The Haliwa-Saponi Experience! The Black Experience! The American Experience!

A person recently asked me about my experience in Galicia as a person of color.  So, I thought it’d be a good idea to actually address my experience in Galicia as a person of color. 

A picture of me being blinded by the sun. 

First off, I believe everyone is a person of color.  We all played with crayons as children and there was always, white, black, yellow, red, blue, orange, and green in the box.  In my case, my dad is Black and my mother is Haliwa-Saponi, so I’m high-yellow or “café con leche” in Spain.

Before I came to Galicia, my mom joked and told me not to go because there weren’t any Black folks there! However, I would urge all folks who are “of color” to not be afraid.  If you let your skin color hold you back, you’ll never get anywhere in life.  If Crayola thought your “color” was good enough to go in a crayon box, it’s damn sure good enough for you to travel with that same “color”.

1 .)  Mistaken Identity

The local Saturday market

 My town is a small fishing town with about 14,000 residents. It’s located along a coastline in Galicia.   The region receives a lot of immigrants due to its large fishing industry.  There are many African immigrants, mainly from Senegal and Morocco.   The immigrants from Senegal and Morocco have only begun migrating here a few years ago.

Due to these influences, I’ve been mistaken for Senegalese, a Cuban, and seldom a Moroccan.  From my general experience, no one looks at me and assumes that I speak English.  Once people hear me speak, then they find out that I am American or British. 

Another photo of the local Saturday market

I do not believe that my other companions with bright blonde hair and blue eyes find themselves in the same situation as me.  If folks in my town see someone with blonde hair and blue eyes, the natural assumption is that they are American.  I believe this peculiarity is due to various factors but I can’t shake the feeling that the general lack of non-White folks going abroad is a contributing factor.  Many times it seems to me as if folks forget that the United States is a country composed of many colors and that we’re not all fair-skinned.

2.) Veña negriño o Veña negriña o dígolles Goodbye Nigga!

Spanish folks have inherited a lot of English words into their language, like: “feeling”, “wi-fi”, “sorry”, “okay”, “gay”, or “sexy” to name a few.  A word that shocked me to hear here was “nigga”.  This is a word that makes me uncomfortable to say and I find myself at a lost as to whether I should embrace the word or shun it as many others.  I associate the word with its slavery meaning and the destruction and unification it has brought to African-Americans since.   The word “nigga” has entered Spanish slang through music but many folks have no idea of its original meaning and think it is just a term for friendship between two people.  It entered the language in much the same way as “gay” has entered their language without it’s original meaning of “happy”.  I have heard the word being used a few times in a few of my classes.  Whenever this has happened, I took a few moments to explain the original significance of the word, or corrected the students to use the term “Black man”. Most of the students are alarmed at the original meaning because they only thought the word had a friendly meaning.

The word for black in Spanish is “negro”.  On occasion, I’ve been referred to as “el profesor negro” when parents are unsure of what my name is.  As a warning to Black folks coming to Spain, do not take offense when people use the word like that.  It at first made me a bit uncomfortable because I kept thinking about the word “negro” in English and it’s outdated usage. 

3.) Fucking Paparazzi

The Spanish Atticus Finch and I 

I have encountered a few folks in Spain that wanted to take a picture with me.  Although none of the groups mentioned outright it was because I was Black, it just seemed very obvious.  On both occasions, I was in a crowded location, only Black guy, and the groups approached me asking to take a picture with me.  On one of these occasions, one of my friends flipped out on the group of guys saying they only wanted my picture because I was Black.  After my friend accused them, the men started claiming a bogus story about wanting to take a picture with me because I pee with a serious look on my face before they finally gave up on wanting to take my picture.   This happened to me in Scotland as well, but the man kindly explained to me that I looked like Cleveland Brown from the Cleveland Show.  You can choose to permit folks to take a picture with you or deny it.  It’s a strange thing to me, but I had to realize that I am just as much a part of these peoples experience and history as they are a part of mine.  On one hand I can understand why, but on another hand it makes me feel as if I am an exotic animal.

4.) Stereotypes

I have encountered a lot of stereotypes here.  The first stereotype that caught me off guard is the number of folks who subscribe to the “Black-men-are-as-hung-as-horses” belief.  A lot of people here believe that rumor and I believe I’ve met more people in Spain believing in that than Americans.  I’m not going to discuss the accuracy of the statement but it is shocking to hear so many people talk about it when they meet you. 

They think a Black guy's penis is as big and black as this fish. 

People think you can sing. I know someone who always asks me to show him my “Black voice” because all Black people can sing.  When I try to reason with him and say that I can’t carry a note, he doesn’t believe me. 

Some people may want you to speak like a cliché Black person.  This happened to me about a month and a half ago. I was talking to a woman about something and she kept asking me “how would YOU say it?” implying that she wanted me to say it in a cliché “Black” way.  I found it rather infuriating; because she was under the blanket assumption that I spoke like every Black cliché she had ever met.

5.) Racism

Only reach down if you plan on helping your neighbor up.

I have not experienced blanket racism here.  I haven’t heard people using the expression “negro de mierda” like Argentines are notorious for.  I’ve yet to see a Spaniard that just hates me because of my skin color.  On the opposite hand, I feel as if I’ve experienced more racism within the United States than I have in Spain.  However, I can see a lot of the same racist problems we have in the United States being carried out in Spain.  The only difference is that the skin color and nationality changes.  In Spain, the people who are mistreated are the Romanians or distastefully called “Gitanos”.  In a later and separate post I will discuss the racism that I see against Romanians here in Spain and how it compares to the United States.

In general, many Spaniards have been curious to hear about my experience in the United States as a   Many folks have asked about whether or not the United States is still as racist as it once was in the past.  I always let them know that the racism is still there but it has metamorphosed into another form of racism.  This curiosity at first came off as a tad racist to me because it seemed as if they were singling me out only because of my skin color (more prejudice I believe).  But after a few months, I realized that these people were asking questions out of curiosity because they wanted to take advantage of the fact that I was not White to hear my take on things in the United States as a minority.

These are my experiences in Galicia.  Everyone’s experience is different with respect to who they are physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, sexually, jokingly, spanishly, englishly, lovingly, talkingly, personally, kissingly, dancingly, churchly, angrily, happily, galicianly, octopusly, rabbitly, manly, womanly, malely, femalely, zirly, riverly, oceanly, ecologically, etc.  I learned that if I try to understand where folks are coming from, a lot of “racist things” are just pure curiosity.  So I would encourage all folks coming to Spain to just take “questions” with a grain of salt and respond politely. 

Things I've Learned from Being Abroad

As it stands, I have lived in Scotland, Argentina, and now Spain for a chunk of time.  There are many things that you learn or experience about being abroad that are unique. 

1.)       Rubber. Rubber. Rubber.  

I don’t care what it is, but you need to get something that is made with some part of rubber.  Personally I like to have a pair of shoes with rubber soles because they are slip-resistant.   But rubber is also great because it does not conduct electricity. Whenever you have an electrical problem while abroad and are afraid of getting shocked. I can bet you that you won’t have a pair of rubber gloves nearby, so your next best option will be that rubber object.  This happened to me when I was in Scotland in my apartment.  I was using an international adapter and all of a sudden it began shooting sparks everywhere.  I freaked out because I needed to remove it before it caused an electrical fire. I quickly grabbed my shoes with the rubber soles and yanked it out the wall.   Had I not had the rubber gloves, I would’ve been at a lost and probably would’ve improvised but having the rubber-soled shoes really saved me the hassle.  Also, don't forget rubbers when you have a night with a foreign lover.   He or she may seem exotic or foreign but wrap it before y'all tap it because foreigners can carry just as many sexually transmitted diseases as anyone else.  Don't be caught like the guy from Christopher Columbus' boat who came back from visiting the New World and the only souvenir he had was Syphilis. 

2.)       Your race changes from country to country.

The concept of race is a cultural phenomenon. You will learn that what you grew up considering the cultural norms of what is Black and what is White and what is Hispanic will get flipped on its head.  For example in the United States, I am a Black man although I consider myself Black and Native American.  In Spain, I’m considered “mulatto” because I’m not Black.  For Spaniards a person that is Black is actually dark-skinned in this sense of the Senegalese population that resides in Spain.  So when my high yellow self hopped off the plane, the Spaniards were like, you’re brown not black.  In addition to your race changing, you’ll start viewing race in a different way as well.  Through my travels in Spain, Spaniards come in a large variety of skin colors that one would easily consider Hispanic or Black in the United States but they’re still considered White due to Spaniards being Europeans. 

     The racial binary that prevails in the United States about White vs. Black is not as apparent in Scotland or Spain.  Whenever a conversation with race comes us, Spaniards and Scotsmen/women seemed baffled by the racial problems that we have in the United States.  But what I am slowly realizing is that the binary hasn’t disappeared, it just has a different form. In my part of Spain, the binary seems to be Spaniards vs. Gitanos (Romanian immigrants in Spain).  

3.)       Crazy people are everywhere

While traveling abroad you meet many wonderful folks that help you along the way.  In this process though, you’ll meet a few crazy people and a few jackasses.  Your definition of crazy may be different from mine, but for me a crazy person is one who believes that you and them have imaginary plans, shouts at you for no reason, stands you up, etc.  Perhaps I am combining jackass and crazy into one, but eh, there are jackass crazy people.  You’ll never see these folks coming, so it is important that when you realize you’re with a crazy person or a jackass that you say what you need to as concisely as possible to come up from out of the situation.  Sometimes it may be as simple as saying “Hey, this wont’ work for me.” or sometimes you may have to get a bit “real” and use your street “Spanish” or any other language when situations get out of hand. Also if you hang out with enough native people of your town, they’ll help you spot a crazy person from a mile away.  For example, they may say, “Oh this is Xurxo, beware of him because he’s an utter and complete jackass.”  (All Xurxos that I’ve met have been fantastic people.

4.)       Reading is fundamental.      

I have always been a fan of RuPaul’s quote about reading being fundamental. It’s a very true statement and more important when you find yourself in another country.  Read everything you can.  Read the newspapers, the signs, on occasion the people, read information about your town online, and read Google.  You can acquire a lot of information very quickly just by reading about what’s going on around you.  It’ll also help you adjust and become part of the country’s culture.  For example, one day I was in a bar and while waiting on my food, I decided to pick up the local newspaper. I read about the recent passing of the first Democratic President of Spain (which is a big deal because up to about 1975 Spain was gripped by the dictatorship of Franco). From reading the newspaper, I learned about the difficulties Spain had from transition from a dictatorship to a democracy and how Adolfo Suarez unified the country.  Reading also keeps you abreast of the politics that may be affecting your local area and it always provides a good talking point for you when you want to strike a conversation with the locals. 

To be continued...

Eating on an Auxiliar de Conversa's budget

Hey y'all.  As many of mine friends know, I LOVE to cook.  I love to mix things together and see what result I can get.  So, this blog post is going to be mainly about what I have been eating in Spain on my lovely Auxiliar's budget.  I am living in Galicia which is the northwestern part of Spain that juts out right above Portugal.  Galician cuisine for the most part seems to consists of Galician stews (el caldo gallego), lots of pork, and lots of seafood.  I live in the costal region and a lot of the cuisine here is based off of what one can find in the local fish markets.  Galicians really appreciate the natural flavor of their food and do not tend to add many seasonings.  The most a Galician may add to a dish is salt, pepper, and on occasion bay leaf from my experiences. But when it comes to shellfish, they just boil and salt the water and savor the natural flavor of the shellfish. I do think the dishes are delicious but I am accustomed to adding in more spices to give my food more of a kick.  Galicians also eat a lot of octopus, which is amazing.  I have started learning that there are correct and incorrect ways to cook octopus and I've learned some techniques for perfecting your octopus-cooking methods. Personally I like my octopus boiled, then sautéed with red peppers, green peppers, and a bit of onion.  

This is my octopus sandwich I ate as leftovers last night. If you look closely , you can see the suction cups. 

 

The first thing I learned about Galicia is that Galicians eat turnip greens. I was so excited when I found this out because turnip greens are a staple of the North Carolinian diet in the United States.  In Galicia, they call them "grelos".  They are fantastic.  These are a little less than 2.50 euros for a bunch of them.  I normally buy two bunches at the market here.  Then I cook them with a ham hock or a pork loin until they have reduced in size. A ham hock is "codillo" in Spanish and is roughly 2.30euros/ kg if you purchase a small one, it'll run you about 5 euros.   Sometimes I mix in a little vinegar or Tabasco sauce to give it a little kick.  I love making a dish like this because with 2 bunches of grelos, you can eat it for leftovers for roughly four days. 

A bowl of "grelos" with codillo (ham hock).  

Cooking the langostinos/gambas. 

These  are a bunch of jumbo sized shrimp called gambas or langostinos.  They are delicious.  Like I said earlier, you just boil them in a bit of salt water, drain, and start peeling their shells.  These langostinos/gambas are fantastic and are about 4.50 euros/kg.  The only problem with langostinos/gambas is that if you don't combine them with another dish, they won't really be economical because you end up eating them all in one sitting. 

Getting ready to shell the langostinos/gambas.

Draining the langostinos/gambas

A rice dish with langostinos and gambas that I
bought from the local grocery store. 

However if you are a person that does not want to touch raw shellfish, then you can just go and buy a pack of pre-made rice already mixed with shellfish and heat it up in a skillet. It's really good and cheaper, roughly about 2 euros for a bag of it and it has about 3 or 4 servings. 

Another thing I have come to love is preparing bocadillos.  A bocadillo is a Spanish "sandwich" that is shaped kind of like a sub.  Bocadillos are an economical lifesaver.  A large loaf of bread for the bocadillo is roughly 1 euro and you can buy slices of the meat to fill it for less than 2 euros and a tomato for a few cents. The way I like to prepare my bocadillos is I prefer to toast my bread with a bit of olive oil, then rub a tomato on it, and add my slices of meat.  The sandwich is fantastic, quick, and cheap.  You can even rub a clove of garlic on your bread if you want a bit of spicy kick. I normally buy slices of the cured meat from the local grocery store. 

A hush puppy that I made with a private student. 

Every once in a while I feel homesick and start craving a dish from the United States.  Since being in Spain, I have managed to make cinnamon rolls, hush puppies, and biscuits.  These dishes tend to not be as expensive as you'd imagine because a lot of the ingredients are just your normal baking materials.  Hush puppies were a bit difficult because I needed to buy cornmeal but a local bakery sold it for around 2 euros/kg.  

A pan of cinnamon rolls after a friend and I got at them. 

These are biscuits that a friend and I made one Sunday.  They were fantastic and we ate them like Southerners, with butter and jelly. 

But with all this food, you're gonna wanna wash it down with a swallow of something.  Luckily, Spain is a wine country and the Spanish are a wine-loving people.  In the United States, I was never a big fan of wine, but since coming to Spain, I'm slowly developing a love for red wine.  

This multi-tentacled animal is also a wine lover.
Oddly, it has 9 tentacles. When drunk in Galicia, you can say "Estoy como un pulpo" (I am like an octopus). 

A meal in Galicia is not complete unless it is served to you with wine and perhaps a bit of gaseous water.  This includes your meals at home.  Since being here, I have slowly began stocking my pantry with wine. I've learned how to open a wine bottle and how to begin cooking with wine.  People will even gift you bottles of wine sometimes, or a bottle of champagne. 

My wine and potato pantry. 

"A Lenda Galega" is a cheap wine you can buy here for less than one euro.  It  is pretty much the "Aristocrat" version of wine in Galicia.  However it tastes much better than any of the Aristocrat versions of liquor. If you mix it with gaseous water, it creates a refreshing taste to go with any meal. 

However if you are more a cider person, there are a few brands of cider here.  Spanish cider has to be poured in a certain fashion and drunk in quick gulps.  I did not know this the first few times I drank cider here, and I thought the cider tasted like musty armpit.  After following some recommendations on how one should drink the cider, the flavor got a lot better and it is great.  A bottle of "El Gaitero" cider is about right under 2 euros a bottle.  

Enjoying a bottle of champagne on the beach. 

These are just a few of the things I have been drinking or eating on my budget here in Spain.  If you adjust your diet to more of a Galician one, then you'll have no problem getting by here in Galicia.  Or you can always make a few Galician friends who will cook different things for you or invite you to their homes for meals.  Until later, "bon proveito" foodies! 

Farewell my langoustine friend!