfort, for myself and my children.  It was the ease of blending in.

Which must be hard to fathom, for those who’ve always known it.