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Amigo

As I've written about before, I have a mixed heritage. You wouldn't know it from looking at me, but I have Chinese family. On the flip side, you wouldn't know by looking at my name on paper that I was born in South America and speak Spanish. Basically, I surprise people all the time. It leads to all sorts of laughs.

For example, someone called me at work the other day to talk about working with some interns from minority groups. I've never worked with this person before, but he got my name from some folks that I have worked with. Since he only knew my name, he had no idea that I actually had first-hand experience with some of the teams and programs that he was describing. The kicker of all of it was when I let him in on the secret. He asked if I spoke Spanish, and I responded in a few Spanish sentences. Apparently, though, he did not speak any Spanish, despite a very brown-sounding last name of his own. I got a good kick out of that.

As much fun as that can be, though, the more amusing stories happen to my brother. It's not just that he has the same cultural background that I do, it's that he has a very stereotypically brown first name. There's no mistaking that someone with that name is a brown person. Similarly, we have a very stereotypically Chinese last name. There's zero mistake about the fact that our family is Chinese, at least in part.

Every now and then, these facts come together for hilarity. In this particular instance, someone looked down at a piece of paper and did a double take. Obviously, the name confused this guy. The conversation, though, was what really made the moment:

Other Guy: "That's your name?"
Brother: "Yup, that's me."
Other Guy: "Are you Chinese?"
Brother: "Yes, I'm half."
Other Guy: "But, but, you look ... um, amigo."

Yup, that was the best way that the guy could describe being brown. My brother was fairly sure that he wasn't trying to be racist, but he simply didn't have the correct language to describe what he meant to say. Instead, he called my brother "amigo." My brother clarified the whole thing, but he then told me this story after the fact. There was a lot of laughing during this telling.

Hell, I'm still chuckling about the whole thing. Guess what, guys? I'm part amigo.

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