This is how beautiful and complex it is. It's not just "Cubans" vs. "Americans"--that's a neo-nationalist idiom. I heard an English speaker from the 786 area code call me. After all, she's 29, born here, but a (second generation "Cuban-American") santera for 24 years. The first words she spoke had me confused. I first greeted her in Spanish and then turned to English once she responded to me in English. She said: "oh, you speak really good English," having thought I was Hispanic (after all, I run "Folkcuba"). So, we started speaking "perfect English" together. After the WTF reactions, we then began to speak to each other in "Spanish" again, and then in the more restricted idiom of santeros. Our conversation "switched" between "perfect English," Cuban Spanish, and "Osha," which "Spanish" speakers, non-santero Cubans, or Americans would understand. So, she's at least "tri-cultural" and probably has Spanish and creole ancestors, not to mention African. I am--descending from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with roots in the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires--perhaps, tri-, quad-, pent-, hex-cultural. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. More to come...
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