Quite a few Hispanic Hispanists are stuck in the rut of endlessly and sanctimoniously reminding the non-Hispanic Hispanists that we don’t have personal experience of what we are researching. Of course, if we make personal experience a requirement for a scholarly career, then Medievalists and Shakespearean scholars should all just go jump off a cliff.
What such people don’t understand is that there is no compliment greater than dedicating one’s one and only life to studying, teaching, and promoting their culture. Latin America is gaining prominence and even – maybe, possibly, almost – clout, but Spain is a small, comparatively poor country that is about to fall apart into tiny little pieces. We should treasure every bit of evidence that it is still relevant to people. And if those people were not born in Spain, that’s a good sign.
Seriously, if all you can offer the field is having been born somewhere, then that’s not a whole lot. We all experienced being born and growing up, so big whoop. A new reader of this blog is a historian who specializes in Soviet history. Would I ever suggest that his research is garbage because he isn’t from the USSR? Of course not because I’m not insane. Quite the opposite, I’m thrilled that he is doing the important work of filling in lacunae in the knowledge about my country. Why would I want to get into a pissing contest with a person like that?
P.S. I’m noticing that among Spanish Hispanists this is a habit of people in their 50s and 60s. Among Latin American Hispanists, however, this is very common in the 30-40-year-old range. That’s just a personal statistic, though.
Clarissa's Blog 
Most of my professors that taught me Spanish were not born in Spanish-speaking countries. They were excellent teachers and I learned a lot from them. It was also encouraging for me to see non-native Spanish speakers be fluent and awesome in Spanish. It made it seem like we, the students, could also achieve this.
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“It was also encouraging for me to see non-native Spanish speakers be fluent and awesome in Spanish. It made it seem like we, the students, could also achieve this”
This is a major point.
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““It was also encouraging for me to see non-native Spanish speakers be fluent and awesome in Spanish. It made it seem like we, the students, could also achieve this”
This is a major point.”
– I always tell my students that I’m a perfect example of how you can learn to speak a language with great fluency in adulthood without living in a country where it is spoken or even going on Study Abroad.
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I can get quite snarky about this, since it also means only fish can study fish, and so on. A current Spanish colleague alleges he is in his 40s (I think he is in 50s) and he is like this. He even tells us that he has honor, and we must respect it (this is an untenured asst prof, so I don’t get to laugh in his face, as this would not create a nice work environment for him, but when he gets tenure, I will truly begin to guffaw).
It’s quite odd as I would never dream of saying I know more about US history, for example, than some foreigner who actually had a degree and a research agenda in it, just because I am from here. I also don’t think the French or the Germans are so insistent on others not being able to understand their countries, etc., or am I missing something?
Perhaps it has to do with the exceptionalism, the investment in Spain as different, mysterious, and so on. I also notice that the people who are the most like this are the most monolingual — weak English and no third language — and they tend to work on their own countries. So they really *are* trading on identity and personal experience, and do not know much about other places.
One thing I like to do with and for native speakers (and I learned it from Hugo Achúgar) is not let them do their research projects on their own countries. Dissertation, yes, if they must, but I mean presentations for classes, things like this. It is important to insist they work in somewhat less familiar terrain.
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” I also don’t think the French or the Germans are so insistent on others not being able to understand their countries, etc., or am I missing something?”
– I’d like to know, too. Specialists in German, French, Italian, Slavic, etc. studies, are you noticing something like this in your field? In Hispanic Studies, this is VERY present.
“One thing I like to do with and for native speakers (and I learned it from Hugo Achúgar) is not let them do their research projects on their own countries. ”
– Good! I will never forget this oral presentation where we had to listen to stories of “This is how we partied back in Colombia when I was a teenager.” As a discussion over a few beers, this is great, but as a presentation in a graduate course? Come on.
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I am thinking French/German/English probably not, because they assume universality. It is more normal to them that people would study them. But in both Spanish and Danish, where they do not assume you know anything about them, I can have whole conversations and then the person will suddenly ask me: do you speak Spanish/ do you speak Danish? when it is what we have been speaking.
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We are trying to reconstruct our graduate program here and I very much like the idea of not letting people do work on their own countries. Everybody here wants to only work on their own village or region in Ghana which is a small country to begin with. I think we need a much more Pan-African focus. The fact that none of our graduate students since I have been here have had any language facility in non-Ghanaian languages has also been a problem. Ghana is surrounded by French speaking countries.
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I would expect this to be a bigger issue from those with backgrounds in Latin America (as in country of birth or ancestory) than from scholars from Spain.
And basically the fucked up hisory between the US and Latin America* is making itself known (the fact that you’re not from the US originally is insignificant). Imagine what things might be life for a russophone specialist in Hungarian studies living in Slovakia in the mid 90’s would have been like…..
I also wouldn’t expect any systematic relationship between degree of US misbehavior vis a vis a given country and hostile attitudes from those who have some connection with said country. There are class and ideological factors as well. The absolute most condescending and/or hostile Latinos toward the US I’ve known were from Puerto Rico** and young people born in communist Cuba were far, far, far more reasonable than Americans of Cuban ancestory born in the US).
*obligatory acknowledgement that the US government has mostly behaved very badly in Latin America (though there is also a lot of home grown dysfunction as well).
**oscilating wildly from warm and wonderful and cold, condescending and hostile in the same encounter
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“And basically the fucked up hisory between the US and Latin America* is making itself known (the fact that you’re not from the US originally is insignificant). I”
– No, it is easier for me to pass for “one of our own” than for a US person. I’ve actually been included in the “me tienen podrida estos gringos de mierda” [I’m sick and tired of these shitty gringos] discussions a few times. 🙂 I also get the “nosotras somos mujeres latinas y vemos las cosas de una manera distinta” [we are Latinas and see things differently] with “nosotras” including me. 🙂
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“young people born in communist Cuba were far, far, far more reasonable than Americans of Cuban ancestory born in the US”
– YES! Cuban Americans are very very special. And not in a good way. 🙂
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When I worked as a barrist our Mexican dish washer once told me, “Todos Cubanos son locos.” He was obviously referring to Cuban Americans since he had never been to Cuba, only the US and Mexico. I thought it was pretty funny because the Cuban guys who owned a local cigar shop really were crazy.
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But then you mention Argentineans, and Mexicans and Cubans unite in their hatred of the common enemy. 🙂
Also, Peruvians and Mexicans can never get along for some reason. Peruvians have people skills and Mexicans seem to detest that. 🙂
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I’m breaking up my thoughts over several posts because… lot of shit to discuss.
I think the best practice for _any_ language/culture program in _any_ country is a mix of insider and outsider perspectives toward both the language(s)/culture(s) of study and of the students. Each side brings something to the table that the other side doesn’t and can’t.
Many, many years ago I recognized that a major weakness of English studies in Eastern Europe was a shortage of native English speakers with fluent knowledge of the language and culture of the local countries (we exist, but there’s not many of us and we often don’t have the appropriate ‘qualifications’ because they basically don’t exist). So the ‘experts’ end up talking to themselves and/or the occasional anglophone who is agreeable in order to be polite and reinforcing mistaken (often wildly so) ideas
In communist times this was understandable as it was not at all in the regimes’ interest to have loutsiders who could actually talk to locals and get an uncensored view of life at ground level. But it has often persisted loooong after it served any real, even horribly mistaken, purpose (nb this is absolutely not an issue where I am, where outsiders very much valued for the contributions they bring).
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“I think the best practice for _any_ language/culture program in _any_ country is a mix of insider and outsider perspectives toward both the language(s)/culture(s) of study and of the students. Each side brings something to the table that the other side doesn’t and can’t.”
– Of course! We are very gradually starting to get some Hispanic students in our courses which is really great for everybody. The students stop seeing Spanish-speaking cultures as something faraway and exotic and begin to think in terms of “this is the culture of my classmate Hector.”
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