Slashing Stereotypes:
Studying abroad opens a debate on U.S. race relations,
from the American Revolution to Barack Obama
Article & Photos by Hafez Adel
“It is too bad he can’t win,” he said. “I like him more than the other guy.”
“Why don’t you think he can win? He’s doing well in the polls,” I said.
“Porque es negro. Los americanos nunca votarán para un hombre negro.” Because he’s black. Americans will never vote for a black man.
And so went my conversation with Javier, my flat-mate in Barcelona who was also my favorite to talk to about all things politics. For months, he had been my guide through the treacherous terrain of European attitudes toward the United States, and I was taken aback by how certain he was that Barack Obama had no chance of becoming the 44th President of the United States.
It would have been foolish to be surprised by an anti-American remark while studying abroad for a year. After all, my classmates and I knew ahead of time about the hostility we might face abroad. Quick summary: don’t mention the Iraq war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the death penalty, or any familial relationship you may have with George W. Bush. But in fact, except for a few drunken tirades I endured on the metro (“Why is your President a monkey?” they would demand while spilling boxed wine on my shoes), I never felt discriminated against for being an American.
No, what bothered me was how casually Javier proclaimed that Americans are so racist they would never vote a black person into office, as if it were a well-known fact like the color of the sky or the religion of the Pope. Even worse, Javier actually liked America. He told me on multiple occasions that it was his dream to rent a convertible and drive Route 66 all the way down the Californian coast like “Los Beach Boys.” (I didn’t have the heart to point out the geographical impossibility of his vision.) What does it say about America’s reputation when even our admirers think we can be stuck-in-our-ways, or even racist?
Then I learned that some think the American Revolution could be our guide.
In the American Literature courses at the University of Barcelona, some students are taught that all literary works published after 1776 must be viewed through the lens of the Revolutionary War. We learned in our class, for example, if a character in an American novel has a split personality, he or she is a personification of the Civil War and of our nation’s irreparably fractured psyche. Holden Caulfield is actually Paul Revere in disguise, foreshadowing the impending dissolution of our most cherished values in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Or something like that.
The other students in the Education Abroad Program and I laughed and laughed at this professor’s theories, but then it dawned on me: how often have we ourselves grossly reduced a nation’s complicated history into a series of memorable anecdotes and turning points? How many convenient narrative webs have we spun to explain away something as intricate as a nation’s soul? How often do we mistake the caricature for the character?
All of us in the program were guilty of this simplification. The Spanish, we imagined, were a sun-soaked, easy-going people who enjoyed drinking liters of sangria during their three-hour lunch breaks—a pleasant prelude to their multi-hour siestas, which are vital so they can save their energy for a rousing night of bullfighting and flamenco dancing. An arrogant or austere Spaniard is an oddity, we thought, and he or she surely harbors resentment over the loss of Spain’s colonial treasures following the sinking of the Spanish Armada at the hands of the English. Everyone in Spain must smoke, including babies and grannies.
My bubble of oversimplification was burst within a few weeks of moving into my apartment at the University of Barcelona and getting to know my Spanish and Catalan roommates. Soon I discovered that not all Spaniards enjoy listening to Spanish guitar (they preferred Nelly Furtado and Janet Jackson). Not every Spaniard smokes (or even tolerates smoking indoors, as I learned during many a chilly evening on the balcony). And workplace stress and obsessive-compulsive behavior are not exclusive to Americans. Lights out for them came at 11 p.m., right around the time I would slink out the door to experience Barcelona’s legendary nightlife. None of them had ever been to a bullfight, unlike my fellow students who scratched that from their to-do lists within a few weeks of stepping off the plane.
History matters, but not the history I was thinking of. Strolling the cosmopolitan promenades and crowded beaches, it’s easy to forget that a mere 30 years ago the entire country was dominated by a bona fide dictator. The label “fascist” is not just a political trump card like it is in the United States. The term is a potent and painful reminder of a past that hasn’t quite faded, and it’s difficult to dismiss its use because many contemporary politicians were once card-carrying members of Franco’s oppressive Phalange party.
Does that mean that you can easily endear yourself to Spaniards by badmouthing Franco and his fascist friends? No, you can’t. In fact, the Spaniards I talked to were quick to chastise me for painting the Spanish Civil War as a battle between good and evil with clearly identifiable heroes and villains. “It’s not that simple,” Javier told me. “Both sides did terrible, terrible things. But you only hear about the bad things Franco did because the other side took power after he died.”
This picture, taken at the Museum of Catalonian History, shows a variety of propaganda posters
that were circulated during the Spanish Civil War.
I struggled with this idea for a long time. I thought that when dealing with self–avowed fascists, there were no grey areas; fascist equals bad, end of story. I was a product of freedom–centric American schools and Hollywood movies, which taught me liberty is more important than life and that those who seek to suppress liberty must be stopped. But I wasn’t in Spain when the anti–fascist Republican Party desecrated churches, burned monasteries, or executed thousands of clergymen and civilian “fascist sympathizers” for opposing their movement. I wasn’t present at the Parliamentary debates when the left–leaning government demanded memorial and restitution for Franco’s victims but refused to consider the equivalent for the victims of the “Red Terror” perpetrated by the Republicans. There was so much I didn’t know and so much I still can’t understand.
Javier knew that black people were considered property in the United States for hundreds of years and that they only received full civil rights half a century ago. Just like me, he knew the plot but not the whole story. I told him that the struggle to heal America’s racial wounds continues fervently in the classrooms, courtrooms, and legislatures throughout the country. I told him that in virtually every arena of American culture—movies, music, literature, poetry, painting, and even cartoons—Americans are engaged in a dialogue about their nation’s legacy of prejudice and what can be done to ensure a more just and equitable future. I told him that the question of racism was everywhere except under the rug, where he assumed Americans had swept it.
He looked thoughtful for a few moments when I explained this to him. “Well, maybe there is hope for you Americans after all.”
Living abroad taught me that stereotypes endure because they provide a comfortable shortcut to understanding complex matters and that they usually emerge to fill a vacuum of knowledge. Talking with my roommates, classmates, and strangers on the streets of Spain dispelled many of the stereotypes I held, while studying and hearing stories about Spanish history dispelled my misconceptions even more. Javier and I had countless more kitchen conversations after that day, talking about everything from Bill Clinton to Cristiano Ronaldo. What we learned is that we know much less about each other’s cultures than we thought. But what we lost in certainty, we made up for in understanding.
Hafez Adel graduated from the University of California Irvine in 2008 with a major in International Studies and a minor in Psychology and Social Behavior. He studied abroad at the University of Barcelona last year. He is currently working as a freelance writer and plans to attend law school.