A couple of weeks ago someone was venting on the San Juan del Sur Facebook site that some surfers had referred to themselves as locals. They have lived in SJdS approximately 4 months. I completely understood how she was frustrated and I started thinking about what local means and how I have answered "Where are you from?" in the past and currently. I don't actually have a great answer. New York is probably the best answer. My kids having been born there adds some legitimacy to my claim. But it is not clear cut.
So a week ago Ari and are were working on a biology lesson. Side note: the lesson was really cool and ABSOLUTELY not a reflection of my usual homeschool lessons. We are supplementing her school here to keep her on track for the States but that usually consists of a few pages of math and spelling while I put Calhoun down for a nap. I don't want to mislead you into thinking I am a super-creative homeschool mastermind. Anyway. We started studying animal kingdoms (and I do mean WE here) and then Ari gathered 10 random objects and started classifying them. It led to neat discussions about how some objects could fit into several categories, how the categories themselves are pretty arbitrary etc... And it was great hands-on learning.
The NEXT day she told me that she had asked her friend (also white) where she was from and that her friend had said, "Nicaragua.". Ari was a little incredulous and said, "But she has light skin!" I explained that her friend was born in Nicaragua and had lived 5 of her 6 years in Nicaragua. Yes, her parents are from other countries and yes, she grew up speaking English but if she couldn't say she was from Nicaragua, where could she claim as home? I pointed out how this problem was similar to our classifying problem and we ended up talking about stereotyping. We spoke about how generalizations help us organize the world but also how misleading they can be. And Calhoun is a different case altogether. He is often completely delighted and surprised by the fact that "they speak our language!" when people, who Ari and I have already categorized as "English-speaking" speak to him in English. His brain is not yet categorizing people on their skin color. And it's kind of wonderful.
