Well, this is one for the ages. I must say that the move has been going fairly smoothly, with the added benefit of having a full week off of work to unpack, organize, and paint. Today we finished painting the master bedroom (now dubbed the Green Monster by me) so we are starting to make some serious progress...or so I think. The neighbors have been incredibly friendly. Just about everyone has come over to say hello even when they recently lost some digits in a carpentry accident.
But the story of the move so far has to be last night. The past owners of the house came to visit with their 3 young kids. The kids were very excited (a little too hyper maybe) to be back in their old place and their parents were nice enough to bring cookies, some old manuals, and some house keys. During our conversation the topic came up about whether we had been out and about Nashville as of late. Natalie and I mentioned that not much but that we had been Sunday afternoon to grab lunch at a very cool Mexican restaurant (via Nashville city search). The catch being that it is in a not so nice part of town. This part of town is about 10 minutes from here, and is composed of ethnic restaurants, mostly Mexican restaurants, and although not Beverly Hills I feel like it is perfectly fine eating there or shopping there during the day. At night, maybe not so much.
Upon us bringing up this, the guy said that we should stay away from that part of town because it is just shady. If he had stopped there it would have been fine, but he proceeded to say that this part of town was a "Little Mexico." Yes, you read that right, the run down part of Nashville is called "Little Mexico."
Natalie and I did not say much, but his wife, fully aware that I am Mexican, stepped right away to clarify that it was because of the "gangs" not the Mexicans that we should avoid that part of town. Nevertheless, I thought it was an interesting way to refer to town but being courteous we said nothing and continued talking for a few more minutes.
10 minutes after they had left our house, the husband came back to the house because his wife had told him to come over here and apologize for the "Little Mexico" comment. Furthermore, he said that the gangs were not Mexicans but rather Salvadorians and that he was not a bigot. After Natalie rejected the offer to attend their church and giving us an old pair of hedge clippers he took off.
So, I can gather some things from this:
1. Although this guy is clearly a nice person, there are some serious stereotype/racial issues going on in his head that are not good.
2. Whenever you don't look/speak like a "typical" Mexican, people can run their mouths and really show their colors about certain racial issues.
3. Salvadorians are a lot badder than Mexicans in this part of town.
4. Even though I did not feel personally discriminated against, I can see why people in this country are so touchy about racial issues.
5. I will know something is really wrong when our neighbors start selling because the Little Mexicans moved next door.
7 comments:
Oh my. Oh my. Oh my.
Is he sure the gangs are Salvadorian and not Honduran or Peruvian? Or maybe Chilean or Argentinian? And if the gangs are Salvadorian shouldn't they call the area "Little El Salvador" instead of "Little Mexico?" If he thinks downtown Nashville is scary after dark, he should see downtown Teguciagalpa after dark.
I am avoiding the office / guest room portion of our house tonight. I've deemed that portion the "Little Mexico" of our house.
I also hear Little Belize is pretty ugly at night. Something to do with the Napoleonic complex brought about by their small country.
I think you need to make yourself more obviously Mexican for a while. For starters, we need to work on your name. While I would've guessed that Bernardo would've worked, maybe your seller thought that it was Polish or Canadian. To avoid a similar situation in the future, I'm going to recommend that you go by Jesus for a little while. It's a well-recognized Mexican name that should work as an immediate signal to your neighbors.
Mainou is yet another problem. Not Mexican enough for the locals. It might as well be Fox or something like that. People from Mexico don't have last names like that, and that's a problem for you and the bigots you meet. You have some options here- some would recommend you go with a name like Rivera, but my suggestion is that you just use a clearly recognized Spanish (that is to say Mexican) word. Something like "Adios" or "Amigo" should work. Personally, I think a name like Jesus Agua would solve the problem entirely. Try it for a week and let me know how it works.
Jesus Water? How about Jose Rodriguez? I think the English translation is actually Joe Smith but it sounds pretty Mexican and most bigots think every Latino is named Jose or Juan.
I knew a guy when I was in the service whose last name was Bermudez and I would always think of the Bermuda Triangle everytime I saw his name tag. His first name was Juan, incidently. He was from Mexico too. Weird.
I do like the Jesus Agua although it is missing something. How about Jesus Camina Agua? It is a sort of translation of Jesus Walks on Water.
Alternatively I could go with something a little more ghetto, like Tu-Racist-Cracker.
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