Cultural Identity & Intercultural Communication: Buenos Aires (MO)

Happy campers after ordering food in Castellano

Upon ordering food at a restaurant or exchanging dollars to pesos in Castellano without seeing the awkward flinch in the face with whom you are speaking, the feeling of accomplishment that overwhelms ones body is indescribable. It happens quite often in Argentina that people hear my American accent and immediately start speaking to me in English. Although this may be helpful to the everyday tourist who wanders the streets of Buenos Aires, to an exchange student who came to better their Spanish, it is not the most helpful. Over the past couple weeks I have come to the conclusion that when this happens I will either continue responding in Spanish, or tell them that I do not understand English and therefore force them to continue the conversation in Spanish. This of course counters one of the major stereotypes that is associated with an American, which is that they are ignorant about other cultures and that they are not interested in learning other languages. During one of my interviews with my neighbor, with a facial expression of shock he explained to me that "most Americans are not interested in learning about Argentine culture, and definitely do not try to speak to us in our native language." As an American who grew up speaking English, studied abroad in Germany during high school making me fluent in German, has studied Arabic, French and is also currently studying abroad in Argentina to better my Spanish this statement left a terrible taste in my mouth.

Plataformas are everywhere!

Along with the stereotype of Americans only speaking English, in the interview with my host mom it was brought up that many Americans are known as being very wealthy. She explained to me that Americans are always a target when it comes to robberies because Argentines all know that we have "those things" (referring to an iphone). Comically my host mother also owns an iphone and a macbook, but she still argues that I am more of a target. She explained that Americans "just hold themselves differently." I have also noticed this during my twenty minute walk to the subway in the morning, I seem to always be walking faster than the average Porteño and always with a specific destination in mind. In Buenos Aires it is very common for people to stop on the street and look in the storefronts,
 especially at plataformas (which is just the biggest craze here), or to stop and get their shoes polished by a beggar on the side of the street. Coming from a life where most of my major city experience comes from New York City, I just find this extremely hard to comprehend. 

Along with always being in a rush, it has been brought to my attention that Americans are known as being inpatient. During my oral communications class, which consists of all Americans, we were all asked to write down a postivie trait about ourselves and one negative trait. At the conclusion of the class we all shared what we had written and about 90% of the class (including myself) wrote that our negative trait was that we were lacking patience. After laughing about us also lacking creativity, our professor explained that most Argentines would agree that Americans at not patient. Fortunately, Argentines seem to some of the most patient people that I have come across.They are always willing to listen to my broken Castellano and help with anything from directions, to a question about what line to get into while buying Lollapalooza tickets. 

Slightly attempting to "fit in"

Lastly, the question of "fitting in" has been brought up many times. I do not think that I will ever fit in completely as an Argentine because I have a slightly lighter complection, I have "blonde" hair (which is clearly not true), and I will always wear shorts when it is 80 degrees outside, even if it increases the number of catcalls one receives on the street. "Fitting in" is not something that I am entrirely seeking while abroad because I am able to accept the fact that I am different from the people of Argentine, but that I will also be different once I return home. When I return back to the place where I ultimately should "fit in" I will not because I will then have some small traces of German and Argentine culture which I will always carry around with me.