Spanglish Quotes

My dad came from Cuba when he was a teenager not speaking English. And I grew up here speaking Spanglish. That's the world in which I grew up, and that's a world in which a lot of second generation immigrants find themselves. ~ Ted Cruz

How could I be sure of these teeangers' national origin? Was I using names of origin to give them a place instead, when it was clear that they were moving toward a new language? ~ Julio Ortega

They jabbered amongst themselves in a bizarre jibberish that sounded like Spanish gone wrong: maybe gringo Spanglish, some kind of Espanahuatl that I hadn't decoded yet, or a dialect of Spanmayan, Zapotecnish, Spanotomi, Mixtecnish, or some other new native language; or Japanish, Spanorean or…I'm getting carried away. You need a talent for picking up new words and grammars these days-it's become an obsession with me, someday I'll probably write a book about it, but in what language? ~ Ernest Hogan

I want to be open to the kids who only speak Spanish, the kids who speak only Spanglish, and the kids who don't even speak Spanish at all. ~ Becky G

In my house, we speak Spanglish to the dogs, to the grandchildren, to the kids. ~ Cristina Saralegui

Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate. I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence. ~ Gloria E Anzaldua

When I speak of Spanglish I'make talking about a fertile terrain for negotiating a new identity. I'make feeling excited, as Gloria Anzldua did in her book Borderlands/LA Frontera,about "participating in the creation of another culture/in a state of perpetual transition/with a tolerance for ambiguity. ~ Ed Morales

The academic establishment. . . . argue over the diminution of Spanish because of the introduction of new Spanish words that are literally translations of England glish--parquear, the park of "park," tales the plancelebratory of the more elegant estacionar which could be literally translated as "stationing. ~ Ed Morales

I am not african.
Africa is in me, but I cannot return.
I am not taina.
Taino is in me, but there is no way back.
I am european.
Europe lives in me, but I have no home there.

I am new. History made me. My first language is Spanglish.
I was born at the crossroads
and I am whole. ~ Aurora Levins Morales

To paraphrase a Latino saying (which is possibly ultimately from the Arabic traditiom), MI rasa is supposed raza." So Living in Spanglish is not a racial Istanbul text. ~ Ed Morales

At the root of Spanglish is a very universal state of being. It is a dis placement from one place, home, to another place, home, in which feels at home in both places, Yet at home in neither place. It is a kind of banging-one's-head-against-the-wall state, and the only choice you have left is to embrace the transitory (read transnatiknal) state of in-between. ~ Ed Morales

Honey, lately your low self-esteem is just good common sense ~ James L. Brooks