Identified?

I always get a kick out of the way I am identified or not as Puerto Rican.  I love that it confounds people, maybe expands their world a little bit.

Last week I found myself talking to someone at school, who I identified as Puerto Rican pretty easily, and it wasn't till about half-way through our conversation when she asked me if I was from Rochester and I said, "no, I am actually from Puerto Rico" and she immediately switched over to Spanish asked "De donde?" or basically which town...which is a mandatory question between Puerto Ricans.  She admitted to being completely surprised at my being Puerto Rican too, and we went on talking in Spanish for a good while, when two more staff members walked in to the Teacher's Lounge in quick succession and both said "What? You Spanish? I didn't know that...".

So funny to me.

Made even funnier when I found myself talking to a lovely cashier at Wegman's and I noticed her tag identified"t her as Portuguese speaker. I asked her if she was from Brazil and she went on to tell me how long she had been here (recently arrived) and where she was from...etc...and we ended up having a really nice conversation.

Aside from the cool connection with her, it cracked me up that she pretty early in the conversation she quickly identified me as Spanish speaker, and nodded her head and said that I didn't look like I was from here.

and then last  night I got a call from the parent of a classmate of Zee's about Zee's B-day party next weekend. After we got through the "what does she like for presents" questions, she asked if she could ask me a funny question.  Turns out her husband had noticed the coqui in my anacoqui email handle.  Her husband has family from Puerto Rico (in Boqueron) and wanted to know if he was right to think I had connections to Puerto Rico. 

I am proud of who I am, and where I am from, and I certainly never hide it, so the varying ways people are able to identify or misidentify is fascinating to me.

Comments

[Rosangela Canino-Koning]

Yeah, that amuses me too. I don't hide it either, but most people don't notice.