american

A POCHO editor explains Spanglish to gente in España

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Spanglish is only one of the dialects created by people who straddle two culturas.

(See what I did there? )

The underlying assumption of Spanglish is that one language is not enough to capture the full experience of being immersed in two cultures.

The gente who use Spanglish are primarily first and second generation Latinos in the United States. I would say the phenomenon springs from the working classes and the sons and daughters of immigrants to the United States (not to exclude the immigrants themselves).

Mas…A POCHO editor explains Spanglish to gente in España

Born in the USA: The secret downside of espeaking Spanglish

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primos“Wow, it’s so cool you can speak Spanish,” people tell me after they hear me on the phone with my mom.

I say thanks and try to shrug it off, but I worry that letting them think that gives a mistaken impression.

I mean, yes. I can speak Spanish.

My parents taught me Spanish when I was growing up in California because it was the only language they had to give.

Like a lot of children of immigrants, I grew up in a Mexican immigrant bubble – my tias and tios spoke only Spanish. My baby primos spoke Spanish with me when we watched Plaza Sesamo and ate conchitas.

Mas…Born in the USA: The secret downside of espeaking Spanglish

Angry area youth calls menudo ‘yucky,’ demands pizza

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menudokid(PNS reporting from ALTADENA) Javier “Flaco” Hernandez outraged his family Sunday night when he refused to eat his bowl of menudo.

“It’s yucky!” the 8-year-old shouted as he repeatedly banged his spoon on the dinner table and insisted on pizza instead.

Flaco’s refusal ticked off his mom, who had spent hours preparing the beef stomach broth in the kitchen of their tidy suburban Los Angeles County bungalow.

Mas…Angry area youth calls menudo ‘yucky,’ demands pizza

White Boy ChIcano (a poem)

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whiteboychicanoWhite Boy Chicano

It’s an identity crisis

My parents are Mexican migrants, who stay busy all the time

Spanish is my first language, then almost losing it because of time

My TV only showed Mexicans involved in crime

The stereotypes didn’t represent me

My school peers didn’t believe me

I wasn’t Mexican or White

Being a gringo and Mehican left me asking,

Who am I? Where do I belong to?

Pinche White Boy

Mas…White Boy ChIcano (a poem)

How does your state rate in the Mexican restaurant wars?

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burritonation

It’s no secret that Americans love Mexican food — Gustavo ¡Ask A Mexican! Arellano’s book Taco USA celebrated that aspect of the Reconquista last year.

But not all of the United Estates is created equal, and in some areas of the country there is a shocking Mexican restaurant shortage!

ABC/Univision reports:

There are more Mexican restaurants than Italian bistros, Chinese kitchens, chicken rotisseries, or seafood shacks in the US. We’re talking about no less than 38,000 Mexican restaurants dispersed all across the American landscape (as of 2011).

Mas…How does your state rate in the Mexican restaurant wars?

Latinos in Hollywood? First of all, who are these so-called ‘Latinos?’

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lindanievespowellI disagree with Dennis Leoni.

In the POCHO article, he says this: “One more time, what do we need to do? BUILD OUR OWN MARKETPLACE!”

Here’s my take: It won’t work. It simply will not work. Why? Because the so-called “Latino” experience cannot be compared to the African-American experience in the United States. The “Latino” experience is different for each of us.

Latinos are culturally diverse. Yawn. Haven’t we heard this a million times already? Yet, it probably hasn’t really sunk in. A Mexican-American story will be different from a Puerto-Rican story, a Dominican story, a Colombian story, etc. It will also be different from a Mexican immigrant story, a Nuyorican story, an Ecuadorian/Irish story. Assimilation changes who we are. Migration changes who we are.

Mas…Latinos in Hollywood? First of all, who are these so-called ‘Latinos?’

Report from Barrio Walden: Chillin’ pondside with Enrique Thoreau

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IMAGINE MY SHOCK.

I was living in Massachusetts for the first time. Adjusting. The first time I saw snow falling past my Somerville apartment window, I told a woman on the phone that a neighbor was on the roof shaking out a pillow. Not many snowstorms in my desertified homeland. The first time I saw ice on the sidewalk, I thought a prankster had smeared Vaseline on the bricks to watch businessmen fall down.

This old world was all new to me. I was manhandled by quotidian revelations, wrenched by the duende of Yankee cultural hoodoo. So when I realized I could walk over to Porter Square (where the porterhouse steak was first hacked out of some Bostonian cow) and catch a commuter train to Concord, to Walden freakin’ Pond, I was off and running.

Mas…Report from Barrio Walden: Chillin’ pondside with Enrique Thoreau

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Princeton Study: Majority of Mexicans don’t know how to dance salsa

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(PNS reporting from PRINCETON) A study from Princeton University has confirmed what many have long believed: Mexicans, and Mexican Americans, do not actually know how to dance to salsa music.

A Caribbean Hispanic export, salsa is often included with more typically Mexican dance styles, like the quebradita or cumbia, but the truth, according to the study, is that Mexicans don’t actually know what they are doing.

“Salsa is, like, a Cuban thing. My family is from Denver,” one research subject complained.

“Participants in the study reported anxiety and cluelessness when attending quinceañeras and hearing Elvis Crespo or Celia Cruz music playing,” said cultural anthropology professor Dr. Anton Flemming, who was the lead researcher on the project.

Mas…Princeton Study: Majority of Mexicans don’t know how to dance salsa