No one, and I mean NO ONE ever thinks their usual way to do things can be weird. I’m sure many polygamists wonder how Westerns manage having just one wife, as we wonder how European girls can live with hairy armpits and I’m positive many Japanese people are constantly defending chopsticks as the most practical eating utensil. That’s just the way it is. For the most part, we don’t even think about these peculiarities unless an outsider points it out or makes a face. Being Costa Ricans as “normal” as they come, I never thought that would happen to me. Until it did.
Last February, a friend of my boyfriend’s came to visit from Toronto. More than visiting, he came escaping from the cold, poor bastard. Anyway, he stayed with us for a couple of weeks. As we got to know each other, we kept finding points of coincidence, we agreed on many things and we discovered we had a similar way of seeing the world. Neat, right? What a nice guy! What a cool chick! I like to think we became good friends, Alex and I.
It just so happens we’re all hanging out at my place one night: my boyfriend and I, our newly found friend and my roommate, you know, laughing and having a couple of drinks. So, I get this call from a dear old friend. He was in the neighborhood, so he dropped in for a visit. When he came in, of course, I gave him a hug and a kiss and introduced him to Alex. He sat in the living room and I went back to the kitchen. They were chatting and my friend happened to remember something he wanted to tell me and yelled out: NEGRA!
I popped my head out of the kitchen to see what he wanted and I caught a glimpse of Alex’s face. He looked absolutely shocked and a little pale, as if he were expecting a violent reaction from me. I decided to ignore it for the moment and ask him more privately later.
After a while, we sat outside and I asked him what was up. He told me that he would never use that word to get someone’s attention. You know, call someone THAT, and to their face, no less. I was gobsmacked. Does he think I should be insulted by somebody calling me black? Is he a racist? Of course not. The thing is you are not supposed to call a person something that is related to how they look, not even your closest friends. Goddamn! I had no idea you couldn’t do that… Here’s what I concluded.
Ticos don’t have any inhibitions about referring to someone by their most evident physical characteristics. If someone is dark-skinned, black or not, they might be given the nickname “Negro” (before you get your feathers all ruffled, no, that word doesn’t have the same negative connotation as it does in English), people with slanted eyes will be christened “Chino” although our native people also share this feature with Asians, or an overweight guy can be called fat, “Gordo” without anyone having a reason to blush. “Gorda”, the female version of fat, is a term of endearment reserved for the tenderest stages of your relationship.
Of course, when I explained all this to Alex, thinking it would put him at ease, I just made things worse. I told him my friend had called me that for 20 years, that I was known as “La Negra” all through highschool and that my mom would always called me “negrita”. I explained to him that here we know these names are not meant to give offense, on the contrary, that they indicate a level of closeness and intimacy that is special. He nearly lost it, he was speechless.
Are we really that inappropriate? Well, yes and no. Yes, maybe using someone’s looks to create cute nicknames is not the most sensible thing to do but I can’t help but think that maybe people take their political correctness too far at times. And by “people”, I don’t mean Costa Ricans, I think you’ve figured out we are PI by nature.
If we’re pondering how to be more politically correct, maybe we can start with the word “American”. Am I the only one who’s bothered about how incredibly incorrect that is? So, if you’re from the north of America or from Germany, Sweden or someplace like that, you’d better get used to the name “blondie”. Here in CR, you’ll be “machito” or “machita”. Learn to love it and own it. Welcome to the land of political incorrectness. Let’s all get over ourselves.
And even so there's a whole generation of people who wouldn't dare refer themselves to black people as "negros" and they'll call them "morenos" (something like "brown") even if that is actually offensive t0 the new generation of black people... I must say, being PC always depends on education, what we are taught by family and society...what do you think?
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