Around ~2008 I was in a Barcelona hostel and met a guy there. He started speaking and I interrupted him excitedly…“Oh you’re American!!”.
He looked down…the weight of pain curdled the air around us. You could sense deep sorrow welling beneath the surface of this man. He paused for what felt like an eternity to compose himself,
He looked up with a piercing, but harrowing, stare and said “No, I’m Canadian…”
I’ll never forget that moment. That sheer depth of emotion is something I haven’t experienced before or since.
Did I silently murder this poor Canadian soul? How do Canadians cope with the mistaken identity?
This is a Caucasian issue only … I’m Indigenous Canadian - I’m a big tall brown, long dark haired full blooded Ojibway/Cree … and I’ve travelled the world in Asia, South America, Caribbean, northern Africa, Europe, Asia and India … I’m a budget traveller with my wife so we seldom stayed in any high end places.
I’ve been confused for Portuguese, Brazilian, Moroccan, Algerian, Thai, Chinese, Malay, Indian, Pakistani, Burmese, Laotian, Peruvian, Ecuadorian, Mexican, Chilean but never for an American or even a Canadian.
My family on both sides of my family have been here for thousands of generations and I still meet people in my home country who assume I’m an immigrant of some sort.
If I knew the first thing about programming, I’d write a bot that replied “nice tits” randomly to your comments.
Yeah people think I’m Arabic or Mexican but that’s not as bad when they think I’m American