Mock Spanish (fl. 1953- ) is that thing where Anglo Americans use Spanish, much of it deformed, for added humour: “No problemo”, “Hasta la vista, baby”, “el cheapo”, “cojones”, “grassy ass”, “Comprende?”, etc. Because of Hollywood, it is no longer just them.
Most Anglos seem to see it as light-hearted, broad-minded and worldly (“See, I know some Spanish!”). It is used by the high and the low, the left and the right. They do not mean it to be racist, therefore they think it cannot possibly be racist.
Many Latinos, but not all, see it as disrespectful, if not racist.
The disrespect is not imagined – it is built right into Mock Spanish:
- Hyperanglicization – where Spanish words are made more English-sounding than necessary. That is how vaquero became buckaroo, vamos became vamoose, how Anglos came to change the first vowel in Los Angeles and San Francisco – and drop the “c” from Tucson.
- Uses bad grammar – like “No problemo”, “mucho macho”, “Buenas días” and “Nuevo Catholics”. Anglos murder Spanish yet judge Latinos on their English.
- Uses bad words – like “cojones” and “caca”, in completely inappropriate settings, like news headlines in The Economist.
- Pejoration – where Spanish words are given worse or less serious meanings, often in line with Anglo stereotypes about Latinos. For example:
- macho (male) means like the Anglo stereotype of a Latino male.
- El presidente (the president) means like the Anglo stereotype of a Latin American president.
- mañana (tomorrow) means probably never, like the Anglo stereotype of Mexicans as lazy.
- nada (nothing) means “absolutely nothing”.
- Hasta la vista, baby (See you later, baby) means “See you never, dickwad”.
Anglo Americans do not do this to all languages. For example, a company might sell a keyboard as “Das Keyboard” to point out its fine German engineering. But, even if a better keyboard were designed in Mexico, they would never call it “El Keyboard” – because “el” marks it as Latino and to Anglos that means it is not to be taken seriously. That is how soaked in racism Mock Spanish is.
Racist humour: Anglos use Mock Spanish for light-hearted humour, but to understand it you must know their stereotypes about Latinos. Mock Spanish helps to strengthen those stereotypes and make them seem “normal”.
A marker of “American” identity: Mock Spanish misuses Spanish on purpose to show that the speaker is not Latino but “American”. The message: Real Americans do not know Spanish and have no respect for it.
Vocabulary: There are about a hundred Mock Spanish words, only a few have been added since the 1950s.
History: In the US, Mock Spanish goes back to at least 1792, when calabozo became calaboose. It was common in the south-west in the 1800s – cowboys apparently used it – but it did not catch on across the country till the 1950s. Raymond Chandler, for example, did not use it in his detective novels till 1953. In the 1980s and 1990s Hollywood spread it throughout the English-speaking world.
– Abagond, 2014.
Source: “The Everyday Language of White Racism” (2008) by Jane H. Hill.
See also:
With all due respect, how is this different from people saying French phrases like “Bon appetit” or “Voila”?
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Excellent post! You never fail to provide food for thought.
@ Jim Turner
the difference, in my opinion, is French (typically seen as a “white” language”) carries no negative connotations.
People take pride in speaking French correctly (because they think it makes them appear more “cultured” and intelligent at least in their own minds because white is the standard for “cultured” and intelligent and racially superior people.
The people who speak mock Spanish don’t see it as a ‘cultured’ (aka white) language and could care less if they speak Spanish correctly because it is not seen as a European (and cultured) language.
It’s the same reason EVERYTHING that white people do and say is portrayed as “superior” to EVERYTHING that non-white people do and say. It’s built into the white supremacy system.
That’s my take on it.
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Introspective and thought provoking post.
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Wasn’t there even an American politician who called Spanish a “ghetto language”?
@ Trojan pam
I partly agree. There are some nasty American stereotypes about the French and the French language and they are certainly annoyed by that. But because there is not a big French-speaking population in the US they aren’t affected by that (except if you want to count American global domination, but that is obviously much more indirect).
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@ Kartoffel
I doubt too many people today would know what those French stereotypes are. The overriding stereotypes of the language are mostly positive. The image of France as a sophisticated people is the dominant image. Whatever annoyances the French experience, it is nothing compared to being called “aliens” (Hispanic immigrants) or the n-word for blacks.
The French-speaking population in the U.S. — to my knowledge– are not targeted for police brutality, educational inequality, unjust incarceration or sterilization. They are not stopped by homeland security or yanked off planes because they speak French or wear French clothing (like many Muslims are)
And I doubt they experience one drop of housing or job discrimination. In fact, many (white) americans would be thrilled to have their as neighbors and employees because they are “real” Europeans.
The bottom line, if they white, they are alright in America.
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I thought Spanish was a “romance language” Spanish is equally as beautiful as French. But from reading the post from other commenters i think i understand how some people would think negative things associated with Spanish. But i am guessing it’s mock Spanish vs proper Spanish.
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“Romance Language” I read the “R” is capitalized. This is a great post.
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Just another “eye-rolling” instance of American pop culture.
Most people say that Spanish is easier for most English speakers to learn and pronounce than French. and we all know American society likes everything to be “easy breezy” — that’s why they don’t learn real Chinese words to use and make fun of Asians.
They need a song to help teach them the words — “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto”
(song by the band Styx)
I remember when Patti LaBelle’s song, Lady Marmalade, came out…
Oh, the pain of having to listen to people try to sing that song:
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?
singing the chorus all kinds of wrong.. People had no clue as to what the words meant but they sang it loud anyway.
In a sense, you should thank pop culture, Abagond or most Americans would be totally ignorant of knowing another language — at least this way with the help of movies, TV, and music–they learn something.
(do people really learn and retain anything in those mandatory language classes in High School?)
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The culture in the USA disdains the use or education of languages other than English.
Mock Spanish and Ching Chong are expressions of this disdain.
But I look at it this way: Spanish and Chinese are the 2nd and 3rd languages of the USA, and have been part of the country for centuries. Spanish even predated English (and arguably, so did Chinese). I find it rather disdainful of American culture, if not unpatriotic not to learn the 2nd and 3rd languages of the country.
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Anecdotally speaking: IME, French Americans have received the sharp end of the stick in the few places in America in which they’ve kept high enough numbers to avoid wholesale assimilation. I’ve has the dubious honor of working with a few Oullettes, Pierrots and Dufrenses in my life (Uncle Sam’s Foreign Exchange Program) and the “fluent” French-speaking yet multigenerational Americans couldn’t wait to get as far away from Maine and Vermont and Northern New York as possible. The fear of “the Other” tends to get parsed down to minutiae in the absence of overt differences between people, and a guy who’d rather be called “Ro-bairt” than “Bobby” would and (once again, IME) did/does earn as much scorn as Enrique Fernandez or Vontavious Porter. Irony being what it is, depending on what Enrique brings to the table, he may earn a “higher” social standing than an otherwise “white” man who refuses to assimilate (this can extend to religious practice as well. A Latino Catholic receives less scorn than a “white” Catholic when living in a Protestant community. It wasn’t just the Bostonian Irish who were donating to the IRA pre-ceasefire, you know…)
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@ Jefe
“The culture in the USA disdains the use or education of languages other than English. ”
That I found always very troubling about American culture. A certain amount of ethno-centrism is normal and the over-use of foreign vocabulary in a language can be annoying, but that the simple knowledge of a foreign language can be seen as something negative, always baffled me.
@ Trojan Pam
I agree that the French don’t suffer from the negative American stereotypes, but because they don’t live under white American rule, not because those stereotypes don’t exist. That most Americans don’t know the negative stereotypes can’t be true. Just the first that come to mind: Debauchery, cowardice, effaminate men.
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All of the people I’ve ever met who spoke French were black…Africans. I guess French would take on a negative connotation as well if we had a larger immigrant population of French speakers.
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The Everyday Language of White Racism by Jane H. Hill will have to put this on my list.
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@Kartoffel
I personally found it downright embarrassing.
Even though I find this aspect of American culture to be very embarassingly shameful (the disdain for languages other than English), it has never baffled me. It is easy to figure out why it happened. The USA welcomed non-English speaking immigrants, but Anglo Americans felt so uneasy about their cultural hold that they were compelled to force the others to abandon their other languages and punish them for not doing it. After becoming anglicized, then they could be Anglo Americans just like them.
That is why the Chinese in 19th century alarmed them so much. Not only did the new immigrants not speak English, they were regarded as perpetually unassimilable.
What I really hate to hear is an American saying “This is America. Speak English.” I have to remind them that English is not and never has been the official language of the USA and they have no right to require that anyone speak English, and that as a patriotic American, I respect the right of anyone to use or speak any language they please.
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Because of the racist culture in America because of ignorance myself as well as others are guilty of the author’s observations and criticisms. We are all guilty of this. Now that this has been pointed out to me i need to learn to do better.
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@Kiwi
If I got wind of that, she would get called into the principal’s office and have a pointed letter sent to the school board complaining about her.
Sometimes I wish I had a kid so that I can “educate” these teachers. But I really think parents should not be passive towards their teachers and make sure that they get disciplined for their behavior.
I remember when I was 9 years old (already in 6th grade) and I had a tendency to correct the teacher’s math, English and science and social studies mistakes. She called in my mother and told her that she wanted me out of her class. My mother scolded her and told her that she needs to upgrade her knowledge and skills – how embarrassing it must be for a 9 year old to show her up. On the next report card, the teacher wrote that I “kept her on her toes”.
From age 4 I was an avid reader. I had already read the complete encyclopedia by the time I was 8 years old (and not the young child’s encyclopedia, but the world book used for high school), not to mention all the science books in the library.
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LOLing at Linda’s commentary on the Labelle hit “Lady Marmalade” Yeah, people pretty much had a field day back then butchering the French language. That’s very funny.
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I have had coworker who were Hispanic that claimed they didn’t speak Spanish and they denied anything that had something to do with Latin culture. This white washing thing is serious. Just like blacks trying to assimilate into white American culture it affects all people of color. Folks want to be accepted by the dominant culture.
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This country is so ingrained in bigotry that it wants non white people to deny and have shame about their cultural roots. I can see how the Anglican culture would try to destroy the Spanish language.
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@jefe: All teachers need a student like you. So they can stay on their toes.
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@Linda: “do people really learn and retain anything in those mandatory language classes in High school? I do remember when the attendance was being taken in our High school Spanish class we would answer”presente”
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Linguistics and racism this is pretty interesting as a topic. Some to provoke thought and introspection. I am on the fence as to whether i want to buy the book. Have a long list of book i want to read. Racial politics and social issues are of a great interest to me while i have been a commenter of this blog. This will just add to the many thing to keep me learning and keep my mind engaged. The Angry Black Woman blog is beneficial to me as well as other blogs that deal with social issues. MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry is enlightening to me as well.
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*something to provoke thought*
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I wouldn’t be so quick to ascribe a hostile racial intent to some of the mock Spanish. when different languages occupy the same territory a certain amount of ‘bastardization’ of each is bound to occur. Why? Because people don’t have perfect recall, if you know more than one language it happens that you are able to start a thought in one and end it in another language. It’s not just white Anglos who butcher Spanish Spanish speakers also do it. Somebody gave me an example of a Hispanic referring to a roof as ‘el roofo’ instead of el techo. He probably forgot the proper Spanish word for a moment. My favorite example is the French “redingote” for a frock. the amusing thing about that is that redingote is a French person’s mishearing an English person referring to his “riding coat”
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@gro jo: Good point.
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Your example, of “buckaroo” as an anglicized Spanish word has nothing to do with racism.
When one language borrows a word from another language, spelling and/or pronunciation frequently change.
Other examples include:
French “bureau” -> German “Büro”
Japanese “taikun” -> English “tycoon”
English “velvet” -> Polish “welwet”
Spanish even does it to English words:
English “baseball” -> Spanish “beisbol”
English “cocktail” -> Spanish “cóctel”
English “bacon” -> Spanish “béicon”
And the city name examples also have nothing to do with racism. Over time, familiar foreign words develop an Anglicized pronunciation. Berlin is pronounced “bear-LEEN” in German. Oslo is pronounced “OOSH-loo” in Norwegian.
Spanish people change foreign city names too, as in “Nueva York” for “New York”.
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cómo está la frase ” Buenas dias ” no adecuada español
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Also, how is this any different than “Tarzhay” (Target) or “Jacques Penney) (JC Penney)?
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@ v8driver
Buenos dias. Dia is masculine.
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@ Bobby M
There is a difference between anglicization, which English does to most words it borrows, and hyperanglicization, where it takes it to an unnecessary degree. Vamoose, buckaroo and Tucson are clear examples of hyperanglicization. Native English speakers have no trouble saying k + s as in Tucson. They can even say k + s + v, as in Clarksville. Mere anglicization cannot account for why the c was dropped.
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Mary Burrell said:
Definitely truth, and of wider relevance than just the USA. I’m certainly guilty of occasionally saying things such as “no problemo”. It had never occurred to me that there could be a derogatory root to white use of such phrases – especially since, in the UK, people from Spanish-speaking countries are not perceived as part of a so-called “immigration problem”. That said, Spanish people are sometimes mocked here – the John Cleese TV sitcom Fawlty Towers had a German-born, white British actor playing a gormless Spanish waiter whose language was constantly ridiculed. The excuse apologetically offered by Cleeses’s character to his clientèle for the waiter’s incompetence was “He’s from Barcelona”.
Mary also said:
It is. I must confess that it is a topic that constantly produces SMFH moments for me as possibly problematic aspects are revealed to modes of speech that I’ve never questioned. Not just racist aspects but sexist and other systemic prejudices too. Trying to clean up my act, but separating issues from non-issues can be tricky.
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^* “Cleese’s”, not “Cleeses’s”
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I am not sure if the racialization of a language group is unique to the USA. I doubt that it is. I assume we can take a look at how the USA has treated the racialization of language groups in the past.
There has been a successive social differentiation by language in the USA, but I don’t think it got racialized. But it is mainly because speakers of a particular language tend to share racial characteristics. Fluent Italian speakers tend to be of Italian descent. Even if a white or black person learns to speak fluent Chinese, they do not suddenly become racialized with other Chinese speakers.
A couple exceptions in US history: French and Spanish, and to some extent, Hawaiian and German. What they have in common – they have been maintained in the USA on a multigenerational level for hundreds of years. There are Americans who speak those languages today, yet can trace back their ancestors in the US a couple hundred years and find ancestors speaking that language.
Multigenerational French speakers are found mostly in northern New England and upstate New York, but also in Louisiana. In northern New England, they are almost entirely of French descent or mixed French / other European descent. But Louisiana had both Cajuns and creoles, the latter of which were often multiracial. But Jim Crow caused creoles and Cajuns to maintain separate identities, but also forced creoles to split up into black and whites. They seemed to maintain the (creole) identity well into the 20th century, but it seems that Jim Crow forced their descendants to become either black or white by the close of the 20th century.
We (technically) no longer have Jim Crow, but will racial attitudes force Hispanics to split themselves up into respective races after they become “assimilated”? ie, white Hispanics become white, mixed black Hispanics become black, Asian Hispanics become Asian American and the rest become multiracial mixed Hispanic, eg, mestizo, the descendants of which may merge with other races? Or will they maintain an identity with the national origin group with a wide variety of racial types within an individual ethnic identity?
Among Asian Americans, we are seeing more and more cross-ethnic marriages and multi-ethnic Asian Americans. They will identify less with any specific Asian identity and may just see themselves as Asian Americans. Unless one day Asians are seen as another type of white. Will we see, for example, Dominican Americans marrying Mexican Americans and having children that do not identify as white?
I think a key determinant – whether the Spanish language is maintained in the USA into future generation and whether a national version (or at least various regional versions) develop. But if Texas and other states have their way, they will force Hispanics to align with one of the other existing racial groups.
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@abagond ok, got me there
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I would not consider “Calaboose”, “Buckaroo”, or “Vamoose” to be mock Spanish. Those are loanwords that have been anglicized.
Things like “hasta la vista, baby” or “el presidente” are.
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This is genius. Thanks for posting.
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@Bobby M
I agree that those words are not mock Spanish, any more than ketchup is mock Malay or Cantonese or Hokkien, boondocks is mock Tagalog, honcho is mock Japanese, or Gung Ho is mock Mandarin, etc. (or sarariiman in Japanese is not mock English, “American Share” is not mock English in Thai, etc.). That is simply how language evolves.
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The problem with this argument is the fact that Latinos are still 99.99999% Eurocentric and thus Pro-White. Their culture was built upon the destruction and abandonment of anything indigenous America. I feel for the Latinos that can’t fit that ideal “White/Spanish Latino” outfit. Those people really struggle with their identity crisis like a muthafucka…
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Bobby M and jefe make what I think is a good point. With just a moment of pondering I can come up with examples of Anglicized loan words, including those mentioned by Bobby M and jefe and things like skosh (from Japanese), hoosegow (from Spanish “juzgado”), etc. With some time I could come up with a long list, including words derived from German, French, Yiddish, etc. Indeed, one of the reasons there is often more than one way to say something in American English is because our language has borrowed so much from so many different languages.
I think it’s a stretch to call this kind of borrowing from Spanish “racist”, and it dilutes the concept of racism in a way that weakens the concept, which is harmful to people who really do suffer from racism. Spanish-speaking people do not comprise a singe “race” even as that scientifically meaningless term is often understood and used in American culture. Further, in the American southwest, where this predominates, Spanish-speaking people, especially young people, themselves use various iterations of “Spanglish”. The reality of language is that where cultures blend, languages blend. This is in fact how pidgins, creoles, and languages originate and evolve. The lyrics of the band Sublime are but one example of how this occurs.
As to negative cultural references to outsiders, this practice is also ubiquitous and not limited to Spanish. To name but one example, “Scotch Tape” got its name from the association of Scottish people and Scotch culture with cheapness bordering on cheating. Scorning another culture, while certainly ugly and small-minded, is not racist within the meaning of that term as commonly used in the US.
As to the musical hit “Lady Marmelade” produced (and probably mostly written — though the writing credit is not formally assigned to him) by the great Allen Toussaint, that song stands today as one of the greatest examples of subversive sexuality in a pop song ever recorded. Forget the execrable “Blurred Lines”, a single-entendre pos that panders to the musical junk food crowd, “Lady Marmelade” was oozing with sex that totally slipped past the censors because of their heavy use of slang and Anglicized creole French. Not just the famous chorus, but also the lead-in:
“Gitchee gitchee ya-ya, dada” (Ya-ya being slang for pussy): Get your ya-ya, daddy
Gitchee gitchee ya-ya heyaa — get your ya-ya here
Moca-chocalata ya-ya — self explanatory
One of my favorite pop song lines in that song, though, is: “Now he’s at home doing 9 to 5”. We often use phrases like “doing time” to suggest being imprisoned. We use “9 to 5” to suggest working a day job, often a menial one. By combining the two, in just a few words Toussaint suggests that our protagonist is living in a sort of self-create prison of domestic married life, daydreaming about his torrid moments with Lady Marmelade.
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Spanish is taught coast to coast in the US. It’s one of the few non-English languages to which most Americans have been exposed. If people use basic Spanish to express something, it does not necessarily come from thinking Spanish is low class. If Italian was widely taught in American schools after 1900, I believe there would be similar sayings in Italian as part of American pop lexicon. I think that that Jane Hill is reaching.
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I like the Santana song “O ye como va”. When I ask Spanish speaking people to translate it for me they say it means something like:
“this is how the bi racial girl does it…”
Is this correct?
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Ive recieved several different translations from several different people; I am in no position to validate any of them because it may be slang spanish.
Here is the complete verse:
“Oye como va, mi ritmo / Bueno pa’ gozar, mulata”
What are they saying?
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Thwack
Oye= imperative form ie “(you) listen”
Como= how
Va=(it or loosely ‘this’) goes
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http://www.123teachme.com/spanish_verb_conjugation/ir
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Literal word for word translations don’t always work because a phrase may be used to convey a “figure of speech.”
For example, If I write a song called “you can’t put the sh*t back in the horse”; a person who speaks Spanish may not understand that Im REALLY saying “its too late”
This is why I asked the question.
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yo check this ish out basically? listen to me now like this is how it goes, are you a musician? i guess not
have you ever written a poem thwack? right..
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What is your point besides the one on top of your head?
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I recommend people stop using google translate and other translation devices for any language because it is not always as simple as people think it is. That is all.
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where’s br at lol.
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i’m goin through it
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@ V8
I will say you provided a good source in regards to Spanish, but I have found it better and easier to learn (especially the slang which is more commonly used than the “proper”) directly from Hispanics.
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oh man i was sitting down with my friends in la and we started with numbers and then my supervisor lazaro in the warehouse i brought my notebook to work, i am used to the verb and noun forms its more from latin
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i speak spanglish
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a lot of times one word in spanish can help a whole conversation go the right direction and dont forget como se dice how do you say it
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It reminds me a lot of how English words are used in foreign languages like German or Japanese. These languages now include random English words. In Japanese, you could say the English words are ‘hyper Japanised’ or whatever. They pronounce the words with an extremely strong Japanese accent and Japanese endings like -u. I’m sure some bad grammar is involved, as you might expect from people not fluent in the langauge borrowed from. This process is inevitable with a lot of exposure to another language.
To say hyperanglicization is implicitly racist or disrespectful is ridiculous.
Its also understandable to use bad words from another language because they don’t have the same impact and I wouldn’t be surprised if that is done in other languages with English words.
I would also argue that anybody who thinks its racist to say hasta la vista baby in a light hearted way is either petty grievance monger or somebody with an anti-white agenda.
You may or may not have a point about pajoration. I’d have to look at the list of words.
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i can’t remember one time where anyone took offense when i said macho, manana, or nada. they really only took offense when i made fun of their mothers, but they did the same to me so there usually were never any hard feelings…
I have holidayed in mainland Spain and the common phrase by the Spanish is ‘De nada’ – no problem or no worries I guess. This is the stock phrase you get when you say Thank you or ‘Gracias’ for something. Mañana also meaning tomorrow (thats what I have meant and understood when I have said/heard it). The word Macho was used a lot when I was growing up – I remember in the song ‘So Macho’ by Sinitta but I havent heard it used for a long time in conversation.
Is it possible that instead of trying to be offensive people use these words because they have heard them used colloquially by native speakers across Spanish speaking countries?
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I may have been hallucinating, but I think I saw/heard Obama say “my bad” on tee-vee one day?
I also heard Nancy Pelosi tell a white man to “man up”
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Jane Hill on Mock Spanish:
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@Omnipresent
I look at it as a matter of what is their point. If a person is trying to learn and utilize the language then I take no real issue with it, but if a person is doing it to be funny or something of that nature I see a clear racist issue in it.
For example a persons emphasis on comprende. A word often coming from the mouth of someone being an azz because they don’t think, believe, or care that a Spanish speaker might actually speak English.
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So while some of you are making some decent points, it set asides the issue of people who use certain Spanish words to make a joke out of it. People who are not interested in learning the language at all.
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@Kiwi
Agreed. As if the English language is some sort of great accomplishment and other languages are lesser.
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I could see how white Hispanics might use Mock Spanish on purpose in front of white Anglos in order to distance themselves from other Hispanics (and make them appear more Anglo).
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[…] A great post on mock Spanish. […]
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George & Sharina
Yes, it is about ‘tone’ and ‘context’. There used to be a comedian called Jim Davidson who used to do a sketch about Chalkie and talk in a so called West Indian accent – that just took the piss. No finesse there at all
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[…] Mock Spanish (fl. 1953- ) is that thing where Anglo Americans use Spanish, much of it deformed, for added humour: “No problemo”, “Hasta la vista, baby”, “el cheapo”, “cojones”, “grassy ass”, “Comprende?”, etc. Because of Hollywood, it is no longer just them.Most Anglos seem to see it as light-hearted, broad-minded and worldly (“See, I know some Spanish!”). It is used by the high and the low, the left and the right. They do not mean it to be racist, therefore they think it cannot possibly be racist.Many Latinos, but not all, see it as disrespectful, if not racist.The disrespect is not imagined – it is built right into Mock Spanish:- Click through to read more – […]
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@Kiwi
That is sad, but true. Oddly enough I have known white people with some purely ethnic names. I wonder if companies give them interviews thinking they are ethnic and looking to reach their minority quota, but happy to find out they are white?
I also wonder why the changing of Jose to Joe made such a difference but still passed with a Hispanic name. Perhaps it would be more calls if he changed his last name too.
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Kiwi
“On the subject of ethnic names, should I keep my Asian first and last name when I apply for jobs?”—This is a tough call because personally I would keep my name as I would be proud of it and I see you as proud to be Asian.
“Would whitening my name to get better life opportunities make me a sellout?”—The real question is would getting that job or life opportunity really make your life better? You would likely spend your life pretending to be what whites expect you to be. ie the white Hispanic in your example. just a thought.
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@ George Ryder
Did you seriously write that with a straight face?
Not for a job where white people are the boss (or the HR person is screening for a white boss). Unless the job is for a dead end programming job where the worker is not expected to talk to anyone. EVER.
I think of an exception. When I was in High School, I applied with the government for a summer job where they give preference to lower income applicants with good grades. They sent him a list from which to choose workers. The man hiring for his department was looking for applicants, and skipped over a dozen or two “black” applicants until he hit me and called me in. He said that I was not at the top of his list, but he didn’t want to hire a black person for that job. Turns out that the “boss” was a Chinese American man. He skipped further down the list to find someone he would prefer to hire.
I didn’t take it as it was a distance from where I lived and I had no car to get there. Besides the job was to clean up a lab where they were doing tests on insects.
I have another case where is “kinda” happened. I applied to work as statistician for a hospital. A man (who was Jamaican in origin) put me at the top of the list to be hired. I found out because he guessed what my ethnic background was, and preferred that over both white and black applicants. But HIS boss, (who happened to be a white lesbian), was extremely upset about it and decided to get me fired.
But, 90% of the jobs I applied, I was flat out tossed in the rejection pile. Those that deigned to call me were worried that I could not speak good enough English (and told me so).
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@ Kiwi
1. A foreign sounding first name will lead some to assume you are foreign and therefore have trouble with English, at the very least. But if your last name seems Asian, they might assume that anyway.
2. Having a name that seems White will be a waste of time, unless of course you can either pass for White OR want to see how much job discrimination is out there.
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@Abagond,
I think that this might be true for Blacks (ie, waste of time, well almost, as white sounding names will get contacted more than obviously “black” sounding names) and for White Hispanics (who can pass as white), but less true for Asian Americans.
At least for 2 cases.
1. Asian Americans are often not called interviews (or not shown housing) due to their names. It is not only perceived that they have poor English skills (your #1), but also because many feel that they simply do not “fit”. It is easier to screen people for their Asian sounding names than Blacks.
My brother was constantly rejected in applications for university basketball coach, a profession where having a white or black sounding name is not a liability. But it actually could be in any field, esp those for professional partnerships or ones which serve the public.
2. For university admissions or ANY other white controlled institution where whites perceive a need to control the number of Asians, an Asian sounding name is a DEFINITELY liability. For example, suppose a Korean mom had a son with a Korean man and named the son Robert Kim. full Korean born to a Korean mother. However, she later remarried John Wilson. Her full Korean son may experience less racism if he switched his surname to his stepfather’s and became Robert Wilson.
In the case of Eurasians / Hapas, or maybe even Blasians, having a white (or non-Asian) father with a white sounding name helps regardless of what the person looks like. This forces persons even who look very Asian looking to mark “white” or “black” on their application if they can get by with it using a white sounding name.
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I don’t notice a lot of mock Spanish, but what I hate is when people try to use me as their unpaid Spanish tutor. I try to not engage and to convey that it makes me unhappy when they do that, but they keep on and on trying to wear me down probably. Obviously when I have a choice I’ll just cut people like that out of my life, but I’m talking about situations where I’m forced to spend time with people.
Recently I had a woman yell out insults at me in Spanish from her car when I was walking in a parking lot. She had brown skin and black hair but it was obvious from the weird way she spoke and weird things she said that she wasn’t a native Spanish speaker. Yet another case of someone using me as an opportunity to practice their Spanish! She was probably Persian or something.
About last names, I was trying to get a lawyer to represent me and most are white males. There was a really noticeable difference in how they treated me when I first called (they all ask for your name) and after I sent a pic in which they could see I am light-skinned.
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So I had people over and acquaintance of mine thought it was funny to use “mock Spanish” adding the letter “o” to the end of words. I said it was offensive and his reply is well “I know Spanish and I speak Spanish so how is that racist?” His Spanish speaking ability is mediocre at best and I’m from a Peruvian family. He can’t hold a conversation….but I was so blind sided by his stupidity I just ignored it. It really bothered me. What is the best approach when this happens?
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Interesting article. Something I had never thought of. I pepper my everyday vocab with words from different languages… Spanish, French, German, Greek… generally just as greetings or thank yous, never mockingly mind you, but I can see how it could be misconstrued.
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