Before I begin this post I have to remind you all that I love Spain. Love it. But just like family members that we love, Spain has it's faults. Yes, Spain functions slower than most of the Western World. And they do love their ham products. But these quirks are at times lovable or teach us something. The one fault I'm going to talk about isn't all that lovable. Spain is racist.
I would venture to guess that most of this stems from their 45 years under a dictatorship that valued sameness. For example, Franco insisted that everyone in Spain speak Castellano, even though there are other major dialects like Catalan and Gallego. The goal was to paint everyone the same and have a homogeneous population. Clearly that was not going to happen, but he would sure try! Still after 34 years of democracy the effects of dictatorship influence the people.
Now one of the main problems I see in Spain is racism. Perhaps I'm more prone to notice it because the United States is almost hyper-sensitive to racial issues. At no point will I ever argue that the United States has it all figured out on any issue, especially race relations. But Spain has a lot of learning to do. In 2007 I did a short report for my Spanish class about an incident in Spain where an immigrant woman was beaten in the Barcelona metro simply for being an immigrant. I commented that I didn't know how the attacker knew she was from Latin America and my professor, who is Spanish, said "Oh, Spaniards just know" as to imply that they have a national 6th sense about "others". Side note, the kid was charged and there were anti-racist and pro-immigrant protests; it is not like these types of things go unpunished.
Things that shock Americans pass for acceptable behavior here. Early in my time at Rosa Luxemburgo one of the teachers was talking about a student of mine, Joe, who is from the Philippines. To make sure the people in the conversation knew exactly which student we were talking about he put his index fingers to the outside corners of his eyes and pulled the skin back. This same gesture has recently put pop-star Miley Cyrus on the proverbial firing line in the States, but it was acceptable lunch time humor in a Spanish elementary school.
Last week the 3rd and 4th grades of Rosa Luxemburgo were invited to a concert put on by the Social Works of the Caja Madrid Bank. The title was "Sonidos de la Tierra" or "Sounds of the Earth". The purpose of the show was to teach children, through music, that in the end we are all human. For about an hour the group preformed songs from various regions in the world. The first two numbers didn't bother me, but when we got to Mexico I began to feel uncomfortable. As Jose Luis and his mates played Cielito Lindo images of Speedy Gonzales and people sleeping against cacti were projected behind them. It started to feel like they were doing it in jest, slightly to poke fun at Mexicans.
Eastern Europe passed with little controversy; yes they had grouped together anything west of Germany and all of former Yugoslavia together but it wasn't particularly offensive. Perhaps they were saving the offense for their song from the heart of Africa. It was a call and answer song, so they tried to teach it to us. When I looked to my program for the words I was disgusted with the image on the page, then I looked up to see the title "Black Africa" above pictures of tribal people in Africa. To add to my disorientation the presentation of the song almost seemed like their comedic interpretation of a traditional African song. I'm not sure if their attempt to make learning fun just backfired into them making fun of other people, either way I was nervous for what was coming next. Who knew what culture we were going to offend and belittle next!To close the show they played a song from a very young country that has invented lots of things, including many musical styles like Jazz and Gospel. The song they chose to play from the United States was a "country" song. I put country in quotes because the actual style of music was more along the lines of Bluegrass, but actually could have been Oh Susanna. This time the screen behind the band showed pictures of toothless men in overalls, but no shirts. The kinds of images Americans associate with mid-century cartoons about the gold rush. Lucky for us, kids in Spain are learning that is what America is like. Excellent.
After the concert two of the Spanish speaking teachers and I got into an excellent conversation about how that wasn't even a "Country" song, nor was it representative of my country. That lead us to talking about Oregon and how I do and don't want to go back (more on that in another post). These two women had previously seen rather stand-offish to me, but that was probably because they didn't know how to communicate with me. Unfortunately, when every we had crossed paths the kids were around so I didn't want to speak tons of Spanish in front of them. This time they were telling me to get a cup for some coffee and I responded to them in front of one of my 4th graders, Daniela. She promptly freaked out and wanted me to speak Spanish with her. I explained that I would if we saw each other in the grocery store or outside of school, but when I come to school I am there to speak English. She accepted my answer and went off to play. Pilar and Maribel, the two Spanish teachers looked on almost in awe and laughed when I explained the situation to them. I'm really glad we had our little talk; now I know they aren't as scary as I thought and they know we can chat in Spanish... but only when the coast is clear.
Now on to the truly disturbing portion of my racism post. The play that will be going on at school tomorrow. It is the only English language activity that the school will be hosting or really participating in. For a city that publicly praises its bilingual program, Madrid offers few activities outside of the classroom for kids to do in English. The group is bringing the play "Tarzan" to the multi-purpose room of Rosa Luxemburgo. "Tarzan" is also a musical. One of the songs is entitled Jungle Fever. I don't know about you, but I learned "Jungle Fever" as a derogatory term for people in an interracial relationship; for example one might say that a white man dating a black woman has Jungle Fever.
The words to this Jungle Fever song go as follows:
We've got Jungle Fever,This might sound familiar to anyone who has seen the 1991 Spike Lee movie, or heard the Stevie Wonder song associated with it.
We've got Jungle Fever, we're in love.
I've just found my baby,
We've just found our baby, we're in love.
Now my boggle is what to do. I didn't get a look at the lyrics until maybe Wednesday, clearly too late for them to cancel the show. But these kids can't learn a song that repeats this phrase over and over again without knowing that they really ought not to use it. I've informally polled many English speakers and, with one exception, everyone instantly recognized it as derogatory. But really, how do you tell a group of 3rd and 4th graders in a generally racist country not to use a catchy phrase from the song in the play because it is mean to interracial relationships?
Obviously I will let you know how tomorrow goes. If nothing else, we can all laugh at my discomfort in this situation!
