La gringa
Being here has changed my perspective on so many things, most of all on foreign-ness. Its always been a goal of mine to live in various cities around the US and around the world, while I was young and didn't have too many roots put down. But I have so many roots already, and while I still intend to travel and live around the world, I think this is going to be a lot harder than I imagined, just because its so lonely! I knew zero Chileans when I arrived in Santiago, and after being here a month I know about 20. That isn't very many, and the ones I know I don't know very well. I'm often tempted to walk up to friendly-looking strangers and say to them "I know almost no one in this country. Do you want to be my friend?"
Its so much easier being an 'immigrant' here than in the US, I imagine. There's so much prejudice towards immigrants in the US. In my experience, Americans feel self-congratulatory for having even a neutral attitude towards foreigners, and most don't go out of their way to help someone out. I remember having an old Russian man come up to me on the street in San Francisco asking for directions. I didn't know any Russian at that time so though I was friendly, I just vaguely pointed him in the right direction and let him try to figure out the rest himself. Here in Chile, I've been lost so many times and had to ask for directions. I wish that more people would say, "Oh, its just a few blocks from here, let me walk you there," and go out of their way a bit. Like that Russian guy probably had no idea what directions I was giving him, and probably had to ask another 10 people before he finally got where he was going, if he even found it at all.
So while people are nicer to me than I imagine Americans are to Chilean (for example) immigrants, let's just say that you can never do enough to help out someone who doesn't speak the language, doesn't know anyone, and has NO idea what's going on.
On my walk home from school today I saw:
-horsedrawn carts of vegetables
-16 feral dogs (I counted)
-two foot long cellery and pumkins the size of small children
-a protest that blocked off the entire square
-San Francisco quality fog
Its so much easier being an 'immigrant' here than in the US, I imagine. There's so much prejudice towards immigrants in the US. In my experience, Americans feel self-congratulatory for having even a neutral attitude towards foreigners, and most don't go out of their way to help someone out. I remember having an old Russian man come up to me on the street in San Francisco asking for directions. I didn't know any Russian at that time so though I was friendly, I just vaguely pointed him in the right direction and let him try to figure out the rest himself. Here in Chile, I've been lost so many times and had to ask for directions. I wish that more people would say, "Oh, its just a few blocks from here, let me walk you there," and go out of their way a bit. Like that Russian guy probably had no idea what directions I was giving him, and probably had to ask another 10 people before he finally got where he was going, if he even found it at all.
So while people are nicer to me than I imagine Americans are to Chilean (for example) immigrants, let's just say that you can never do enough to help out someone who doesn't speak the language, doesn't know anyone, and has NO idea what's going on.
On my walk home from school today I saw:
-horsedrawn carts of vegetables
-16 feral dogs (I counted)
-two foot long cellery and pumkins the size of small children
-a protest that blocked off the entire square
-San Francisco quality fog
posted by Julia | 3:16 PM
1 Comments:
Of course you probably didn't take pictures of any of these things, because you're too scared to carry your camera around. The other thing to remember about America and immigrants is that while they may recieve poor treatment from the majority race (white people). There are huge immigrant populations in the United States that will treat them quite well. Compare this to a homogenous country like Chile where you might get more respect from the majority race, but there aren't many immigrants to make ties with. Also while in Europe Americans arent' liked very well, around the rest of the world Americans are in many cases considered cream of the crop and get the best treatment. If you were African, for example, your might be treated very poorly there.
Anyway I'd adivse not walking up to random males in Chile and asking them to be your friend. They might get the wrong impression.
-Dylan.
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