Monday, February 27, 2006

Yankees

One of the funniest things about Spanish people's attitude towards Americans is that they refer to all of us as "Yankees." As a resident of the South, it is always surprising to get that particular label. It is especially funny when pronounced with a Spanish accent, which gives it a bit of a J sound at the beginning.

My professor mentioned this in my history class today, because he was talking about the origin of the term "moros," which many Spanish people use to refer to any Muslim person, but actually was the name of people from Mauritania, the north-western part of Africa. He was using the Yankee example to illustrate the general tendency to mistake the part for the whole. In another of my classes we talked about how a lot of people from Galicia (north-west Spain, next to Portugal), known as "gallegos" immigrated to Latin America at some point, and so now the term "gallego" has become synonymous with "espaƱol" (Spanish as in from Spain) in some parts of Latin America, even though Galicia is only one part of Spain.

Also, in the US we have the general impression of flamenco dancing as something very typically Spanish, when in fact it is only common in certain regions, particularly Andalucia in the South.

Anyway, this post didn't have too much of a point; I was just thinking about this stuff and I find it interesting. I guess this is part of that whole cultural awareness thing : )

2 Comments:

At 2:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kendra, I always think of myself as a Yankee,having been born in West Virginia, which is a state that was very divided in its beliefs about the Civil War. Some of us just accidently end up in the South!!! But we make the best of it. I enjoyed reading this latest blog. Love, Grandma

 
At 11:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'll try to straighten this one for you, for hispanics, all americans are "yankees", not to be confused with the northerners, "damn yankees"!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home