A rant on race in novels.
A little wanring before you continue; there are 'bad' words in Spanish, bad spelling of Spanish words since my comp doesn't do a good job of making accents easy for me to find, and a discussion about race, or rather, the portrayal of Mexicans in novels.
I just read to different stories, written by American writer’s of European descent, featuring Mexicans in key recurring roles, and I noticed a few…let’s go with mistakes, that bugged me at first, then annoyed me, and by the time I made it to the end, just plain pissed me off.
So here’s the thing. I understand we Mexicans, mainly first generation immigrants, some second generation, and Mexican/Chicano activists, use spanglish. Hey, I use it all the time, except by all the time I really mean ‘all the time when I’m around people who understand Spanglish.’ Most of my Mexican/Chicano(a) friends do this as well, (as far as I know, I could be wrong though). But I only use Spanglish because I grew up talking in Spanish, as opposed to a third generation Mexican-American who most likely only heard a word here and there and never really incorporated Spanish into their linguistic vocabulary.
Now those stories I just read have every single person with a freaking ‘Spanish Sounding’ last name saying ‘gracias’, instead of ‘thank you,’ refer to other people as ‘senor(a),’ (please pretend I have the correct spelling here, I can never find the correct command keys for it), cursing in Spanish and only Spanish, always saying ‘abuela,’ ‘mijo(a),’ when talking about grandma to a non -Spanish speaking person, and speaking in broken Spanish. Yes, I said broken Spanish, somehow these characters manage to speak English incredibly well but when wanting to say something like ‘my poor baby,’ instead of saying ‘mi pobre bebe,’ which is the most likely way a Mexican-American would say it, (I say this because Spanish, like English, varies from country to country, and within Mexico itself, sayings, words, and their meaning, vary as well,) and instead say “el bebe pobre,” which translates to ‘the poor baby,’ meaning poor in money, like ‘the financially impaired baby.”
Also, please have a native speaker do the spell, phrase, and curse-word check for the story. Refer back up to the baby reference on the reason for the first two. As to the last, well, instead of just using ‘pendejo,’or ‘puto,’ a person could also use ‘cabron.’ ‘Cabron,’ is actually more commonly used, or at least more commonly heard by my ears. 'Buey,' actually pronounced more like 'guey,' can be used affectionately or incredibly insultingly, depending on what side of the border you were born. Also, every Mexican worth his tortilla says ‘chingado,’ in much the same way Americans use ‘fuck’ and ‘shit.’ ‘Hijo de puta,’ is a popular phrase, but ‘chinga tu madre,’ is really the mother of them all, pun intended. It’s so damn popular it’s whistled, not just yelled, but whistled, during soccer games in Mexico with its meaning clearly implied. And if you want to use a ‘darn’ equivalent, just use ‘chichuahua,’ it’s not just a dog, a state, and a city in Mexico, it’s also what we learn to say as kids to keep out of trouble.
So what’s the moral of this story?
If you’re going to write Mexican, Mexican-American, Chicano(a), characters, please don’t make them speak as if they were stuck in an white neo-con approved made for network TV movie from 20+ years ago. If you’re going to have them speak Spanish, then go ahead and do so. Just, don’t make every single person speak Spanish/Spanglish, and please, do your research by asking Spanish speaking Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Chicano(a)s how/when they speak Spanish and Spanglish, and note the differences as to when/where/how they’re speaking it and how it relates to their age and cultural self-identification. It sounds hard but hey, if your willing to spend time doing research on the stages of a decomposing body, this should be a cakewalk.
Oh, and I find I’m offended every time someone I don’t know introduces him/herself to me by speaking Spanish upon our first meeting. It’s kind of racist to assume every brown person with a Spanish last name knows how to speak Spanish. So please only make this happen if you want to showcase the cultural insensitivity of your character.
Tomorrow you get a rant on why not putting much forethought when writing a 'fantasy kidnap' scene between two characters, who are lovers, can make the author look like an insensitive bitch.
I just read to different stories, written by American writer’s of European descent, featuring Mexicans in key recurring roles, and I noticed a few…let’s go with mistakes, that bugged me at first, then annoyed me, and by the time I made it to the end, just plain pissed me off.
So here’s the thing. I understand we Mexicans, mainly first generation immigrants, some second generation, and Mexican/Chicano activists, use spanglish. Hey, I use it all the time, except by all the time I really mean ‘all the time when I’m around people who understand Spanglish.’ Most of my Mexican/Chicano(a) friends do this as well, (as far as I know, I could be wrong though). But I only use Spanglish because I grew up talking in Spanish, as opposed to a third generation Mexican-American who most likely only heard a word here and there and never really incorporated Spanish into their linguistic vocabulary.
Now those stories I just read have every single person with a freaking ‘Spanish Sounding’ last name saying ‘gracias’, instead of ‘thank you,’ refer to other people as ‘senor(a),’ (please pretend I have the correct spelling here, I can never find the correct command keys for it), cursing in Spanish and only Spanish, always saying ‘abuela,’ ‘mijo(a),’ when talking about grandma to a non -Spanish speaking person, and speaking in broken Spanish. Yes, I said broken Spanish, somehow these characters manage to speak English incredibly well but when wanting to say something like ‘my poor baby,’ instead of saying ‘mi pobre bebe,’ which is the most likely way a Mexican-American would say it, (I say this because Spanish, like English, varies from country to country, and within Mexico itself, sayings, words, and their meaning, vary as well,) and instead say “el bebe pobre,” which translates to ‘the poor baby,’ meaning poor in money, like ‘the financially impaired baby.”
Also, please have a native speaker do the spell, phrase, and curse-word check for the story. Refer back up to the baby reference on the reason for the first two. As to the last, well, instead of just using ‘pendejo,’or ‘puto,’ a person could also use ‘cabron.’ ‘Cabron,’ is actually more commonly used, or at least more commonly heard by my ears. 'Buey,' actually pronounced more like 'guey,' can be used affectionately or incredibly insultingly, depending on what side of the border you were born. Also, every Mexican worth his tortilla says ‘chingado,’ in much the same way Americans use ‘fuck’ and ‘shit.’ ‘Hijo de puta,’ is a popular phrase, but ‘chinga tu madre,’ is really the mother of them all, pun intended. It’s so damn popular it’s whistled, not just yelled, but whistled, during soccer games in Mexico with its meaning clearly implied. And if you want to use a ‘darn’ equivalent, just use ‘chichuahua,’ it’s not just a dog, a state, and a city in Mexico, it’s also what we learn to say as kids to keep out of trouble.
So what’s the moral of this story?
If you’re going to write Mexican, Mexican-American, Chicano(a), characters, please don’t make them speak as if they were stuck in an white neo-con approved made for network TV movie from 20+ years ago. If you’re going to have them speak Spanish, then go ahead and do so. Just, don’t make every single person speak Spanish/Spanglish, and please, do your research by asking Spanish speaking Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Chicano(a)s how/when they speak Spanish and Spanglish, and note the differences as to when/where/how they’re speaking it and how it relates to their age and cultural self-identification. It sounds hard but hey, if your willing to spend time doing research on the stages of a decomposing body, this should be a cakewalk.
Oh, and I find I’m offended every time someone I don’t know introduces him/herself to me by speaking Spanish upon our first meeting. It’s kind of racist to assume every brown person with a Spanish last name knows how to speak Spanish. So please only make this happen if you want to showcase the cultural insensitivity of your character.
Tomorrow you get a rant on why not putting much forethought when writing a 'fantasy kidnap' scene between two characters, who are lovers, can make the author look like an insensitive bitch.