NEW YORKERS WHO SPEAK SPANISH ACCENTED ENGLISH AND WE

At an Upper West Side social gathering, a resident of the neighborhood who was originally from the Mid West and had recently moved into the area, responded to another guest who had lived in New York for close to fifty years with an answer that gave the impression that he was a New Yorker while the other one wasn’t. It seems as if his premise was based on the fact that the long term resident was a Puerto Rican who spoke English with a Spanish-influenced accent. The Puerto Rican, used to this kind of dismissal by both liberals and conservatives, cut him off faster than a Santa Claus trip between Norway and Patagonia, by asking, “Who is we?” A similar situation could happen in Frankfurt a.m between a descendant of Turks and a visitor from Binden, but we wont't go there since Germans are not ready for that kind of reflection nor are the people in Santurce, Puerto Rico with the kids whose parents were born in the Dominican Republic when faced with the question, "Who is we?"