Hilaria Baldwin pretended to be Spanish wtf?!

[Ballstothis148]

This is the least important and most weird story of 2020.... this woman comes up on my Instagram a lot as a suggested page. Tbh I don’t find her interesting but know she’s Spanish and is into health, having babies with Alec Baldwin and that’s pretty much it. She speaks with a Spanish accent, on her IG page she calls her children “Baldwinitos” I do remember an article saying when she speaks Spanish to her kids people confuse her for a nanny so I thought an interesting take on a European mum in the States.

Except it’s all a lie. She’s not remotely Spanish. Her wealthy Boston parents (no Spanish ancestry) now have a holiday home there.

What is wrong with people?! I include me for being too interested :) why pretend to be Spanish? In one interview she even pretended she didn’t know the word for cucumber as her English isn’t that good

Oh and she’s not even called Hilaria, she’s called Hilary. This year I swear... what an odd story!! I did know a girl who went very French after a romance there one year... maybe it’s a thing!

Jesustittyfuckingchrist

tartanweddings.com/outlander-themed-wedding-at-dundas-castle/

I'm Scottish. Literally, cut me in half and it's Scottish DNA all the way down. My ancestors didn't get out much after about 800AD.

I worked as a tour guide in Edinburgh as a postgraduate student and holy hell, did I make those dollars roll in by spouting shit to stupid tourists, mostly Americans.

I mean, I'm not proud of it, in hindsight, but I could make a month's rent in one night by telling the right story.

It's astonishing what people will believe.

@CarefreeandInnocent It’s certainly not normal behaviour, that’s for sure!

Also, re the mixed race point, apart from the 2% Congolese, the other 98% of me was purely from three different but neighbouring regions in the Middle East. Genuinely expected it to be a bit more mixed but nope, I’m almost entirely Middle Eastern! Must admit, was a tad disappointed as I was always convinced there must be some more mixing in there on account of the Middle East being the connecting point between the East and West!

[quote NotPrude]@CarefreeandInnocent It’s certainly not normal behaviour, that’s for sure!

Also, re the mixed race point, apart from the 2% Congolese, the other 98% of me was purely from three different but neighbouring regions in the Middle East. Genuinely expected it to be a bit more mixed but nope, I’m almost entirely Middle Eastern! Must admit, was a tad disappointed as I was always convinced there must be some more mixing in there on account of the Middle East being the connecting point between the East and West![/quote]
yes I would be surprised not more mixed also!

It is funny how uptight some people get though. The 6th gen Jewish friend I mentioned upthread once said at a party when we were at Uni "well I guess am sort of mixed race then" and our mutual friend (both his parents black) tore into her saying ".no, you're just a spoilt middle class white girl". I was like "who peed on your chips?"

Had one american ask me how much it was to stay in a highland hut. Thought he meant like a log cabin or something but on further questioning he thought clans still lived together in roundhouses? and wanted to go stay with 'his clan' as he was 'in blood line with the chief'. Not making this up. Ive got the emails somewhere.

@user1471565182

Had one american ask me how much it was to stay in a highland hut. Thought he meant like a log cabin or something but on further questioning he thought clans still lived together in roundhouses? and wanted to go stay with 'his clan' as he was 'in blood line with the chief'. Not making this up. Ive got the emails somewhere.

I feel your pain.

@user1471565182

Had one american ask me how much it was to stay in a highland hut. Thought he meant like a log cabin or something but on further questioning he thought clans still lived together in roundhouses? and wanted to go stay with 'his clan' as he was 'in blood line with the chief'. Not making this up. Ive got the emails somewhere.

That is hilarious!!

Am not being mean but why are Americans so naive???

My personal favourite will always be a picture of standing at the Mercat Cross by St Giles Cathedral, at the conclusion of a tour, trying to tell an American tourist why he couldn't get a taxi to the castle.

BECAUSE IT'S UP THERE.

@LadyJaye

My personal favourite will always be a picture of standing at the Mercat Cross by St Giles Cathedral, at the conclusion of a tour, trying to tell an American tourist why he couldn't get a taxi to the castle.

BECAUSE IT'S UP THERE.

Hope I haven't offended any Americans on here I just have heard so many stoopid questions by American tourists and I don't understand why it always seems to be the Americans asking the daftest ones

I can feel a new thread coming on AIBU to think those applying for passports be asked to take IQ tests?

@CarefreeandInnocent Exactly - I don't want to come across as a complete harridan, because they were mostly lovely and often insanely generous tippers, but they just seemed so... STUPID and often dangerously naive.

Im not sure its that they're naive, its just they way theyre taught perhaps. Most americans will unquestionaingly say without hesitation theirs is the greatest country in the world and cant imagine other countries actually look at their lack of personal freedoms and some social aspects with a bit of horror. They feel like they have everything they need there, so the only representation they get of other countries is from somebody trying to get their money for that representation, so film or books romanticising it.

Its generally the middle classes who want a bit more from life and an identity who are like this I find. But some of the blinders they come out with you'd think I was making up.

Another big one is they think clan feuds are still a thing, and they actually take that over to america and distance themselves/argue with 'rival' clan names.

I love the people trying to make clans happen again.
I got a letter which started, ‘After a 400 year hiatus . . .’ trying to whip up enthusiasm for my new clan.

Cuts both ways though doesn't it? I mean, there's plenty of people in the UK who tell themselves that the USA is full of gun toting imbeciles who never stop working apart from to eat fast food and who will refuse emergency medical care to anyone who doesn't have insurance.

I work with an American teacher. He identifies as being Spanish as his parents are from Catalan and he spent some of his childhood there so he has an American accent but he also speaks Spanish. I would never accuse him of lying as he is both things.

"I work with an American teacher. He identifies as being Spanish as his parents are from Catalan and he spent some of his childhood there so he has an American accent but he also speaks Spanish. I would never accuse him of lying as he is both things."

OK? That is totally different to the situation here.

I went to uni with someone who had done one year exchange at an American uni and came back speaking with an American accent, literally wearing Stars and Stripes clothes and loved it if someone mistook her for an American.....the accent was very put on.

You mean Catalunya/Cataluña?
Catalan isn't a place, it's a language.

Regarding the Congolese thing, it would be a bit eccentric to do that. Harmless but a bit daft!

Rachel Dolezal gained jobs specifically set up for African Americans because she claimed to be black. If Hilary Baldwin had taken a scholarship from a the daughter of a poor Colombian immigrant instead of just using her "perceived" disadvantaged status as a " Hispanic' ( status often assumed in the States to mean a person of colour.) to make money for her business ,the offence she has caused might be clearer . So not really " harmless but daft".

My 12 year old dd told me she was black as she is quarter Iranian...apparently I am racist as I told her that wasn't quite true!

My theory anyway is shes done this for her yoga business how is being Spanish good for a yoga business? I’d think Claiming to be From India or Nepal a better background story for a yogi.

Americans do take great pride in their ancestors , probably everyone in Boston is Irish and it really shows, and, there are many Americans who still speak Danish and Norwegian in places like Minnesota , remember Rose Nylund and her stories of Saint Olaf? It wasn’t An exaggeration 😂. I find it really sweet that many still are attached to their heritage.

The scottish sort of appropropriated Scottishness from the Scottish technically. (If you look at the animosity between lowland eg Edinburgh/highland Scots. It is fascinating how the highland clearances occured at the same time as an increased fascination with tartans, Kilts, Walter Scott etc among the English aristocracy and landed gentry. There are definately parralels with more modern versions of "cultural appropriation". But it is also funny when people outside Scotland (Cough Americans cough) talk about being from Edinburgh and having a very old clan/family tartan. Nope.

But yeah, it is interesting that in the UK I think someone claiming to be Spanish when they arent would be seen as pretentious, whereas in the USA it is perceived as appropriating/borrowing suffering from a minority.

Finally though, I think when people are asking "why are Americans so naive" you have to remember you are seeing a self selecting group. The ones travelling to Scotland as tourists are going to include a disproportionate number if people who are part Scottish and want to connect with their roots or just an over-romaticised idea of the country. Therefore they are more likely to be open to hogwash or hold strange ideas. The same way that not ALL English people are drunken holigans who just want to drink, fight and hand out blow jobs in night clubs. Yet that is the impression you would get in some parts of Spain.