Bilingual People Share Their Greatest “I Didn’t Know You Spoke the Language” Stories

I Hope He Learned His Lesson

I was living in Jersey and got into a taxi. The driver was on the phone and started talking in Spanish to the person on the other end about me, how he just picked up some white girl. They must’ve answered, “What does she look like?” The driver replied that I was cute for a white girl. I’m very light-skinned because I take after my dad, who’s Cuban. My mom, who is Puerto Rican has very dark olive skin.

Once he got off the phone, I said to him in Spanish that he shouldn’t always assume someone is a “gringa” just because he thinks they look it. His eyes about bugged out of his head and I laughed. He started apologizing and I told him it was okay because he didn’t say anything bad about me, but that I hope he learned a lesson. Jahidinginvt