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25 June 2025

Stuff Americans say
Spain

Stuff Americans say

Steps painted in the red and yellow of the Spanish flag in a narrow old-town alley in Calpe, Spain, lined with potted plants and flowers — Calle Puchalt in the old town of Calpe, Alicante, Spain

There seems to be some confusion.

TikTok/Instagram live screenshot. Text bubble: "NOT PEOPLE NOT KNOWINH SPAIN IS A COUNTRY" with crying emojis. Comment below (username redacted, 3h): "You're Spanish?? I thought Spanish was a language"

Yahoo Answers post (Entertainment & Music > Polls & Surveys, 9 years ago, username redacted). Question: "POLL: Have you ever seen White people speaking Spanish fluently with each other?" Text about being at an oral surgeon's office in 2009, seeing a middle-aged white couple filling out forms and speaking fluent Spanish: "I couldn't help but think, 'What the ****?!' Hahaha it was weird". 12 Answers

Twitter/X thread. Top tweet (username redacted, 8/17/18, 5:03 PM): "Please give me an example of something someone said to you that was so astonishingly stupid that you can never forget it." Reply (username redacted): "Someone complaining that there were too many Spanish people on her holiday to, er, Spain...". Third reply (username redacted): "They're either latino or hispanic, not spanish" 11:23 AM, 15 Oct 23

Streaming service audio settings screen. "Audio" heading with language list: Japanese [Original] (checked), English, German, Japanese - Audio Description, then below a separator: Brazilian Portuguese, European Spanish, French, Italian, Spanish, Thai. Red boxes drawn around both "European Spanish" and "Spanish" - highlighting that the service lists them as two separate languages, with plain "Spanish" apparently meaning Latin American Spanish and Spain's own language demoted to the qualified "European" variant

TikTok/Instagram comment thread. Three comments (username redacted, green, red). First (2d): "You can't be Spanish, no one is" with laughing emojis. View replies (101). Second (2d): "i'm not spanish honey no one is lmao". View replies (201). Third (3d): "Firstable, spanish is lenguage, not a nationality."

Twitter/X thread. Post text: "According to the NYT, some European Americans are non-White. In their analysis of the most powerful people in the U.S. today, the paper classifies Europeans from the Iberian Peninsula like Spaniards and Portuguese as non-White." Highlighted NYT methodology section visible. "For example, it classifies both John Garamendi, whose last name is Basque (from Northern Spain), and Devin Nunes, a 3rd-generation Portuguese American as 'Non-White.'" Photos of both men in suits. "The rule they seem to be following is to classify anyone whose last name sounds 'Hispanic' as non-White regardless of this person's actual ancestry. This would explain why Pablo Isla, the Madrid-born CEO of Inditex, was classified as non-White."

TikTok/Instagram live screenshot. Text bubble: "OT PEOPLE NOT KNOWINH SPAIN IS A COUNTRY" with crying emojis. "Top comments" dropdown. Comment below (username redacted, 9m): "Wasn't aware that Spanish was consider a race or nationality. Spanish is a fucking language!!"

Twitter/X post (username redacted). "I am in Spain right now and I can't help but think did Mexico invade Spain? Why is Spain flooded with Mexicans and they look richer and more schooled then me I reckon we can make Spain pay for our border wall as Mexico invaded them."

Reddit post. r/AmItheAsshole, 5h. Title: "AITA for not wanting my (29F) husband (31M) to teach our future baby Spanish?" Post by 37-weeks-pregnant woman whose husband lived in Spain from age 4 to 19. She says "he isn't even Spanish! He was born here" and "they are very different languages." Husband argues many kids are raised bilingual. She worries it might cut her off from her child

Tumblr thread with multiple posts (username redacted). Top post about taking Spanish with people from different Spanish-speaking countries - South Americans like "Yeah no one uses vosotros, we don't know what it's doing here" and Europeans like "If you don't give our beloved second-person plural its due respect, the Hounds will find you". Reply: "Why would they speak spanish in europe". Next post with sad Ben Affleck photo and caption "Spain.......". Then an Anonymous Tumblr ask: "But like Spanish is a language but it's not a nationality like they speak Spanish in Mexico and Port o' Rico and stuff but it's not like theres a place called Spania full of Spanish *people*". Reply: "I love how tumblr is full of people who aren't afraid to hang around on the bottom rung of the moron ladder. You make me feel better about every stupid thing I've ever done in my life including the time I glued fake moustaches to my eyebrows."

TikTok/Instagram comment (username redacted, 2h). Text: "Even tho I have some Spanish blood. It's still freaks me out to see light skinned people speak Spanish hahahhaha". German-language interface (Antworten, Ubersetzung anzeigen)

Quora question. "Question" heading with back arrow. Text: "People at my school berate me for being white and doing well in Spanish class, saying it's a form of cultural appropriation. Should I stop learning Spanish?" Follow (3), Request, More

Facebook comment (username redacted, 6 hrs). Text: "I don't think of Spanish of Spain as white or European. Because i think of European as white people. Spain has a culture similar to Mexico and Mexicans speak Spanish. I know it's a different dialect but still Spanish. So culturally more similar to south American latin their food and culture." Haha reaction

Yahoo Answers comment (username redacted, Lv 7, 1 decade ago). Text: "I'm from America and we have a lot of spanish people and all kinds of great people. Harry Potter, I think takes place in Europe. Are there many spanish people in Europe????? If not, then why would the movie have any. I do believe I've seen a couple in the 'lunch room' scenes though :)" 0 thumbs up, 0 thumbs down

Tumblr reblog thread. imoonshine reblogged from hharemi. bigenderjaku quoted hoodrichjay: "I hate when people say 'I'm Spanish' like no that's a language not a nationality". Reply: "boy have i got news for you about a country called spain". Source: hoodrichjay. 458,201 notes

Instagram DM conversation. Customer Mary: "One of your apron color options for black uses a very offensive word. Please remove it before I report your page. Regards, Mary". Business reply (signed ^S): "Hi Mary, we are a Mexican business based in Tampa, FL. Our page is in Spanish. That word means black in Spanish." Mary: "First of all, this is America, speak English. Secondly, negro is a highly offensive word. My neighbor is black and I'm sure she'll hate this." Business: "Ma'am that's how you say color black in Spanish. Our business target speak mostly Spanish. I'm sorry I can't cater for your feelings." Mary: "I reported your page to Instagram for offensive language"

Screenshot of printer ink cartridge information showing "Black / Negro" (ISO/IEC 24734) with a long rant below. Person argues "This is fucking disgusting and this normalization of racist language needs to fucking be abolished." Claims "Spanish is one of the most racist, sexist and transphobic languages ever" and that "white ppl love to put the word 'Negro' on one describing the color black just to include spanish and oppress black ppl." Says as "a person with Latinx friends I always have to fucking correct their behavior when they use gendered language." Argues "If there was a language that had the word 'n*gger' or 'tr*nny' that meant house and car for example I would call out that bullshit too. Its sad how no one calls out this bullshit because 'its a different language' well your 'different language' is fucking problematic!"

Twitter/X thread. Three replies (Mar 12, username redacted). First (red): "Is that woman actually Asian?". Second (yellow): "Uhhhh... where is India?". Third (red): "Uhhh, my point is, when you think European guy, you first picture a European guy, not for instance a Spanish guy, though a Spanish guy is technically by your reasoning in Europe. When you think 'Asian lady', that's what you imagine. Not an Indian lady or a lady such as the one" (cut off).

Reddit post. r/SkincareAddiction by u/invaderlukasfh (1h). Title: "[Misc] What makes Asians appear younger? Is it what they do for skin care?" Tagged Miscellaneous. Text: "Alright, so I recently moved for work from US to Japan and realised how young Asians, especially Japanese and Koreans, seem. Last night, I met a woman who appeared to be 31 but claimed to be 42. Which is it, their skincare regimens or genetics? (Btw, I have Spanish ancestry mixed with European ancestry)."

Bonus

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Tags:US Spain·SAS·USA