(no subject)

[ghini]

Surreal holiday moment #1:

My Cuban father refers to the Little Havana part of Miami as "Spicville" and refuses to speak Spanish to "those people"

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[notgruntled.livejournal.com]

My favorite Grandma quote: "But you know who's worse than the coloreds? The Spanics."

(My paternal grandmother has unorthodox notions of English pronunciation and usage. Her renditions of common words routinely have more or fewer syllables than the more commonly accepted versions.)

I tuned out at that point and left the room shortly after, because if I kept listening I might say something, and there would be no hope of recovering family harmony from that.

I don't think Grandma is a bigot, in the sense that she's not motivated by hatred. She just has views that were fixed a long time ago, and which I have little capacity to broaden nor deepen. She long ago lost the capacity to appreciate or absorb anything new. That's not vile, but it is sad.

When I can, I avoid conflict with people I can't convince and will outlive. There are some hills that aren't worth fighting on. At most, I can nudge. It's far less stressful to avoid.