I’m half Ecuadorian (mostly Spanish, some possible Indian blood that’s dismissed and–if it is present–hasn’t shown up in the 500 years my family’s lived there) and half German-Irish-English. People think I’m either Black Irish or Greek or white. It’s weird how they just assign a random culture to you, isn’t it? Or do they think you’re Turkish because you live in Amsterdam and Turkish ancestry is more common there than Spanish ancestry?

Correct on the Turkish ancestry! The reality is that there aren’t many Latin American people of Hispanic origin around these parts (there are many Latin American people from Surinam and The Antilles but their outer appearance is different from Hispanics for the most part). We are more or less a minority. So, people assume I am either Moroccan or Turkish, which are a significant minority in this country.

And yes, you are right, people do have a tendency to assign you a random culture based on their perceptions or prior knowledge of a other minorities. I suspect that the quick assessment in my case goes like this: sturdy built, very curly and coarse black hair, sort of white skin but not exactly like the local population —> Turkish or Moroccan! Instant racial profiling!

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