A tidbit to you United States citizens:
Argentine's are Americans too. And so are Bolivians and Peruvians, Uruguayans and Chileans, Venezuelans and Brazilians and everyone else in south and central America.
They don't really like when we call ourselves Americans, because so are they. At first I didn't understand this when I was asked a few years ago by one of my Ecuadorian friends, but now I see it clearly. Unfortunately for the English language, we don't have the direct translation of estadounidense (obviously), which means UnitedStatesean (basically). It is as if there is nothing we can do about it, but since living here I have become cautious about using American to describe myself. In Spanish, I use estadounidense and in English I try to use US Citizen, or say I'm from the US.
This may seem trivial, and to those who take pride in 'Merica, that's fine. But this is something so small that can fracture an intercultural [business] exchange because it demonstrates a lack of understanding and a slight bit of ignorance.
Of course, as I admitted before, I didn't get it when my friend César asked me why we called ourselves American, but through my experience here that is one of the small cultural differences I picked up on that I think all Global Leaders should really focus on, so I share with you.
That's all, folks.
"The limits of my language are the limits of my world." - Wittgenstein
Angela
Tango en las calles de la Boca
Pense que lo habias entendido, but you finally understand it, good.
ReplyDeleteFue bueno ver que me nombraras en tu blog
Good luck with your time remaining in Argentina
Amigo! No sabía que estabas siguiendo! Que sorpresa :)
DeleteEn serio, lo que digo es la verdad y ahora más que nunca creo que es importante que entiendan todas ese diferencia.
Espérame al fin de junio - fin de julio.
Ángela
Hello My Lovely Lady,
ReplyDeleteI miss you so much and I hope you are doing extremely well. I thought I successfully sent you a comment two weeks ago but apparently this blogging thing is a little trickier then I thought. Besides the fact that I miss you a ton and can't wait to see soon I loved this account on what we as people of the United States consider ourselves. It is funny because something like this I take for granted not even beginning to think of what others may call themselves Americans. You are obviously growing as a person but more importantly a global citizen. When you wrote this blog it made me think of what we consider ourselves first global citizens or "Americans"? Someone like myself I think first as a person of the U.S. because I have not traveled. I just wondered what you may call yourself and maybe what you see your friends consider themselves in Argentina and other abroad students? If they are more tied to the global side or their own country?
Take care my dear!!!
Jessie
Deary,
DeleteI miss you too!!! Bahhhh, sometimes this stinks.
I think it's safe to say that I am starting to consider myself Argentine. It would be hard not to identify myself with a country I will have lived in for almost half a year, if fact I would almost consider it wrong. It's definitely changing me and I am growing in a new direction (many new directions) and that I think is a serious transforming factor. Because of my experiences now I'm trying to call myself a US citizen or word my answer like "I'm from the US". Friends call themselves Americans and people I don't know do. There is something about our actions in general that turn Argentine's off; it's the #WWW ladies, the loud and drunk men and the rich snobs that they sometimes generalize us as. SO AMERICAN!! But it stinks to have that kind of label, so we work to destroy that and start by calling ourselves by what we specifically are, larger than Americans we are US citizens. It sounds weird, but that's because we never use it.
A lot of what I see are students that are doing intensive sessions of Spanish because they are learning how to speak, and what happens is the US kids stick together like glue and be loud and obnoxious, and call themselves Americans, angering people like me: definitely still tied to the country.
See you soon,
Angela
Angela,
ReplyDeleteHope everything is going well!
The comment that really grabbed my attention in this post was your mention of how this issue can impact a business meeting. Currently, I'm combining the lessons from Lead 203 to my Spanish class to create a presentation discussing how a business person from the United States would hold an effective meeting with a Venezuelan business person. I wasn't aware of this term estadounidense, but I definitely plan on doing more research on it and will discuss it in my presentation!
-Dani
I'm glad to stimulate a nerve :)
ReplyDeleteAngela