More of a journal and less of a blog

Extranjero, according to my Microsoft Word translator, is equivalent to the English word foreigner. It also bears a striking resemblance to the adjective extraño, meaning strange or odd (and, as my translator says, extranjero/foreign), and the verb extrañar, meaning to find strange or wonder at. “You don’t belong.”

Living as an extranjero en un país extraño, trying to become less strange and more comfortable, I have an extra sensitivity to this word. Because as long as I’m called extranjero, it means I’m not immersing and my language and appearance and customs are still strange to my surroundings. Immersion is hard to do; I don’t expect to miraculously morph into a happy s-dropping, c-lisping, boot-wearing Andalucían native after only six months. But I can try, at least, to exude more confidence in my speech and my comfort here.

Whether it’s nationalism or just something to talk about, I get a simple reminder almost every day from my señora that I’m still an extranjera. That I don’t exactly belong. The Spanish love their gossip shows, and conveniently every afternoon around lunch time there’s one on. We sit eating and watching the latest news about Spanish stars I’ve never heard of, European royal families, and sometimes more prominent American stars. Whenever, for example, the blonde wife of some Spanish fútbol player appears who’s obviously not Spanish, my señora says “Extranjera. Ella es una extranjera.” I know it’s not an attack against me or my success at immersion or my own birth nation, but it makes me a little mad every time she says it. She can call me her youngest daughter and let me live my life out of her house, but she can’t get past the fact that some people are born Spanish and some just visit. In recent weeks I’ve been replying, “No. No es una extranjera porque es de mi tierra. No es una extranjera para mi.” Maybe it’s different in America, because essentially everyone is an immigrant and an outsider. But I don’t go around labeling people as foreigners, because like the word extranjero for me, it has a slightly bad connotation. But here, where’s the tolerance, why can’t she accept that some people are blond, and some people don’t speak Spanish at all or very well at all. We all live on the same planet, and I came here to see what Spain has to offer me as a citizen of the world. Not as siempre, unavoidably una extranjera.