Spanish Culture (part 3 of 3): Cultural Exposure in Europe

In today’s society, we are going through a major time of differences and war. Now, there are many reasons for this in my opinion but it mainly comes from a a general misunderstanding of cultures due to the lack of exposure as well as language barriers. I have seen this first hand here in Spain and have actually faced racism several times from different Spaniards because I am American. I’m going to focus this last post on how to start moving toward a more sustainable society through the use of cultural exposure.

So, again, my opinion is that if everyone was more culturally exposed throughout the world, we would have less conflict. This is not to say that you can achieve world peace through this, but it is a concept of mine that could be a stepping stone. Before I left to come here this semester, I was a fairly open minded person and I loved the Hispanic culture. Although this was true, I also learned that I was fairly ignorant when it came to Spain’s culture. I expected it to be similar to the US, even in the way their communities acted and their general temperaments. I was very wrong in all of those regards. If you want to hear more examples check out my previous two blogs that go into detail about this. But anyways, through this semester, I have learned to become even more open minded to due exposure of different cultures and eradication of cultural ignorance within me. I have interacted this whole with many Spaniards as well others from around the world and am now open minded to learning about the norms an cultures of all cultures from around the world, whereas before, I tended write off other cultures without them another chance. In my opinion, this is one reason the world is at war, is because they are afraid of the fact that there are other major cultures in the world that are just as amazing as their own. It boils down to pride. Before I came here I was more proud of New Mexico than I was of Spain and was hesitant to try their new foods. Norms, etc. Now, I feel like a Spaniard and can’t wait to experience all of the different cultures of the different countries that I am visiting here soon. This is all due to my exposure to other cultures during my time over here. I have learned that every culture has something new and intriguing to offer. I’ve also learned that you have to take it with a grain of salt as well because of things that could be bad differences between different cultures such as racism.

I have experienced Spanish racism against Americans twice since I have been here and I will explain those stories now. There is a tradition here in Spain called “Botellon” which translates to “big bottle”. This is a tradition where Spaniards go to parks and local areas to drink beer with their friends before going out to the bars. My friends and I were doing this while sitting next to the river one night and a couple of Spaniards that were our age came up to us and started talking to us in Spanish. I told them that we were studying here but not from here and their attitudes changed immediately. They started coming at us aggressively and cursing at us in Spanish while continuously saying “If you are not from here, you need to get out of here because we don’t like people like you. Eventually, we deescalated the situation and both groups ended up leaving. Later, I discussed this with my Spanish Culture professor and he told me that this is a general view of many Spaniards and as I said in a previous blog this is also due to our view of the rest of the world being so close minded. So this is why Spaniards generally do not like Americans (almost more than anyone in Europe). Also, if you considered the size of Europe and thought of it as a country, in comparison to the United States, travelling between massively different with generally different languages etc. is much easier here in Europe. Therefore, genereally, Europeans are more culturally exposed and open minded to other cultures, whereas in America it is harder for us to travel between such largely different cultures os easily so we are less culturally exposed and more close minded to learning about other cultures.

Again, this concept does not world but it is an idea. I think that all students in the US should be required to study abroad for one semester no matter what your major is. In the ideal world, this experience could be added to the FAFSA application for your senior year in order to be supplemented for your travels (since people cannot afford to do study abroad). I think our generation would become vastly more culturally aware and it would also begin to eliminate the stigma of close mindedness in the US. If you have any thoughts about this please email me at ryanmaki@nmsu.edu or Facebook message me anytime! I’d love to hear your thoughts! That does it for Spanish culture!

Until next time!