International Ambi Princess of Pool and Polar Bears

That is my new title, by the way...I will soon have business cards printed up.

i was at one of my many jobs today, and a fellow came up and placed his order. he was helped by my coworker so i focused my attention on the next pair of customers. i hear him say "are you italian?" and assume he must be talking to me. so i look over at him, confirm that he is, in fact, talking to me, and tell him my ethnicity. then i go back to my customers. all of a sudden, i hear him say "¿como se llamas?" (do you like what i did there with the upside down question mark?)

ok listen, i am not a big fan of people assuming that because i am of hispanic heritage that i speak spanish. i did not grow up speaking the language, it was not spoken in my household, and i get really pissed when people get mad at me for not being fluent and chastise me for not knowing the language of my people. i took some years in high school and college, but i was born in this country, as were my parents, so there's no reason that just because i'm brown, you can talk to me in spanish. this would be like me automatically assuming that my white friends speak polish or russian or whatever. i make an exception if another latino person approaches me speaking it because usually they are just looking for someone to help them in their own language and they ALWAYS ask first if i speak it. this guy...this joker...i may not have mentioned it but he was white as snow. i answered him, told him my name, and went back to my customers. he interjected again, and now i'm getting pissed because i'm clearly with someone else. in spanish, he asked me if my family was mexican. what the fuck do you think? oh, no, they are all french, but i came out mexican! so i answer him IN ENGLISH that i was born in texas, as were both my parents, and we are all mexican.

but like, that's fucked up, right? i mean, a white dude came up to me, started a conversation in english, which i can clearly handle, and then started speaking his white boy spanish to me when he found out my background?? was he trying to impress me? am i going overboard here?