During my first few weeks, when I ordered food at a counter, a woman at the cashier smiled warmly and said, “Hola morena.” I smiled back and fumbled through my order. This was the first time of many I’d be called morena by random strangers on the street, or africana or negra, the latter of which I took offense to because it’s close to another ill-fated n-word I’d been told my name sounded like my entire life. Though I found out ultimately that morena and negra are considered terms of endearment for Black women, I knew from then that my experience in Spain would be different than what I had imagined.
I expected race issues in Spain to be less lonely and less tenuous. I expected to be able to easily find people who looked like me but actually discovered I’d willingly signed myself up to often be the only one in a sea of sameness. I was different. I didn’t fit in.
Race manifested itself in both overt and insidious ways. People often stared at me wherever I went. I was followed several times while I shopped. The waiters often took long to provide service when I went out to dine, or completely forgot about me altogether. I lost a teaching job without being given any substantiated reason and feared race was the unspoken reason. People laughed when I explained I was Nigerian. A student once jeered at me when I wore a head wrap to class.
Other Nigerians and Africans were also treated differently in the streets. Many shared their stories of discrimination with me: being followed by police, asked repeatedly for their papers to prove they were legally allowed to reside there.
This felt exhausting. It was draining. It was depleting. The weight of being different, the weight of constantly having to explain “No, I am not latina and yes, I am africana and yes, I am also American” became too heavy for me each day. The constant and unrelenting questions made me feel that I was not free to be myself without having to constantly make others understand my existence. Though I intended to stay there for years, I left Madrid after only nine months, simply because I was so tired.
In my experience, being Black often comes with great misunderstanding, othering, and mistreatment.
After my experiences in Spain, I now have a firm, unshakeable sense of who I am. I have unrelenting pride. Navigating Blackness in Madrid cemented that. I have seen firsthand how intersections of race and gender genuinely impact what travel means for a person. And I have learned that glossing over its impact is short-sighted, a bit naive and in some cases irresponsible. I wish before I had embarked on my journey to Madrid someone had told me that a whimsical, easy breezy experience a la Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love wasn’t entirely what I should expect. And now that it’s over, I hope more people continue honestly talking about the realities of traveling while Black with more vulnerability. 