Upon arrival, I was installed in the second floor of a relative's house and
treated to Dominican hospitality. The only English I spoke was to the
American Airlines' overseas telephone reservation service to re-confirm my
reservation to get out of the country when the time came. While I was on the
telephone doing the re-confirmation, I glanced over at one of my cousins (8
years old) and saw him look at me as though I was speaking Klingon. It wasn't
just the language -- what he was witnessing was me interfacing with another
culture and, to be honest, since I am good at speaking English, part of me
probably did some "showing off". I wasn't always on top of the game, however.
My Spanish is rusty -- and filled with junctures in which an American accent
slips through -- and if I didn't pay absolute attention, my compatriots'
mile-a-minute speech left me behind at the gate. Nevertheless, after a week
or so I found myself "Dominicanized" -- just in time to leave and come back
here.
A lot of my time, in fact, was spent sitting and listening to others
(Dominicans usually don't use TV to substitute for visits and long, in-person
conversations), often about mundane matters -- or politics. About the third day
of my visit, I met a gentleman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Eddie
Murphy. Turned out that he was a political functionary (also an engineer) and
quite a conversationalist. Most of his conversation was directed to one of my
cousins, but I did say a few things to him. As I sat back and took in the
conversation my eyes and ears also witnessed my surroundings: the fast
tropical dusk, the fresh evening breeze on the patio, the merengue playing in
the house next door.
It was after about thirty minutes that it hit me that the engineer would have
probably been eyeballed as "black" in the United States. I found myself
wondering if he had ever visited the U.S. I wondered if he was aware of his
"blackness" and, if so, what of it? It is true that I heard my cousin
jokingly refer to him as "moreno" -- but I know lots of Latinos who wouldn't be
eyeballed as "black" call themselves that. The thoughts came and went and I
resumed listening to the rapid-fire Spanish, trying desperately to keep up.
This isolated incident, in fact, was not really so singular. I know a number
of people in the Dominican Republic who would certainly have been eyeballed
as "black" in the United States (including yours truly). Sometimes I have
asked the above questions to myself and, invariably, the thoughts have left
as fast as they came, as I resumed just living during a normal day. Over the
dozens of years that I have known these people, I have never seen or heard
them say or do anything different from those who would not have been
eyeballed. And I have never said anything to them about this in all those
years (besides -- they don't know who they are).
Should I have?
William Javier Nelson, Ph.D.
This past July I returned to the Dominican Republic for a very short visit to
catch up on seeing some people and to generally laze around and make a
nuisance of myself to relatives.
Also of interest by William Javier Nelson:
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