Getting “The Look” For Speaking Spanish In Public

Do you ever get “the look” when you speak Spanish in public?

You know what I mean. You’re out in public with your family or friends, telling a funny story or recounting something that happened to you, people in the coffee shop or restaurant are ignoring you mostly — until you speak Spanish! Then, all of a sudden, all heads snap towards your general direction, give a variation of a disapproving glance and look away, certain that you must be speaking badly of them.

I honestly have gotten to the point where I think it’s kind of funny and sometimes do it on purpose just to irritate people. I mean, for goodness’ sakes, I live in South Texas! Everyone — whether they’re Latino or not — speaks a little Spanish here! And honestly, I’ve got enough class not to talk smack about people when they’re two steps away.

I’ve never really been sure of what’s going through peoples’ minds when they give me “the look,” but I can tell it’s nothing good.  The truth is, when I’m out and about and people start speaking Chinese or Hebrew or whatever in front of me, my first impression isn’t that they want to stop their lives to purposefully make me uncomfortable. But, I assume that, like me, they just have some things that are better said or more artfully said in their own language.

Aside from sometimes wanting to irritate irritable people, I don’t go out of my way to use my bilingualism for evil, as it were. Rather, as someone who’s grown up with two languages, I find that some sentiments and thoughts are simply best expressed in Spanish, or sometimes in Spanglish, or sometimes in just English.