Speaking Spanish as a young 5-foot tall Chinese woman wearing a Smith College hoodie got me confused stares and raised eyebrows more than once when I studied abroad in Spain.
By simply looking at my face, people wouldn’t expect Spanish to come out of my mouth. Most think I know Mandarin — I ashamedly do not — and because I was an English major, many wondered why I didn’t go to England to pursue my literature studies. But there I was, landing in Málaga, Spain, on a chilly January day to spend the next four months in a country where I had no heritage or family ties.
To rewind, I had chosen Spain so I could practice Spanish. I started learning the language in elementary school, a requirement at first, but eventually it became a language I loved and continued to learn throughout college. As a Chinese American adoptee raised in a white American family, I learned Spanish over Mandarin. Mandarin was a language I hardly knew, one that reminded me too much of the Asian roots I had rejected due to pressure to assimilate and fear of estrangement from my family. Conflicted between Asian and white, but not enough of either, I had happily embraced something distant from the two identities.
So in the spring semester of my junior year, my triplet sisters, Nora and Alice, and I enrolled in the Programa de Estudios Hispánicos en Córdoba (PRESHCO). Founded by the Smith College and Wellesley College in 1981, PRESHCO immerses students in Córdoba, a beautiful city in Spain’s southern Andalusia region that’s recognized as the birthplace of flamenco and celebrated for its rich, Arabic-influenced culture from historic Moorish rule. There, in the diverse city of the Mezquita Catedral (Mosque-Cathedral) and gorgeous, flower-filled patios, I would take classes at the local university, stay with a Spanish host family, and embark on a new life across the Atlantic Ocean.
But it was my first time living internationally outside of the United States since leaving Hong Kong at age 8. When I arrived in Spain, I was overwhelmed by its unfamiliarity, blanked on all the Spanish I had accumulated, and could barely communicate within my homestay. My sisters had been assigned to different families, so I felt isolated and visibly out of place as the only Asian in the group. How could I, a Chinese American who couldn’t speak Castellano, fit into Spain?
So Where Are You Really From?
Before arriving, I had expected to confront exaggerated racism, especially in homogenous Europe. Fortunately, I faced minimal prejudice in Córdoba itself, save for some verbal harassment and racial slurs from drunken boys during the May Fiesta de las Cruces, which commemorates Jesus’ cross. But throughout the overall experience abroad, both inside and outside Spain, I noticed that many people perceived my sisters and I foremost as Chinese, “las chinas,” and held a narrow image of “American” that excluded us.
On excursions around Spain, other European students (particularly Italians) would accost my sisters and me asking, “Where are you from?” whenever we stepped on the bus. They immediately concluded, “China?” before we could respond, with a satisfied grin on their faces as though they should win a medal.
Where are you from? Where are you really from? It is this inescapable question and the assumption of Asia that follows Asian Americans wherever we go, even beyond the U.S. Yes, I was an international student, but not a Chinese international student, and yet, Europeans grew befuddled when I told them I was actually American. In their eyes, ethnicity equated nationality; if you looked Chinese, you must be from China. They did not see the duality of Asian Americans or recognize ethnic diversity in the U.S.
Comments were less frequent in Spain, although locals and some professors would ask, “De dónde eres?” I’d explain, “Soy una estudiante internacional de los EE.UU,” and thankfully most Spaniards accepted this, while some even complimented my Spanish, which made these interactions at least genuine. Still, I was an oddity; my appearance didn’t match my nationality, nor the language by which I communicated. It wasn’t a Mandarin tone, but even my Spanish carried a strange, discordant accent that lay just outside Americanized Spanglish and far from a native speaker. I did not fit the typical “guiri,” the Spanish term prescribed for annoying white American tourists. Spaniards may have kindly welcomed me, but not without prior categorizations.
Moreover, I experienced microaggressions around the presumed language I could or couldn’t speak. Some Spaniards would ignore me because they thought it unbelievable that a Chinese woman could understand Spanish. When my sisters and I visited Morocco, vendors tried to connect with us by saying “nihao” — shouts so frequent and annoying that my sisters and I joked that if we had a dirham for every “nihao,” we would buy the plush Moroccan camel keychain we really wanted from the souvenir stands. (Uh-huh, we purchased the little guy.)
Whether it was harmless curiosity or othering, these uncomfortable moments reminded me how I was very much a Chinese foreigner. Would my Chinese identity be all people saw? I was proud of it, but I didn’t want to be singled out, boxed into archetypes, or attached to a homeland that wasn’t mine. I desired acceptance like the rest.
Like a Local: Adjusting to Spain, Reinventing, and Finding a Home
I couldn’t escape appearing like an outsider, but I could reinvent how I positioned myself abroad.
Living in another country, away from my home where American (and Chinese) customs were not the norm, already required me to reshape my outlook; I needed to adapt to this new place and its lifestyle so that I could better integrate myself. I wasn’t in Spain as an American or Chinese tourist — I was a student seeking fluency in the language and immersion in the culture. So I strove to blend in as a local, to truly understand the terrain and mimic the locals. When in Spain, I did as the Spaniards do.
First, that meant communicating in Spanish on the daily. I absorbed the common phrases and picked up the notoriously rapid Andaluz dialect from the streets, shops, classroom, and my homestay, where I also adopted some Paraguayan Spanish from my PRESHCO roommate.
I struggled tremendously with the language barrier. Shy and lacking effective vocabulary, I couldn’t discuss complex topics. Regardless, I asked lots of questions about the country, its customs, and history to my host family who graciously answered and provided their own humorous tales. Keenly listening to all the stories around me, I expressed my enthusiasm to learn, which reinforced that I had a purpose there. And “poco a poco,” my ability to understand increased each month.
I adjusted to Spain’s household conduct and very social culture. I gave two kisses on each cheek by way of greeting and wore shoes in the house (*gasps in Asian*). We ate large lunches at 2 p.m. for family time and deep conversation, then smaller dinners at 11 p.m. Instead of fried rice, dumplings, or boba tea, I enjoyed paella, croquetas de jamón, tortilla de patatas, the traditional Cordobesan creamy tomato soup salmorejo, and drank cerveza or the sweet, refreshing tinto de verano. Occasional glamorous nightlife at the discotecas and tapas out with friends got me mingling with the community.
Everyone traveled by foot, so I memorized the landscape by wandering: the Plaza de las Tendillas commercial center, museums, antiquated churches, cafés, parks, patios, another plaza, and the Mercado Victoria. Walking the narrow, cobbled streets of Córdoba became second nature. By the second month, I casually moved through the city like a local, going from my homestay apartment to the university, studying in the library, shopping, and regularly visiting the numerous corner store bazaars or “chinos” run primarily by the immigrant Chinese shopkeepers with whom I found affinity. Permanently residing in Spain and functioning naturally in the neighborhood, these shopkeepers gave me inspiration.
Córdoba became my city, and Spain, another home.
I studied the region’s constitution and architecture. A violinist in the U.S., I took weekly flamenco guitar lessons hosted by the program and performed Andalusian folk pieces. I eagerly engaged in all the spring celebrations such as the Semana Santa Holy Week, the Fiesta de las Cruces, and the final Feria carnival. Spanish pop culture like the reality love drama show “La Isla de Tentaciones” and Melody’s “Esa Diva” played repeatedly in my head. I bought my clothes from Berksha and Stradivarius and dressed like the youths in Spain. And at the ultimate PRESHCO reception, I donned the traje de flamenca gitana look of suspendered pants, colorful sash, ruffle-sleeved white blouse, and a tight bun adorned with a red flower.
Focused on my new lifestyle in Spain, I had momentarily forgotten I was not from Spain.
Once, halfway through the semester, I was in the Córdoba public library studying for an exam when an Asian woman approached me at the table. She first spoke in Mandarin, seeing that I appeared Chinese. By default, I replied in Spanish until she mentioned in English that she was a researcher investigating the Chinese diaspora in Spain. She had wondered if I was a Chinese student living in Spain who she could interview.
I almost said yes. That moment offered a few revelations: First, an imposed Mandarin-speaking Chinese identity came from other Asians, not just from the Europeans, and second, I didn’t fit her sample. As an international American student, I didn’t share the same experience as Chinese immigrants to Spain, even though I could have been perceived that way. I had to reset. I was so comfortable in Spain that I hesitated, believing I was a local. Córdoba at that point was more than a place where I was temporarily staying; it was a place to which I had already acclimated and established a daily life.
In Spain, I was more alive than ever and grasped the freedom to be someone else. The timid girl from woodsy southern Connecticut became a more worldly, independent, and confident city girl in Córdoba. Despite language barriers, I built a profound bond with my wonderful Spanish program directors, homestay, and their friends and family. My amazing roommate and fellow PRESHCO cohort remain my close friends today in the U.S.
Multicultural Layers and the Power of Adaptability
I turned 21 in Spain, five days before I had to return to the U.S., and I recognized the growth I underwent in those four months of redefining myself in Spain’s society. My sisters had also developed rootedness in a similar manner, albeit uniquely because of exposure to distinct customs, generational pop culture, and integration within our diverse homestays (Nora in a conventional five-person family; Alice with a single, middle-aged mother; and I with two young host dads). Collectively, study abroad was a formative, opportunity-abundant experience that let us enrich our perspectives, expand our comfort zones, and reinvent ourselves.
When you live in another place for a certain time, you become attached to it and adopt it as part of your identity.
Spain added another layer to my multicultural identity. I am a Chinese adoptee with a blend of Chinese, American, Irish, and Hong Kong culture — and now Spain has seeped into my sense of being. Identity and kinship does not have to just come from roots, heritage, or appearance; it is about the connections you make, a found home, found culture, and found family.
While I did not yet gain full fluency in the language, I still listen to music in Spanish and find comfort whenever I hear Spanish in the U.S. because it was so natural around me. Most importantly, a new Asian American self emerged: someone defined by the mixture of homes and remarkable adaptability. Adoptees and Asian Americans constantly navigate multicultural worlds and negotiate ourselves within ostracizing habitats, and the beauty of Asian Americans is our ability to defy stereotypes, overcome barriers, and succeed in new environments by wielding our adaptability as a superpower.
At last, in a place that initially seemed hard for an outsider like me, I had achieved belonging.
