Changes to the Race Monologues Blog

Hi everybody. We decided for simplicity's sake to divide our Race Monologues blog into two-- a Travel Blog (this one), and a News Blog. So, when all of the sudden half of our archives disappear, that's where they've gone-- the News Blog. I hope you'll keep up with both!

Until the News Blog is linked to our website, you can access it here: http://racemonologuesnews.blogspot.com/

Also, I'm going to work on posting more photos with my blog. New Orleans during Mardi Gras seemed like a good time to start!

Bienvenido a Miami!

On my first day venturing out into Miami, I took the metro to Jackson Memorial Hospital to troll for interviewees in the courtyards. I was interested in looking at disparities in healthcare access, and thought folks around a hospital might have something to say on the topic. Many of the people I talked to did have something to say about healthcare, but I immediately encountered a problem that I definitely should have foreseen. I had trouble talking to a lot of people because they didn’t speak English, and my Spanish is, well, lacking. Certainly there were some people who were just brushing me off, the way I would escape would-be solicitors on the streets when I lived in Spain by smiling and shrugging, “Lo siento! No hablo Español!” 

When I first arrived in Miami, it threw me off balance a bit and I would continue on my way, looking for easier prey. (I’m pretty timid when it comes to approaching people at random for interviews, so just about any hesitancy on their part is enough to scare me off.) But eventually I had to admit that people with limited English may have a unique story to tell about experiences of race, and I couldn’t possibly limit myself because of my uncertainty about speaking Spanish. As it turned out, once I exposed myself and showed my own insecurity with Spanish by over-apologizing after just about every phrase I eked out, many people eventually switched to English and had successful interviews. Only one person did their whole interview in Spanish, and frankly I couldn’t follow most of what he said, so I have to just hope that when I transcribe it he was actually answering the questions I wanted to ask.

A large majority of people I interviewed in Miami linked questions about race to issues of language, whether they felt discriminated against for speaking imperfect English, excluded because they didn’t speak Spanish, or had other experiences involving language barriers. Certainly language isn’t the only factor at play in race relations in Miami, but maybe because of the history of immigration, and the large numbers of Spanish-speaking immigrants from all over Latin America, it does seem to be more tightly tied to race and racism than in some other parts of the country. I’m very excited to do more research on the city, its history and the (lucky) people who live there.