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Mi negra

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Clarissa

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When I was first learning Spanish, I started hanging out with a Hispanic student who had a young child. She kept referring to her daughter as “mi negra.” My Spanish wasn’t fantastic back then, and my cultural competence was even worse. I assumed that the Argentinian woman had a black child and never thought of it again.

One day, my friend called me to say that she was going to bring her daughter to campus, and I would finally meet “la negrita.” I was befuddled when she presented to me a blue-eyed Scandinavian-blonde little girl.

That’s when I realized why her nickname for me was “la flaca”.

7 responses to “Mi negra”

  1. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “referring to her daughter as “mi negra” 

    Is this an Argentine thing? Maybe related to vesre (in terms of semantics rather than phonoetics)? IME Spanish speakers go the opposite way. Years ago I had a Southern Baptist coworker who was learning Spanish and was offended at first when she found out a friend’s nickname for her was ‘gordita’. She acknowledged she was heavy herself but hearing it from others… I offered that in Spanish gordo (and its derivatives) are not as negative as ‘fat’ is in English and is often used positively but I’m not sure that helped.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Yes, Argentinians, are very liberal with insults as a form of praise and creative wordsmithing.

      My Argentinian friend would always greet me on the phone with “La hija de la reputísima madre que te re-parió. Me cago en vos.”

      And I would respond with “La concha de la lora, pero ¿estás en pedo?”

      I miss her so much.

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “Argentinians, are very liberal with insults”

        I often have… processing problems with Argentinian (written more than spoken) that are kind of like your processing problems with Quebec French. Many years ago, when I could read Spanish and Mexican magazines fairly well someone brought an Argentinian magazine to class and looking at it… lots of words I recognized but somehow it wasn’t making a lot of sense and have had problems with it ever since.

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  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Ah yes, the Hispanic insult-nicknames. My stepson who is over six feet tall is “enano,” anyone who has hooded eyes is “chino,” the family always picks the thing you are most insecure about and decides to name you after said insecurity. I think it actually helps make you more secure, though. I am overweight and always “flaca” as well. Good news is anyone could call me fat now and it won’t sting.

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  3. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    I like that approach better than everybody having to pretend they don’t notice the thing, whatever the thing is. 😀

    My siblings and I were all very small for our age. No doubt we’d be short forever. My father didn’t want us to feel insecure about that. His solution: he purchased a Randy Newman record and played the song “Short People” until we had all memorized it.

    Short people got… no reason to liiiive!

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    1. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        I’ve not seen anything in spam. This app has been terrible at publishing my comments. There is now always a several-minute lag, and then the comment either publishes or does not. Often, I discover that nothing was published.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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