Due to my father serving in the US military, I was born and raised in a country where Spanish is the official language. Except for a couple of years where I lived in the US, I was educated that country and continued to live there until age 20, when I moved to the US for good. Needless to say, although I had always been a US citizen, I knew little to nothing about US culture, and as a result, many things I said and did that would have been considered normal and okay elsewhere, was considered a faux-pas in the US. One of those things was to automatically address Latinos and anyone I had just learned had a Spanish surname in Spanish, thinking that they would appreciate someone addressing them in their native language.
I was shocked to realize that many of such people didn't respond well to that, and after many years, I still have no clue why? What's wrong with Spanish? It is a beautiful language.
This is about manners, not about politics. I know that English is spoken in USA.
2007-07-08
08:44:37
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8 answers
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asked by
llexpat
2