“Are you Spanish can you read this(thrusts a peso at me and points to a part)?”
“Erm what?”
“You know Mexican and Colombian”
“Well no”
“Ah nevermind”
“It says the fifth of May, Mexican independence day”
“I thought you weren’t spanish?”
:rolleyes:
Apparently straight black hair on a light skinned person=hispanic, I get asked all the damn time if I speak spanish or if I am Colombian or Mexican or…
Nevermind aside from the straight black hair I don’t look hispanic, clearly as I have even been told I must dye my hair because no white people have black hair.
*Before someone corrects me, yes I know now that cinco de mayo is not Mexican independence day
As a fellow white person with dark hair (dark brown, not even black), I get that a lot too, even though I have very fair skin even for a white person. It seems pretty common to me for white people to have dark hair, so I don’t know why it throws people off so much.
This sounds bizarre to me. Where are you located? Some place in the US that was settled by Norwegians, Danes, and a few Dutch and Germans, but hasn’t had much contact with the world until a recent influx of Mexicans and Central Americans?
In my case, it’s not even just white people who think I’m Hispanic; it’s Hispanic people just as often. I get hit on in Spanish often enough. And I live in Seattle, which isn’t the most diverse place in the world, but certainly isn’t all Scandinavians (Scandinavians are actually the main ones who tend to know I’m white, because while my name is Norwegian, most non-Scandinavians think it’s Spanish).
Every single time I walk into the Mexican grocery by my house the guys in the butcher shop and the cashiers all try to speak Spanish to me. I doesn’t matter that I’ve told them all at least 10 times I’m not Hispanic and I don’t speak Spanish.
Oddly enough the exact think happens when I go to Greek town, everyone assumes I’m Greek.
I’ve gotten it too, and I’m positive I don’t look Spanish at all. But they think dark hair = spanish, as the OP says. I had a nice old abuela yell at me because I “wasn’t speaking my native language”. I was like, lady, I DO! I speak Hindi very well. What Spanish I know I just learned from high school/college!
Most Americans think Italians should have dark hair and olive skin. They won’t believe a 100% Italian American is “real” who has pale skin and dirty blond hair.
I used to work with two women. One had light skin, dark hair and eyes, and was Persian and spoke with a bit of an accent. She was often taken as Mexican/Hispanic.
The other had streaked light brown hair (naturally light brown, chemically streaked), blue eyes, and also spoke with a bit of an accent. She was, in fact, Hispanic, but was never taken as such.
The Persian once was reading a magazine written in Persian and at least three people who saw her reading it in the break room asked, “Wow, can you actually read that?” even though she was sitting there reading it.
ETA: I just thought of another funny thing regarding the Persian. One day a couple of other women came into the store and were standing there speaking Persian and she joined in. They had a lively conversation and then one of our other coworkers asked, “Could you understand them?” The Persian said, “Naw. We were just yakking sounds at each other.”
I had a neuro patient (elderly and mentally altered) insist I had “at least half Mexican” in me. It was not much more than a passing thought worthy of a little giggle of “no sir, I don’t know what all’s in there”, but his family became mortified when he began insisting that I go find him some tacos.
I really felt bad for how embarrassed they were. All this, because I have dark hair and a tan (which he was using to justify my blatant, to him, Mexican ancestry).
