I wonder whether I’ll know anyone at the Spanish poetry event. It’s in a community centre nestled in a Melbourne suburb among the gardens and terrace houses. The only imperfections seem to be the cracks in the road as I approach. But even here, the tar that binds the asphalt gleams and the unattended crevices have begun to bear greenery. Entering, I’m struck by the high ceiling, its wood beams curling around an open stage. Out back someone has set up a barbeque, peppering the air with smoke and oregano. A crowd is gathered in front of a kitchen window where two smiling women are selling wine for almost nothing. They overfill the plastic cups, staining the white sides a purple red, and wipe their fingers on embroidered aprons as they pass them on. I notice a blonde man staring at me across the room, draped in a poncho and colourful bracelets tied in knots. The once-vibrant red, blue and orange thread has been tightened by washing and bleached by the sun. I’m sure I don’t know him.
A goofy smile spreads across his face as he approaches. “Hello. Peter,” he says, stretching his hand out, his blue eyes trying to awkwardly maintain contact. ‘Where are you from?’
“The US,” I reply, pulling my hand away after it has been taken for too long.
“But your background?” he asks, tilting his head downward to catch my lowered glance. “I studied in Latin America. You look Latin American,” he blurts out. “You speak Spanish? I’d love to practice my Spanish. We should get a coffee.”
“I do but it’s not great. I couldn’t …”
“Then you need to practice! I can help you, mine is really good. I learned in Colombia and Mexico. Have you ever been to Colombia? You don’t dress Colombian. The women get done up for everything. They put on heels to go to the corner store. It’s like they perform for their men.”
“I don’t think…”
“I know it sounds like stereotyping but it’s true, a Colombian woman told me that when I was there. And the dancing!” He trails off for a moment. “They really have it right over there.”
About the uncomfortable conversation, a friend later says, “Oh, you met Culture Guy… Culture Guy who wants to know where you come from—who knows more about your culture then you do.”
I realise I have met Culture Guy many times.
Culture Guy travelled to Latin America, says hola instead of hello, gracias instead of thank you. He knows all the villagers are noble and hospitable who let him sleep in their ‘mud hut’ without asking for money—except for that one greedy Latin American country where someone asked him for money. He keeps tally when someone agrees with his opinion on the country so that he can pull this bit of knowledge out when someone does not. He has an anecdote about how a local assured him he’s not a gringo. Culture Guy thinks that the country where a local woman slept with him is gracious, and the one where he was turned down is stuck up.
Where do culture people come from? I start to wonder.
The first time I went to Chile, I arrived in Plaza Londres. It was summer and the tall office buildings of the city reached past the layer of smog. The dark cloud was protected by the Andes, which refused to allow the wind in to take it away. Plaza Londres was a couple of blocks of empty cobblestone streets and 1920s Spanish style apartments. There was one French cafe outside, and my friend Evie and I sat there with a bottle of red. I called my uncle at his office. “He’s gone to meet you,” his secretary told me.
“He’s gone. Dad must have told him where we were staying,” I said to Evie.
“What does he look like?” she asked me as she poured more wine.
“I only saw him in on a German tourism video for Santiago once. He looked like Pavarotti.”
“Like that man?” she nodded at a beaming man with a large black beard and cabby hat.
“Teresita,” he bellowed, his arms wide. “You know how I know? You look exactly like your grandmother Marta.” It was a warm welcome from the family I had never met. Dad only got in contact with his cousins last year, via Facebook.
Later, when I got a place in Providencia, my new American housemate took me out to meet the expat English teachers. Most of them had been in her class—a month long course that trained foreigners in how to teach English language. The party was in Bellas Artes. To get there, you had to walk through Providencia, which was adjacent to the city centre. The centre was a flow of business people from 7am to 9pm and then it became a ghost town. The best way to the party was to walk the strip of parkland along the road, avoiding the centre. Bellas Artes sat opposite to Bella Vista, which was filled with bars and sat under the Cerro San Cristóbal hill. It was an arts area, and vendors sold empanadas and papas fritas from tin push carts to drunk clubbers on the side of the road. We knew we arrived when we could see the Museo Nacional rising above the trees, and to the right was Santa Lucia hill, a park where young couples went when they lived at home with their parents—to do things that they couldn’t do when they lived at home with their parents.
The ground floor apartment was tastefully decorated in the way most pre-furnished apartments are: sparse, clever furniture and some images of the South and North in colourful wooden frames on the walls. The room was filled with people sitting on extra cushions and dining chairs. They were white and from English-speaking countries, though their accents varied from South Africa to the UK. There was no dancing. Just sitting around talking. Which was fine with me because I don’t dance much. Then the conversation turned to Chileans.
“They’re all liars! And perverts!” one attendee observed. As far as I could tell, she had been teaching English in a company that worked exclusively with business men. What contact she had with other Chileans I wasn’t sure. Like me, she was fresh out of university. She straightened her USC tee and brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes.
“Oh my god, so true,” another contributed, a New Yorker who, having lived and taught in Santiago for over six months, appeared to be the most experienced of the group. They seemed to all join in the jarring conversation, but from those who didn’t I felt a quiet acquiescence that was just as painful. I wanted to shut it down. But I was drunk on pisco. Inarticulate. Anything I said was bound to be inadequately explained and I knew it.
“I’m Chilean, you know,” I said.
The conversation stopped. “Not you. You’re American. The other Chileans are who we’re talking about,” the New Yorker gently ventured.
“Other Chileans?” I seethed. “Like who, my uncles? My father? My family? Who?”
“It’s okay,” a South African English teacher tried to assure me, “we’re all friends here.” He motioned with his hands as though he were pushing something downward.
“Calm down. You know what we mean,” USC quipped back, annoyed.
In this situation, in Spanish someone might say to you, ‘Tranquila, tranquila’. It means ‘calm down’. It has all the effectiveness of a salve when spoken in a soothing lilting Spanish. But there is no calming down. Nothing is ever healed.
“Fuck you,” I slurred, half screaming. I walked out, which upon recollection was likely more of a stomp. The floorboards shuddered under the force of my steps. I imagine I cracked some adobe as I shut the door.
“Come back!” I heard them yell as I entered into the night, in that rich neighbourhood only the bankers and expats could afford. “Don’t go out there! You’ll be murdered walking home by yourself.”
“Oh, I hope she’s okay,” I heard a girl fret from the open window.
Years later, after I had moved to Australia, I went to a Latin bar with an Argentinian friend in Fitzroy. It had been a small takeaway shop where they sold arepas, and they turned it into a bar and club at night. When we got up to the bar, my friend introduced me to bartender who was from Mexico. “Where are you from?” he asked me as he graciously filled two shot glasses with tequila and slid them toward us.
“California,” I said taking the shot and licking my fingers where it had spilled over.
He smiled and poured again like he was in on a joke. “California,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“My father’s from Chile,” I said, taking the second shot.
“Ah! Chileana,” he laughed. “Welcome.”
As I stood stationary, shoulder-to-shoulder in the crowd, a white man zeroed in on me. He had the familiar stare of someone assessing my background. And then he was next to me—a hard gouge in my leg. He was pushing himself up and down. “What the fuck!” I yelled.
“Relax!” he said. “Just go with it.”
My friend heard me and rushed over. “Stand here,” she said, exchanging places with me, unaware of what was happening. Then her face contorted. “The fuck?” She whirled around.
“Calm down, you women need to relax. This is what they do here,” he smiled confidently.
At the completion of the phrase ‘calm down’ the crowd had backed away and left us in a circle. Some people that witnessed what happened next might say that we were emotional or aggressive. What they don’t know is that within us we carry electricity. Sometimes it becomes too great. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but an image comes to mind of the back of him.
Some Colombiana friends invited us outside for a cigarette after the Culture Guy had been ejected. “Happens so much,” one said. “They think we like want to have sex with them because we dance the salsa.” Cigarette in her mouth, she blocked the wind with her hand and let out a groan of frustration when it blew her flame out again.
I pictured an Australian salsa dance class. Couples learning to swing their hips and cha cha cha cha, but finding their movements limited. Then, in comes Culture Guy, swinging his hips the only way he knows how.
Cover image via Nutmeg Nanny
About the author
Tresa LeClerc is a Chilean-American writer. She co-curates the Unlecture in the Present Tense Literary Talks Series and her short story ‘American Riviera,’ was published as part of the book 9 Slices. Her creative work has appeared in Wild Tongue zine and Essay Daily, and her academic writing has appeared in Writing in Practice Journal of Creative Writing Research. She is a casual lecturer at RMIT University.