Monday, July 30, 2007

Fish out of agua


Much like Star Trek movies, Mondays keep coming back. So here we are gentle readers, and I hope this past weekend was good enough to sustain you until the next one. (Speaking of Star Trek, by the way, I read last week that the actor who plays Sylar in "Heroes" is going to play a young Spock in a movie due out Christmas 2008. That's a fantastic casting job in my opinion. I don't know if they've cast the young James T. Kirk yet or not, but I'm pulling for Will Ferrell. Sure, he might be too old, but how awesome would that be? "Very" is the only answer.)

Last week, I wrote about being an outsider in a situation. I talked about the positive experience I had at the Mana concert with my wife, being the sole gringos in our section and soaking it up. I made reference to a less-than-pleasant outsider experience I had, and today I shall tell that story.

Picture a world much like the one we know. The only difference is that in this world, the internets had not yet exploded into the phenomenon we know. Yes, gentle readers, this world is actually our own circa 1998. Back when we thought 2007 could still be filled with flying cars and the metric system. Not really, but it was a little while ago.

Way back in '98, I was still a student at UCSB and loving every bit of life. I was still double majoring in English and Spanish. Therefore, most of my days were spent reading and writing in either of both languages. My Spanish classes had an interesting trend as the quarters went by. In the Intro to Spanish Lit class, about half the students were native Spanish speakers and the other half of us were not. Intro to Spanish Linguistics was probably closer to 60-40 in favor of los hispanohablantes. By the time I got to 16th Century Spanish Lit (as in from Spain) or other upper division courses of that nature, I was one of the only gringos around. Usually this wasn't a problem, but "usually" tends to mean "not always."

Because of the extra attention I had to pay in these classes just to understand what the professor was saying, I was very quiet as I went about my class business. You can imagine my surprise when in my Modernism in Mexican Lit class, the professor stopped and pointed to me. "What's your name?" she demanded in Spanish. I answered, probably looking as startled as I felt. She then asked if I knew what a particular word meant. I didn't recognize the word, so I said as much. "Class, who wants to tell Peter what that word means?" she asked. After a second, a guy raised his hand and defined the word. The professor looked back at me with an odd look of triumph and told-you-so-ness. I slunk back into my chair and tried to remain even less conspicuous for the remainder of the class.

The very next class, a similar thing happened. We were discussing a novel we read, and completely out of nowhere the professor said, "Peter, what is the largest state in Mexico?" Still embarrassed but now a little pissed off too, I told her I didn't know. "Class, tell him," she said smiling. All together, the class muttered, "Chihuahua." I nodded as if to say, "Ok, I'll know that one next time you randomly ask me." I had no idea why she was picking on me in front of the class, but I had a feeling that talking to her about it would just exacerbate the problem. And my parents always taught me not to exacerbate in public places.

A couple of weeks went by without incident, and I was eternally glad for them. I didn't have the highest confidence in those classes, and while I usually had a few fellow gringos around me for study groups, I was practically alone in this one. (I say 'practically' because there was a white woman but she very rarely attended classes and knew the professor well from previous quarters.) Then we had an assignment on sonnets. Our task was to either write a three-page essay on a particular sonnet or write a sonnet of our own. The choice was clear for me, and I wrote the fourteen lines out, sticking to the specific rhyme scheme and syllable count found in Spanish sonnets. When the day came to turn them in, she asked us not to put our names on them and the class would vote for their favorites. She took the ten or so sonnets and taped them to the white board. After we all walked by them and voted for our favorites on secret ballots, she counted them up and announced that two tied for the most votes. Some guy's which was kissing ass by being about his love for Modernism in Mexican Lit and mine. She asked who wrote what, and when I raised my hand for mine, she looked as shocked as one possibly can. It was almost as if I'd told her that I memorized all the Mexican state capitals or something as ridunkulous as that.

"You wrote that?" she asked, extremely incredulously. "Yes," I told her, pleased that she may view me differently in the future. "Did somebody in the class help you?" she asked. That did it. I was pissed off now. "No," I said, still politely. She looked around the room to see if anyone would contradict my statement and admit that he or she helped me. When no one did, she looked back and me and nodded as if she would accept that as truth...for now. I was steaming though, and sometimes a guy just has to exacerbate when his blood is boiling like that.

Fortunately, her office hours were right after class. I trailed her there, but not close enough that she noticed. I sucked it up and went in, under the guise that I wanted to chat with her and see if I could break through the icy exterior and become friends. The first thing she said after I came in was, "Some people find me intimidating, but I don't think so." We talked some more, and when I couldn't explain myself as well as I wanted to in Spanish, I switched to English. Her demeanor completely changed in front of my eyes. As she tried responding in English, she became sheepish all of a sudden. She stammered a little, and mid-sentence asked me in Spanish what the English word for something was. It all clicked right then and there. Her own English insecurities working at an American university caused her to react negatively to the lone gringo in her class. She almost even admitted as much, and asked me a couple of English grammar questions before I left.

From that day on, she left me alone in class. There was only a week or two left, but it still made a difference. I made a point of thanking her in English after the last class, just to childishly feel like I had the upper hand in the relationship. (She hadn't given me a grade yet, so I wasn't very accurate.) Still, I will never forget her tone as she asked the class to inform the poor outsider as to the biggest state in Mexico. It was an eye-opening experience, and I hope I took the brunt of her insecurities so that los gringos who followed in my footsteps had an easier time.

So there you go, gentle readers. That's my more negative outsider experience. I could make some grand general statement about people treating those unlike them poorly because of their own fears and insecurities, but it's not that kind of blog. Have a great day, and I'll see you here tomorrow. As always, ptklein@gmail.com is just sitting there in front of you, making puppy dog eyes and asking you to play with it.

3 comments:

Laynie said...

Many years ago, I was the only white woman at a black friend's baby shower. There were about one hundred other people there who all belonged to the same Southern Baptist church and were quite religious. I didn't feel that weird based on racial differences, but I was really an outsider as a non-church member. Everyone greeted each other with "Hallelujah, Sister Celestine" and "Praise the Lord, Sister La Keisha." No one really talked to me that afternoon, and looked very suspicious when my name was randomly drawn to win the door prize. What an uncomfortable few hours those were!

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain! I had similar experiences in upper level Spanish classes as I was completing my Spanish major.

However, it was MUCH worse in my classes for my Russian minor! To get the minor, I had to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) with language lessons. There's a reason why kids are better at learning languages...as adults, it's really challenging to pick up a new one, especially at the level where you can understand native speakers. I got to the level where I could say "I am 21 years old, and I study Spanish and Russian at the university. What do you study?"

One of the requirements was to take a poetry class all in Russian. I was definitely the ONLY non-native speaker in there. It was awful, as I could barely pick up every tenth word. It was so bad that I had no idea what was going on in the class, and I swear they were all talking about me! I only passed the class because I met with the teacher each week outside of class to translate poetry. Thank goodness I never had to speak in class. Ah, the memories.

PK said...

Thanks for the comment, Wendy. I can tell that you do truly feel my pain. The gap between what one needs to know in the language courses versus the literature courses is astounding. I felt like an imposter, proclaiming that I knew the language well enough to be sitting there, but just hoping to blend in well enough to avoid being called on. I'm fairly certain that my blood pressure was significantly higher while sitting in those classes than at all other times of the year.