Oh, right, nevermind. "Gringa" is fine.

Usually once a week, I eat lunch in my school's cafeteria. I use the term cafeteria as lightly as possible because in fact, it is four tables designated for the teachers and about six designated for the students, all situated around the school's entryway. The food, unlike the cardboard pizza and half rotten apples that were typical in my own school days, is actually not that bad. It's nothing I crave or would go out of my way to eat, but sufficient when I need something quickly.

Last week I sat down at one of the tables and leaned in to confirm my lunch order. I had never seen the woman on the other side of the window before. She was updating the list of who was eating to keep track of payments.

"Como te llamas?" I whipped my head around and looked at her.

"Como?"

It's the most rudimentary question that everyone learns in their first week of high school Spanish class. But I had never, in the entire seven months that I'd been eating in the cafeteria, been asked what my name is. She asked me again, motioning to the paper.

"Como te llamas?"

"Shelby."

She hit me back the same way.

"Como!!?" Edilma, who often times can't remember if my name is Chelsea or Shelby, despite the fact that I've been to her house several times for lunch and talk to her every day at school, happened to be standing nearby.

"CHELVY," She very loudly spoke in the direction of the cafeteria worker. She doesn't know any English and can't make the 'sh' sound. Not uncommon here. "CHELVY. S-H-E. SI. CHELVY. S-H-E-L-B-Y."

The woman tried to follow along. S-H-E-L-D...

"NO. NO. CON 'B'."

S-H-E-L-P...

Whatever. Close enough.

I sat down and ate my lunch. I got up afterward to pay, as I don't like to keep a running tab that will come back to haunt me at the end of the month. I hadn't been paying attention, but she'd abandoned all attempts at writing my name and instead just wrote "gringa." Foreign girl.

But that's the thing: this isn't rude or even uncommon whatsoever here.

I can only imagine if a group of people went to a restaurant in the United States and the server labeled their table "MEXICANS" or "BLACK" or "CHINA". It would be a viral news story. There would be threats of lawsuits.

It's not rude because it's just what you are. Or even if it's NOT what you are, it's close enough for them.

They know I used to live in Korea and still every time they see any of my pictures from Korea, the reaction is usually "Oh, China!"

"No, like it's actually a completely differ...nevermind, yeah, China." Some battles become not worth fighting after awhile.

There's a girl in one of my classes who looks like at some point in her family history their could be some type of Asian mixed into her genes and the girls literally call her "La China." Anyone who is slightly darker than the average person is "Negra" or "Negro" regardless of whether or not they are even actually black.

When I first got here, this was REALLY jarring. But I'm from America, the land of being offended. Even when something isn't offensive, we make it that way. Now I see huge benefits to taking the power of insult out of words.

One of the girls motioned me over the other day.

"Do people in the United States think all Latin people are Mexican? That we're all the same?" I took a deep breath.

"Yeah, honestly there are some people who think that. That everything south of the U.S. is all the same as Mexico. But not everyone." I was trying to gauge her reaction. She didn't look particularly bothered. Or really even bothered at all.

"Okay and do you like Colombian guys or are they ugly?" I laughed and gave her the same vague answer I give every other day when this comes up.

"Depends on the exact person." The bell rang at just the right time. I grabbed my things and went to the cafeteria to buy breakfast. Mona, everyone's favorite cafeteria worker was zipping back and forth around the kitchen when she saw me. She doesn't know my name because she literally could not care less what it is.

"Gringa! Hola! Como estas?!"