tom segura on the topic

Ignorance and prejudice.

They literally don't know enough geography to come up with the names of other countries, nor if the people from those countries would speak Spanish or not.

Years ago, some friends and coworkers and I all had a pretty open discussion about it when I was working in construction. It was very multi ethnic.

Basically, it depends on where you are and who the predominant Spanish speakers are and have been. It's just stereotyping, ignorance, and confirmation bias. We realized that for a long time, on the West Coast, a pretty big majority of people that were Hispanic were of Mexican heritage, but the more east in the US you went, it stopped being the case. Mexico is West, the Caribbean is more east, go figure.

Now, if somebody has faced being wrong before and doesn't learn or doubles down or is willfully ignorant... That IS full-blown hateful racism.

But, truly, a lot of people have just honestly never been exposed to [brown-skinned Spanish-speaking person not being Mexican], and until they do, it's not a low percentage chance to assume that's the case.

The power of seeing things as default is strong, and we should not assume certain purposes or facts. It's the same way that language, at least in English, we no longer default to he/him when talking about a hypothetical person. Not just because it's ethically or culturally wrong, like a lot of people think, but because it's also factually wrong.

Another thing to consider is that just because an assumption like this is made, doesn't mean it's hostile. There are definitely varying degrees, some more insidious than others, and it's pretty easy to get lost in the weeds and go down rabbit holes of philosophy here (important, but just not here, not now)... Another time when I was on a construction site, some Mexican guy walked up to me and started politely asking me questions in Spanish. I can't speak a ton of Spanish and I'm not Hispanic at all. I told him that, and we ended up having a funny conversation about it and he was really surprised that I not only wasn't Mexican, but not Hispanic at all.

Assumptions are everywhere, and assuming somebody is a bad person because they entered a country illegally is a really dumb assumption. People are people, and have tons of good and bad reasons for everything. Philosophy, knowledge, fear, values, trauma, privilege, and perspective ALL form us and our assumptions and actions. Maybe that person is from Mexican, maybe they're from Cuba, maybe they're from Canadia, maybe they're a hundred-generation American and can trace heritage back two thousand years and don't play by your silly rules.

We're all varying degrees of racist. We can't deny that.

-But!

We have to do our best to check ourselves, improve ourselves, and try to be better people. We're going to make mistakes! That's part of learning and we have to learn when to give ourselves and others grace.... But also when to condemn actions, words, and perspectives.

White conservatives are often super hateful, ignorant, fearful people, running on overdeveloped amygdalas and underdeveloped social skills and empathy. Not always, but a lot of the time. Faith and taboo lead design a very specific worldview and "understanding" of reality and expectations.

Pity your friend's weird dad, but do have caution of his ignorance and hate. Know that he may be intelligent enough to grow as a human and change, and if you feel the need to spare the risk and resources, perhaps you can make an attempt to educate him into the 21st century.

TL;DR: Because humans suck and none of us are as smart as we think.

Significant portions of the demographic you identified don't realize New Mexico is in the US, and couldn't find Canada on a map, and you're expecting them to realize there's more countries than just Mexico to the south?

It's not as simple as "they're stupid" (which they are.) It's a symptom of their in-group vs out-group thinking pattern. They don't think the differences between other countries matter, because they're all "others" as far as they're concerned. So they paint foreigners with the same brush and leave it at that.

As to why "Mexican" in used in particular, I think other commenters make a good point about Mexico being the most prominent Spanish-speaking country to people in the US. They don't see as many people from Spain, so that's off their radar. If my upbringing in a racist area is anything to go by, "Mexican" became the default long ago.

Ignorance.

Conservatives are generally a combination of stupid, ignorant, and cruel.

You're in the US. Mexico is next door and speaks Spanish. A much higher proportion of Spanish speakers in the US are from Mexico than from Spain, which is across the ocean. If you were in France and identified as a Spanish speaker, many more people would think you were from Spain.

I'm italian. When I use the 🇮🇹 flag some Americans think I'm from Mexico 🇲🇽

Stupid

funny. I'm Spanish from Spain in America, and I'm racialized as Arab.

Sorry lady, no white privilege for US.

I'm going to go against the grain and point out that these types of people generally live in areas where there are very few foreigners. The closest country with Spanish as their native language is Mexico. Given the lack of diverse exposure to people of different backgrounds, you can see whymany might default to Spanish speakers = Mexicans. That said, they are also likely to be undereducated as well...

This is a funny question in the context of the sub, because it's not that the question is stupid, but the answer is.

They're incredibly stupid. They may not know of Spain, or any Spanish speaking culture. They're also incredibly reactionary, and egocentric, which means they may not have rubbed the two brain cells together to realise there are other possibilities than what has been parrotted to them for the past few decades.

Actually if I were you I'd be very careful with being in America right now. Like in general, but also the rascist rhetoric is getting pretty strong over there.

Lead poison and bad education

You've got to remember...

The US has been drowning in assholes & idiots for the longest time. Now it's official, from the top on down.

Living in the U.S. I've met Spanish speakers from many countries. I must admit I haven't met one from Spain. Also, no one is illegal on stolen land.

for one thing, you're in a country where this once happened 🤦

I am a white European Spanish woman

Race is a social construct and in the eyes of your friend's racist dad you are apparently not white (even if he might have classified you as white if he had only your appearance to go by and hadn't seen your name).

First of all they do it because they are stereotyping, which is lazy and dumb (and these people are lazy and dumb).

But why do they stereotype everyone to Mexico and not somewhere else? Easy. It’s the US’s largest Spanish speaking neighbor. It’s actually the largest Spanish speaking country anywhere, #10 by population in the world, with 150 million people. So if you had to guess, Mexico would generally be a higher probability guess.

Because they are racist. They only identify you based on your difference, not on shared values.

I am going to chalk that one up to prevalence. 20% of the US population is Latin*, half of which are Mexican. The brain kind of works like that, we presume the most common in lieu of other information. If most Spanish people they interact with are Mexican, they will presume Mexican. In your case, of course, they additionally held some preconceived bias about what "Mexicans" believe or act like, and seeing that you spoke Spanish and or said things that fit that cognitive model, it strengthened their (likely largely unconscious) decision to pigeonhole you as Mexican.

(Dumb) people have a need to express the differences they see in others. I have some Ukrainian blood and live in a Western European country, and I get a lot of "Where are you from?" ("I'm from here" "Yes but where are you originally from?" "I am originally from the capital of this country, where I was born" "Yes but what about your parents, or their parents?" "Sigh...")

* in the broad definition

Racism.

Stupid. They are very very stupid.

Only latinos distinguish between europeans and native americans, no one else gives a shit.

Not an answer to your question but I, a European, did that in reverse on one occasion. Was on student exchange in Japan with people from a variety of countries. Another student was asking around for international coins to take home as a souvenir. I kept forgetting to bring her a euro so in the end I told her she should ask the Argentinian instead - because I had her saved in my head under "Spanish". I cringe every time I think about that brainfart.

Sooo... in a way this IS an answer: perpetual brainfarts.