Berkley Center

Lomo, serrano, ibérico, chorizo... The Spanish language boasts enough words for ham to fill an entire menu with the meat’s different names; and oftentimes, restaurants will devote an entire menu just to ham. Seven years of learning Spanish aptly prepared me for navigating my way through the streets of Madrid and taking classes at Complutense University, but every time I pick up a menu I find myself learning new vocabulary.

So when I first saw the word veganxs on a poster under a picture of cured ham, I tried to piece together what new cut of meat it was describing. The “x” didn’t look Castilian, so my mind jumped through the other languages spoken in Spain. I briefly considered what it could mean in Catalan, until a closer look at the text quickly shattered my confusion. Veganxs translated simply as “vegans.” The poster wasn’t advertising meat—it was rallying against it. The gender-neutral “xs” ending had thrown me off, but the more time I spend around the university reading posters and graffiti, the more commonplace gender-neutral linguistic innovations like “xs” and “@s” have become.

While the number of cured ham legs hanging in Madrid storefronts probably outnumbers the city’s vegan and vegetarian restaurants 100 to one, I’ve learned not to be surprised when encountering these decidedly “un-Spanish” facets of Spain. Last semester, my "Hispanic Cinema" professor warned us against the kitschy image of a timeless country filled with flamenco dancers and bullfights. Though I heard his lesson, it took actually living in Spain to destroy any last Hemingway-esque visions I once held of the country.

There are certainly still old men drinking sherry somewhere in Spain, but as a student at Madrid’s public university, the culture I’m surrounded by is a more youthful, dynamic one. Two large strikes have taken place at the university since the semester began: one led by Complutense workers and the other by students. As a Hoya accustomed to Georgetown’s focus on civil discourse, I was jarred by the sight of bike locks barring classroom doors and shattered glass blocking cars from driving onto campus. Spanish students use a strikingly different tool set to voice protest; however, their upset at education cuts and rising tuition is a familiar one.

The climate of the youth activism in Spain makes it easy to see how the Occupy Movement was sparked here by the indignados, or “indignant ones.” At the university and in Puerta del Sol, the more protests I pass by, the more commonplace they appear. Even so, every sign declaring “Nuestra educación no pagará vuestra deuda”—“Our education will not pay your debt”—calls up the reality of the economic crisis in Spain.

Over Easter vacation, my family came to visit me in Madrid, and I was reminded again of the strange interplay between that kitschy Spain my professor told us about and the modern Spain I’m experiencing while living here. As my brothers and I watched a matador taunt a bull with his red cape, I wondered what was more “Spanish”: the corrida de toros or the veganxs posters lining the halls of Complutense University.