Imagined geographies

On our way to the Teleférico, a friend, A, and I stopped off at a café on Pintor Rosales. We had just hiked all the way from Zoe (C/Santa María 28, Huertas) and needed a little break, deciding on some batidos, or juice, at least. At a small table off to the side, my friend and I spent about a half an hour watching the other clients being waited upon.

Yes, I'm aware that the pace here is--shall we say--more leisurely. Usually, I don't mind. On the way back from the restroom, A politely inquired at bar if we could order, and was told that we had to wait for our server. After much eye contact-making, subtle hand-beckoning and -waving, and Oigas and Por favors--this, when the server was collecting payment from the table next to us--we became a bit aggravated and left.

It's an annoyance that one must get over, but even a day later, I'm still trying to conjure reasons why we were never served. Part of me always thinks it's because we didn't look like we belonged, more specifically, "foreigners"/"strangers" (to whatever that means nowadays. Sitting there under the eggshell-colored umbrella, I happened to think of the ads I've seen in the metro stations, part of the state's campaign about the benefits of immigration, the video of which is available here.

I can't say that I know too much about contemporary Spanish immigration, but having spent most of my life in the U.S. (where I take the politics of multiculturalism for granted), it's rather curious to see such ads. It's just "common sense" to embrace a common humanity while celebrating differences and individuality at the same time, though that's not to say that folks in the U.S. aren't grappling with such concepts, either. And I suppose also that the campaign is aimed more at respecting the immigrant laborers--the child-/elderly-minders, the cooks and servers, the construction workers, and the like--rather than those of higher socio-economic aspirations/standing, though I would hate to sound like I'm supporting a monolithic vision of exactly what an "immigrant laborer" is supposed to be.

Where do A and I fit into this scheme? We are very visibly, to use a U.S.-specific term, women "of color." So visibly un-Spanish, and constantly performing our foreign-ness. We're educated, upwardly-mobile, first-generation, hyphenated-American multilingual girls working as English assistants to ward off another year of adult life. Our privilege is encapsulated the previous sentence, but no one would know lest we spelled it out. Otherwise, a lot of people might just glance at a brown and yellow girl, waiting for chocolate shakes, on a lazy Sunday afternoon at the park.