Eh, Barb. So many people have no idea what a melting pot many Spanish speaking countries are and that immigrants to America may look no different than them. I worked with one guy from Puerto Rico named Werner Robles, had a vague resemblance to Heinrich Himmler. Not necessarily a name or a contenance that you would associate with someone who spoke Spanish right off the bat. German maybe, but not Spanish. The same with Norm Fitzpatrick. Looked and sounded whitebread America until you found out he was born and raised in Spain by a US Marine father and a Spanish mother. It wasn't until I heard him speaking very dialectic Spanish to the locals that I even thought to ask him his background. I definitely learned not to take names/looks for granted. I attribute that to the fact I was in the Navy for 14 years and really got around (the world, people, the world!) It gave me much more of an opportunity to be exposed to a very wide assortment of cultures than most of middle America ever has the chance. I'm afraid, Barb, that you will be running into that over and over again.

Whenever I hear of people with German names speaking Spanish, I htink of all the folks who left Germany during/after World War II for South America.

I still remember learning about Bernardo O'Higgins in 7th grade history.

And there are a number of Japanese. Not to mention an entire colony of Confederate sympathizers who moved to South America after their defeat.

I once worked in a playreading group with an Irish-Mexican-American woman named Mari Osuna, and she said she'd never, ever once walked into an audition run by standard-issue Anglos without everyone expressing great amazement that she wasn't Japanese.

I'm afraid, Barb, that you will be running into that over and over again.

Eh, I know, Sail. I knew going in that as long as I wrote with a distinct cultural slant, yet one that wasn't noticeably "exotic" that I'd run into this sort of attitude. It seems to be one of the most difficult things for many readers to get-- the idea that there can be characters that are fully assimilated yet still retain a strong sense of cultural identity It's as if a character has to be one or the other.

It's headdesky, but I've more or less come to accept that it's going to happen.

It seems to be one of the most difficult things for many readers to get-- the idea that there can be characters that are fully assimilated yet still retain a strong sense of cultural identity It's as if a character has to be one or the other.

I'm sadly unsurprised, given the number of people I see outside of reading contexts who make the same wacky assumptions. The one bright side is that work like yours can be a major part of the cluesticking.

And there are a number of Japanese.

ie, President Fujimora of Peru.

Though my favorite cultural mash-up are the Freiherrs MacNevin O'Kelly, German-Irish nobility. I try to imagine an accent that's a combination of German and Irish lilt.

It seems to be one of the most difficult things for many readers to get-- the idea that there can be characters that are fully assimilated yet still retain a strong sense of cultural identity.

Hmm, I wonder if the analogy of secular Jews would help? I (like a lot of US Jews), don't speak Hebrew, have only a few words of Yiddish, seldom go to synagogue, don't eat Kosher, and yet retain a strong sense of Jewish identity, do eat lots of traditional food, celebrate Jewish holidays, tell traditional jokes and stories. I have run into people who were not familiar with the whole "secular Jew" thing, but not many. At any rate, whether this particular analogy would be useful, I wonder if an author's note at the beginning of your submmisions would work as a gentle cluestick?

First prize was a nice contract so I figured what the hell. First step in the contest was submitting a "pitch" of your story. Got through that phase Second step was having a five thousand word excerpt reviewed by two Amazon Vine reviewers.

I think the problem here is that this is not the way any other submission would work. If you submit on proposal, an editor would get three chapters and a synopsis. If you submit a full manuscript, well, the editor has the full manuscript to see how things turn out.

I'm surprised it was based on only two opinions, frankly. And the problem is, since this is not a traditional submission, the second reviewer doesn't have a chance to call an agent or the author and say, "Hey, let's talk about this, I like your writing, but..."

I'm sorry, babe.

You might hate me for asking this, and it might even be a fucking stupid question on the level of opening my work and going "Oh, dag, wheelchairs again?!" but would you feel like you were prostituting your work if you *did* name them Lupe and Paco?(or, you know, something people could glom onto that you like more) I mean, if the name thing is shorthand for people not understanding about Hispanic culture, that is not likely to help much, but maybe their names are creating unintended static? Margaret Mitchell initially had Scarlett O'Hara as "Pansy" but her publisher said, outside the South, that meant a dude that had the gay.