Wow, I don't think I've had more assumptions made about my linguistic ability or my place of residence so many times in... ever.
MMM, I do speak Spanish. I am not a fluent speaker, certainly. But I do have some ability. Four high school and one college class saw to that. No hay dudo que puedo hablar un poquito del español.
Also, I don't live in Southern California. Southern California is as much a Disneyland playground to me as is Japan, though it's more like the Toon Town, and I want to go to Space Mountain, y'know? SOCAL is like a six hour trip south on U.S. Interstate 5 for me. Yep, California is a big fricken' state. Whoodathunkit?
Anyway, if you're whole issue was with that I stated that I wasn't trying to be racist, then I think that's kinda stupid. EveV kindly pointed out that it may make my position seem like it holds some guilt for me, but when I wrote it, I wrote under the assumption that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE on the wide wide web would be over-sensitive enough to take offense at that. And go figure, the irony, that my trying to avoid THAT is what actually did me in
.
This is why I hate politicians. Well, actually, I just hate people that concern themselves overmuch with this shite. They're all so concerned with making sure they won't offend anybody that they get tongue-tied trying to say the simplest things, and then get all panty-bunched when someone comes along and in no uncertain terms speaks their mind out loud!
And I really don't see how not expecting to hear a language in a country where over 98% of the people there speak a very different language makes anyone ignorant :P . Hell, I went to Hawaii a few years back and was surprised to see a group of kids body surfing all jabbering in Spanish. It made me feel right at home, really, which was a rather unwelcome feeling since I was on
vacation. If there is a definition of 'ignorant' that fits that, then I apparently can't speak English very well. Or maybe there's a definition of 'ignorancia' in Spanish that I'm not aware of, which is quite possible.
I feel like I need to further clarify my stance: I don't dislike the Spanish language at all. It is the first foreign language I learned, I love speaking it, I loved every minute of learning it. I don't have a problem with people who speak it as their first language--why would I? I kinda wish that people would stop coming over the border illegally, but then again it's not exclusively Spanish speakers that do that, nor does it directly affect my quality of life in any way that I'm aware of. I just wouldn't like to go on vacation and get the sense that I haven't really gone anywhere.
On the other hand, vacationing in Spain would be neat because I'd be hearing a lot of Spanish with spatterings of English, which would be a contrast rather than just a difference as would be lots of Japanese with spatterings of Spanish.
So. This has been an interesting international incident. *sigh*