Encouraging Cultural Awareness and Respect at TMCC and Everywhere

As International students, we came with a mindset about how difficult it would be to embrace a new culture, but I don’t think we came prepared well enough to embrace people’s stereotypes about OUR own cultures.

Sometimes, it is actually interesting to hear how people perceive our countries, but other times it could be shockingly surprising how people don’t have any idea about countries outside their own, in this case, the United States. And, don’t get me wrong here, I don’t think we all need to know everything about all countries in the world, but surely we do need to expand our cultural understanding or at least try to be respectful of the possible assumptions we make about other people.

Mission 1: Surviving the classical “What state of Mexico are you from?”

Hey people! Guess what? There are a whole bunch of Latino countries where you can be from that are outside of Mexico. Surprising, right?!!

It’s incredible how many times I have to make a clarification that I’m not Mexican. I’m Costa Rican.

Sometimes people don’t really ask where you are exactly from, but you can actually feel how they assume that you are Mexican. I’ve had a lot of experiences where people ask me things about Mexican celebrations that I just don’t know and this is what I’ve learned.

There are 2 types of people out there (okay, surely more but I’m simplifying for you):

1. The ones who, even if they know that I’m not Mexican, continue the conversation telling me how nice their trip to Mexico was. (Good for them, I’ve never been there before so I don’t know what they’re talking about.)
2. The ones who actually know where Costa Rica is, and from here there are 2 possible conversations to be followed:
   1. The person starts telling you how amazing their trip to Costa Rica was, and then you figure out that the person stayed just in the tourist/gentrified areas of the country.
   2. They start telling you how they would love to go visit there and they ask for recommendations, not bad at all, this is probably my favorite since I can actually recommend places for them to experience the real Costa Rica.

As you can tell, I’ve had a lot of these conversations since I’ve been studying at Truckee Meadows Community College, and mostly every time I introduce myself to someone. So, at this point, it is interesting to guess what pattern people are following for the conversations.

In a certain way, it is understandable that most people would think that every Latino comes from Mexico, since the majority of Latinos here are actually from Mexico. But it is also a bad habit to assume that every person who has Latino characteristics is actually a Latino or in this case, is Mexican.

Since I’m here, I also learned that I have to control my assumptions too. Sometimes it happens that I meet someone who has a Latino last name or features, and I’m misled by those characteristics. So what I decided to do is that I need to make sure before speaking Spanish to someone, that the person speaks Spanish too.

This is also fun, because it has happened to me that I’m scared of speaking Spanish to someone. What if that person doesn’t speak Spanish?

So, last time, I was ordering food in a Mexican restaurant, and I did the whole order in English for the same reason. I didn’t want to assume the cashier’s ethnicity. When I was waiting for my order, I clearly heard the next customer asking for all the food in Spanish. I promise, I felt ashamed and dumb at the same time! I COULD’VE DONE MY WHOLE ORDER IN SPANISH ALL THIS TIME! What I ended up doing, is that I started to speak Spanish with the cashier, and it was so fun that he started messing with me and joking about my order.

Mission 2: Deciding on your approach to tackle comments/questions.

It is super easy to make comments without any bad intentions and without thinking about what that comment can actually mean for the other person. Since I've been here, I’ve learned to take all the comments in a positive way instead of looking for a way to be offended.  Being from a diverse culture can make people’s curiosity cross the line between a respectful comment and a denigrating “ignorant” comment.

We can’t control people’s words, but we can control the way we react and the way we decide to take those comments. In my case, I take those moments as teaching opportunities.

One of the funniest (and most disappointing) questions I’ve had, happened when we were playing a Disney trivia board game. When we were playing, an elderly man who was already at the table asked me: “Do you guys have Disney movies in Costa Rica?” My reaction was so obvious that he probably noticed how confused I was with his question. So, I just said: “Yes we do.” And he replied: “Do you guys dub the movies?” And I said: “Yes, we have a dub industry for all the movies, not just Disney, and I can even say that some dubs are so good that they are funnier than the original language one.” After that, I just thought: They probably think that we don’t have wifi back home, or probably that we still use smoke signs to communicate.

So it was a funny moment, sure, but also a little bit alarming if we think about how people perceive other countries outside of the United States.  

Another situation happened on my birthday too, this one wasn’t bad at all, but it made me reflect on how careful we have to be about assumptions. On my birthday, we went up to Tahoe and rented some paddle boards. In the place, we had to sign a waiver for security. When the worker was checking our waivers and our birth dates, he noticed that it was my birthday that day and he started singing happy birthday in Spanish “Feliz cumpleaños,” and of course I reacted in a cheerful way even though it got me surprised. But after that, my friends and I were thinking that it could’ve been an awkward moment if I didn’t speak Spanish. Again, we can’t assume people’s ethnicity just because of the way they look or their name. I’m grateful that the worker did it with a good intention but I’m also a little concerned that he can do that with other people and make a mistake. If he does, hopefully, like me, he’ll use that as a learning opportunity.

Let’s keep educating ourselves and other people

As I said before, I always try to create those teaching moments when I can open people’s minds and thoughts about other cultures. It is not easy, and sometimes we just get annoyed by that, but as international students we also need to understand the responsibility that we have of representing our culture and bringing diversity to people. Some comments can be out of place, but it will depend on the way we decide to act if we can educate people to recognize their mistakes and to start changing their perspective. Meanwhile, I’m gonna keep using the moments and experiences to represent my country in the best way and I better keep working on reforming my own assumptions about other people’s cultures.

So just a little piece of advice here: Don’t assume, just respectfully ask! There’s always room to grow and learn, right?

Dylana Camacho Orozco from Costa Rica is an international student at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada.