Sarah Varland
English 401, Vieira: EUI Project
Trekking Cultural Terrain:
Bilingual Speakers and Diverse Latino Cultures
Introduction: Cultural Opportunities
My ethnography’s central research question was originally based around apprehension
English of Spanish language-learners may have experienced in full immersion settings. I planned
to explore their positive and negative experiences as language learners, and ruminate with them
on the individuated, self-conscious aspects of speech and communication. This topic quickly
flew out the window as I began interviewing my three bilingual Spanish-English speaking
participants. They instead shared their own experiences connecting with others in multiple
languages, and living in and embracing multiple cultures. Although at first hesitant to relinquish
my original topic, I heard a certain flatness in their responses to my preformed questions while
transcribing the interviews. The original question had no life. What I instead heard while
transcribing were the unique cultural ripples, social connections, optimism and humor my
participants have experienced, surfacing through their thoughtful answers and waiting to be
explored.
The research goals changed from abstract contemplations of selfhood to tangible, almost
topographical journeys through the cultural experiences of a pair of international students from
Ecuador, Venezuela, and an American girl who studied abroad in Spain for eight months. During
both interviews, three major topics continued to intertwine: bilingual humor and language play,
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English speakers’ general unfamiliarity with Latino linguistic cultures, and the richness of their
cultural identities that are inextricably tied to language. These ideas seem to intermix for my
participants in complicated ways, and my aim was to explore their experiences, cultures, and
self-reflections with them as our conversations progressed during the interviews.
Ultimately, the research is based around the idea that language allows people to,
“understand each other and participate in the creation of shared meanings, communities, and
culture.1” The participants explain how they share culture with others through customs as well as
language, and failure to recognize cultural striations is often rooted in a corresponding ignorance
of linguistic variety for them. All three participants explain how humor across languages can
connect them with others, and how accents and varying colloquial terms between cultures help
them differentiate and learn more about others in the Latino world. Sometimes, when a meaning
is not shared, the participants recall an instance where they charted new linguistic meanings
through language play.
These experiences are fascinating accounts of personal experiences themselves, but the
larger ramifications are perhaps the most important. From them, we can see that communication,
especially language are fluid concepts that people mold to form connections with others, and that
a failure to do this, and to engage with other cultures, can leave a vast, uninformed gap in a
person’s knowledge. What they share can untangle how globalization and experience in Latino
cultures gave these three students the opportunity to develop identities within multiple cultures,
including our campus, and how exploring other cultures and the people who live them can enrich
one’s interaction with the world. Their experiences navigating cultures, languages, and the
Piedra, Lisette M. “Revisiting the Language Question,” Our Diverse Society: Race and Ethnicity –
Implications for 21st Century American Society. Ed David W. Engstrom, Lisette M. Piedra. NASW Press,
2006. P. 67.
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people that live them may suggest something important. Perhaps a stronger foundation for
foreign language learning in the United States, paired with the University of Illinois’ wellestablished study abroad programs, could foster engagement with diverse cultures, and
specifically varied Latino cultures, for our students.
Laughter in Translation and Between Languages: “Muy Delicioso”
The first portions of our interviews helped me understand to humor’s central importance
in communication and connection for my participants. This humor seems to come in two types.
The first is the pure ability to be funny and make jokes in a second language, especially during
the language-learning phase. The second revolves around the intentional crafting of jokes in the
margins between English and Spanish, and seems an antithesis to the nervousness I originally
expected to discover. Later in the interviews, humor served as a side door for my participants to
enter deeper issues they face as language learners, and they explain using jokes and laughter to
combat ignorance of Latino cultures, and to connect with others across cultural boundaries
within the Spanish language.
Immediately, though, my participants seem to connect with others on a personal level
through this humor, and thus create a comfortable conversational space for themselves. As
native-English speaker Tani reflects, “…when you’re becoming a fluent speaker in another
language you can have mastery of vocabulary and perfect grammar, but humor is like a whole
other ball game. It’s a different type of skill than just regular lingual skills.” Tani loves laughter
and believes humor allows her to share her personality, her self, when communicating in her
second language. What are the communicative rewards? In her own words, ‘feeling triumphant.’
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Tani is a Caucasian undergrad from a medium-sized town in northern Illinois with a
sizable and generally ill-received Latino immigrant population. Her family and friends are
primarily monolingual English speakers. Although proficient upon arrival, Tani studied abroad
in Bilbao, Spain for seven months last year and became fluent with a Spanish accent. Today she
tutors Latino students in the CU area and volunteers at an immigrant helpline called Linea
Latina. In August, she is moving to Barcelona for a year to pursue a Fulbright grant by
researching social entrepreneurship practices aimed at creating sustainable communities in
Spain. Her smile is genuine and her thoughts are deliberate and insightful.
Tani’s belief that humor is a, “whole other ball game” of mastery than traditional English
skills holds true for her friends, who are my other pair of participants, in a different way.
Leandro and Esteban are undergrad students in sustainable business and engineering
respectively. They are best friends with quick-fuse smiles and sharp senses of humor. Leandro is
from Venezuela and now permanently lives in the US with his family, while Esteban plans to
return to his home in Ecuador after graduation to pursue his career. Both studied English from
childhood and have been reasonably proficient since they can recall. They have lived in the US
for over a year at this point and are fluently bilingual while retaining accents of their respective
home countries.
The pair met me for the first time with besitos at a quiet corner booth in Legend’s, and
after ordering appetizers I clumsily passed them consent forms with a brief explanation. Leandro
feigned tears as he signed, gravely turning to Esteban in disbelief that he brought their “divorce
papers” to a bar for finalization. Leandro’s language play set a friendly and frank tone for our
interview, but also revealed a keen perception of linguistic reliance on paper: the only official
means for some types of communication, like informed consent or even divorce.
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The tendency to create language play arose again later, when I brought up the difference
between being bilingual and speaking only Spanish or only English. Without prompting, Leandro
and Esteban glanced at each other and laughed. Then they struggled to let me, a researcher and
monolingual English-speaker, in on their jokes, illegible to any non-bilinguals based on their
nature. Esteban began, “We translate from one language literally to the other.” Leandro adding,
“It makes no sense whatsoever if you put it in that context so it’s funny for us. (Esteban
interjects, ‘Nope!’) In a language perspective it doesn’t make any sense.” Esteban continued,
“[For example] when we ask for delivery service, we [take the word ‘delivery’ and you] have
‘deli-,’ like delicioso, and ‘-very’, like mucho or muy, so we say let’s order muy delicioso,
meaning delivery, and no one understands us…but it’s funny!” Similar to the ‘divorce papers,’
their joke reveals the spaces between languages and the structures that compose them. These
spaces are perhaps more visible to bilingual speakers navigating imperfect translation and
multilingual thoughts on a daily basis. Jokes within these spaces become a bonding region for
Leandro, Esteban and other speakers sharing the same Spanish-English language topography.
Since they overlap languages, these people are able to create shared meanings and cultures
together, in a space monolingual speakers of either language cannot penetrate without assistance.
Tani mentioned that it was the propensity for this type of English-Spanish inclusive joking that
first helped her become friends with Leandro and Esteban, as well as countless other bilingual
speakers. As I shared the pair’s new meaning of muy delicioso with Tani, she rolled her eyes
affectionately and remarked, “Those two went by pared-verde just the other day to get a few
groceries.” And to my incomprehension: “Walgreens.”
Humor as a Rebuff to Prejudice: “Are you Mexican or something?”
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Humor’s function can span beyond word play and expression of personality though: it
can also serve as a protective rebuff. As our interview continued, Leandro and Esteban could
only come up with one instance of outright discrimination between the two of them. They feel
unlikely to ever experience negativity on the university campus,2 where they say international
students are part of the fabric of daily life. Yet their one example of discrimination was a
significant one. Leandro had worked construction to get field experience before attending
college, and one day a coworker affronted him about his Venezuelan accent: “What, are you a
Mexican or something?” Leandro specified that the man meant ‘Mexican’ in a pejorative way
and clearly had little knowledge of the diversity in Latin cultures.3
Leandro is kind and calm, and responded with gentle sarcasm to highlight the man’s vast
generalization: “I said ‘Yeah you know, I’m a Mexican,’ and I’m not, but I was making fun of
[his comment].” Instead of growing angry or informing the man of his Venezuelan heritage,
Leandro relied on his ability to effectively deadpan in English. Thus with six words, he
highlighted this man’s ignorance, defused the situation, and established his fluent bilinguality
through humor. Yet to fully view what Leandro was able to reclaim here, and what less fluent
bilingual speakers may not have been able to, we must turn back to Tani’s experiences in Bilbao.
Like Leandro, Tani was plunged into an emotionally charged (albeit non-confrontational)
conversation during her first weeks abroad. But unlike him, she had to twist her limited Spanish
to fit her needs, and in some ways the words just didn’t work. She believes,
Galloway, Katelyn; Maureen Kattah; Navár, Daisy; Santillanes, Andrew. “LLS: Consciousness-Raising
of the Latino/Communities Diversity,” IDEALS Archive. These students examine nuances between
Latino/a American students and Latino/a American students currently living in the US, and also find that
apart from rare, isolated incidents of racism, cultural affiliations of students are generally respected.
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Hurtado, Denise. “Different Experiences of Anglo vs. Latina/o Students in Latina/o Studies,” IDEALS
Archive. Denise discusses the contrast in base knowledge between Latino/a students and Caucasian or
non-Latino/a students in Latin American Studies coursework at University of Illinois.
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“The hardest thing is you are aware of your own intelligence, and when it comes to some
themes, you cannot communicate [in your second language]… In English I can
communicate in all these nuances, and in Spanish I don’t have that reservoir. And so
when the conversation goes that way, I lose my ability to express.”
In Tani’s case, she improvised expression through ample use of hand gestures and relied
on the patience of her host father while they discussed religious beliefs and the Franco’s
dictatorship. Yet Leandro was dealing with a markedly impatient and abrasive coworker, so he
relied on his fluency and humor to display his own intelligence. Had Leandro not been fluent
enough to draw upon gentle sarcasm, had his “inability to express” imprisoned his intelligence,
he may have been unable to correct this man and fallen victim to his enveloping ignorance. So if
Leandro’s ability to reveal this man’s ignorance hinges on his fluency in English, how
unadulterated a success over cultural ignorance was his humorous sarcasm?
Prejudice Blankets Cultural Contours: “That is not a bad word!”
The construction worker’s cultural ignorance is not something of which he alone is
guilty. Unprompted, Tani also brought up negative cultural labeling in the United States and
remarked, “I think that in our culture, ‘Mexican’ is often a pejorative term.” Perhaps more
unsettling, she senses the word’s new connotation in her own speech as well:
“…there are times when I’m talking about a group of people I work with and I’ll say ‘I
was with these three Mexican students’… and there is like a split second in the back of
my mind that I’m aware and uncomfortable, where I’m like ‘I’m not supposed to say this
word.’ But that is their country affiliation, that is not a bad word!”
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Her obvious definition of the word Mexican as a country affiliation only highlights how this
word can be transmogrified in speech. When said with a certain emphasis, it implies a host of
subjugating words politely left unsaid. Another distinction of this word is important though: Tani
specifically uses it in reference to people from Mexico, yet in its transmogrified form and as
Leandro’s coworker applied it, it can consume any Spanish-speaking, Latino-looking person. In
Tani’s experience, this usage has become so closely linked with ‘Mexican’s original usage that
she senses a discomfort in the back of her mind. In some ways, she has internalized our society’s
dedication to political correctness: once a word has collected enough pejorative residue like
Leandro’s coworker lends to ‘Mexican,’ our cultural conscience must retire it in favor of a less
marked term. Perhaps the most illustrative parallel lies in the politically correct yet engulfing
blanket term of ‘Asian American,’ which yokes together people from Iran to India to Japan.4
Both terms derive bristles from the diverse groups they seek to define by virtue of their engulfing
intentions. Yet it is the maligned usage of ‘Mexican’ that is beginning not only to conflate, but
insult the person on its receiving end, like Leandro that specific morning at work.
Tani identifies this and reacts when pleading we re-claim ‘Mexican’ as ‘not a bad word.’
In order to explore this reclamation of ‘Mexican’ as a cultural affiliation, we must also explore
the intricately complex cultures of Spanish speakers, of which I was previously uninformed, and
still largely am. Yet the testimony of Leandro, Esteban and Tani brought into focus the deep,
labyrinthine detail of each culture shared and created by Spanish speakers, which can easily be
smeared flat with a bit of ignorance and an improperly applied ‘Mexican’ label.
Liu, Eric. The Accidental Asian, “The Accidental Asian: Variations on a Theme.” Random House, New York City:
1998. P. 57-60. In this essay, Liu focuses on the incredible, undeniable diversity within what in conflated as Asian or
Asian American within the United States. Particularly, he deliberates upon linguistic and cultural differences
between a Korean person and a Japanese person, in much the same way Leandro and Esteban will describe linguistic
and cultural variations within their own home countries, on campus, and throughout Latino cultures at large.
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Cultural Topography Reclaimed: “Ay, Maracuchos!”
I initially asked Leandro and Esteban about their experience with accents as our nachos
and wings arrived, and they misinterpreted my broad question, fortuitously giving me something
much richer than what I knew enough to ask for. Although I intended to ask how others received
their accents in the US, Esteban’s eyes illuminated with the mere mention of “accent,” and his
sharp intake of breath promised a depth of knowledge. I sensed my questions may garner flat,
forced answers of little interest, and that I should quietly listen to what they could share with me.
Leandro’s eyes similarly lit, and he immediately began breaking down the accent-topography of
his Venezuela, the same way a friend might explain his temperamental family: a veneer of
annoyance and conflict atop deep-seated affection.
Leandro started with the basics for me, setting the scene by explaining a Venezuelan state
called Zulia (pronounced musically, “Sool-ya”), which borders Columbia. He continues, “The
capital is called Maracaibo, and we call them Maracuchos. And they are unbearable.” Leandro is
animated with theatrical passion, and the relation resembles that of rival brother. “They believe
they are the best in everything and they should separate from Venezuela. They say it jokingly
now, but they tried it some time in history. And for me, if a friend of mine told me they knew
someone from Maracaibo I would be like NO, no Maracuchan, oh!” He finishes this statement
with a glint of a smile, implying he may actually receive this person with humorous teasing and
receive some himself. Our appetizers grew cold and forgotten as he continued delineating the
varied Spanish accents of his region and those surrounding him, while I listened intently.
Leandro even ribbed Esteban a bit for his harsh Quito, Ecuador-based accent. Esteban himself
agreed with fond exasperation, relating, “This winter break I went back home and I got to the
airport of Quito and I heard someone speaking to us on the overhead with our accent and I said
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‘Oh now, I can’t believe we speak like that!’” His wide smile intimated relief at returning to his
home city, as well as a confident affection for his home’s accent, which allowed him to joke
about it.
As these friends took me on an enthusiastic speed-tour through their languages and
cultures, I brushed the surface of social knowledge necessary to navigate each of their worlds.
But I also learned how very much I do not know about their worlds in the first place. ‘NewlySpanish’ Tani says she noted this same perception while studying in Bilbao, where we recall she
arrived with proficient Mexican-based Spanish. As she began improving her language skills and
made connections with more native Spanish speakers, she also scratched the surface of Spanishlinguistic intricacy, delved farther in, and now has gained her own identity within this world: “I
am able to pick up on different accents now because I’m fluent, and my fluency is rooted in the
Spanish accent. And so now I can tell the difference and it’s on my radar. It fascinates me.” Her
Spanish-rooted fluency is linguistic as well as cultural. She speaks with a ‘th’ sound in place of
‘c’ or ‘z,’ enjoys fried eggs on top of rice and not only understands but feels the socially liberal
stance her host father holds after enduring Franco’s dictatorship. Of course, this facet of her self
is defined through her Spanish language and bleeds comfortably into her lifelong English-based
selfhood, cultivated since childhood.
Within her new-found Spanish identity, Tani has connected with people from many
Spanish speaking countries and sees difference in the spaces of rapidity of speech, pronunciation,
and especially colloquial terms. Through her more fluent experiences, Tani has observed, “There
is a lot of diversity within the Spanish language and every country really is different. You can
say the exact same thing about cultural identities.” In fact, in some important ways, the linguistic
diversity and cultural identity of Spanish speakers slowly fades together, instead occupying
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distinct categories for each person. Much regarding culture, personal identity and origin is
communicated through these subterranean avenues, as well as through the actual content of each
utterance a Spanish speaker makes. As Leandro’s explanation shows, he can spot a Maracuchan
immediately from the way he speaks. For him, an avalanche of preformed feelings, resentments
and kinship are called up by everything a Zulia resident might say, even if it is merely about the
weather.
Tani can elucidate striations beyond accent, too. She needs a moment to laugh before she
can even share her memory about a misunderstanding of colloquial terms. “Miscommunications
[the within Spanish language] can happen too,” she tells me, “I’ll give you a prime example: in
Spain, if you say ‘to take’ it’s coger. It literally means like ‘to grab,’ but they use it for
everything. So. In Mexico, coger means to have… relations with someone. So when I met a guy
from Mexico in Barcelona and told him I took the bus he started laughing! And I mean, he knew
and understood. But at the same time, it’s still funny because of what’s in his mind. Which is me.
Hooking up with a bus. And that’s just funny! You know?”
After he explained his laughter, the two giggled for another few minutes enjoying sheer
absurdity of the comment in one view and its perfect sensibility in another. What may be most
significant, though, is the way a mostly-common language can bring two speakers together over
an outrageous, unintentional language joke. Tani concedes this situation had the potential to have
been inexplicably uncomfortable for her. Her Mexican friend’s openness over their shared
language and cultural variances of slang illustrates how humor can again be the glue for
communication in not only bilingual speaking situations, but within a shared language spoken
across the globe as well. The nuances of language and culture that once seemed homogenous due
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to her lack of exposure now were developing ‘on her radar,’ bit by bit, as she connected with
more Spanish speakers and the world wide variances in Spanish that they represent.
Conclusions: “You are not Americans.”
Meanwhile at Legends, I sat at the beginning stage of the process Tani went through
while acquiring Spanish: awareness. As Leandro and Esteban continued limning South American
linguistic and cultural topography for me, we began delving into our cold nachos. We were
startled by a knock on the window behind us as our interview tapered down. It was Tani, smiling
and slumping under a heavy backpack. She hurried inside and joined our table, exchanging
besitos (in her Spanish accent, bay-thee-tos) with Leandro and Esteban, and a hug with me. The
excitedly chatted, and I drifted in sounds of their Spanish words, trying to pinpoint the three
accents they represented and to my pleasure, identified the basics of them although little of the
conversation’s content. Moments later a fourth friend arrived, clearly not American based on his
smart, fitted gray jeans, Rock concert graphic t-shirt, and something indefinable in the way he
carried himself. After affectionate hugs with Leandro and Esteban, I also introduced myself to
Mateo, offering my hand and becoming self-consciously aware of my American-ness in that
moment. He smiled and shook it, joining in the pastiche of Spanish accents with an Andes
punctuated Ecuadorian cadence.
As I continued sitting with the four friends, Spanish speakers of different cultures brought
together on our campus, I couldn’t help but think of yet another encounter Tani had told me
about during our interview. This one involved a Columbian engineering student she shared a
hostel with in Spain. While introducing themselves, he became frustrated with where Tani said
she hailed from: “He’s like ‘you’re not America. Why do you guys say that? You are from the
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United States. I am American. I am from South America, I’m Columbian.” Tani related the
constant frustration this man felt with Americans who, at times, carry little knowledge of the
languages and cultures with which they share a hemisphere. She was quick to point out his
frustration stemmed not from perceived oppression, but from something else: the remaining
vestiges of a United States that didn’t hold priorities for globalization, from a time when our
country’s economy was not as internationally tied and travel was not as simple, cheap, and
valued as it is now.
These qualities are perhaps what caused our country to produce a relatively small number
of multilingual speakers through our schooling system,5 and also the reasons many other
countries employed and still employ compulsory English studies in their schools, like Leandro
and Esteban explained. As I explored this project with my participants, it became increasingly
clear that in many ways, students in the United States are not receiving the multilingual
educations necessary to thrive in our increasingly globalized world.
I believe that if we shift our educational focus to include foreign language in younger
grades and pair it with encouraging study abroad opportunities, increasing numbers of students in
the United States will become globally educated. That is, they can take part in discourses in
multiple languages, take a stake in several cultural identities, and understand the different
cultures across what previously would have been linguistic barriers.6 Perhaps Leandro and
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Suresh Canagarajah discusses multilingual speakers and world English speakers in his essay
“Multilingual Strategies of Negotiating English: From Conversation to Writing.” He discusses
multilingualism as a concept in various cultures, and one that is generally undervalued within the United
States. His work also explores the unique, approximated, and non-traditional ways non-native speakers
use English to communicate with one another, much the same way my research participants converse
across language boundaries as well as within different types of Spanish.
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Weisman, Evelyn; Flores, Susan; Valenciana, Christine. “Building Bilingual-Bicultural Learning
Communities of Latino Teacher Candidates,” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, Vol. 6 Issue 3, 2007.
This article chronicles a study that promotes bilingual education, cultural exploration, and dialogue on
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Esteban can give insight into the rich, contoured cultures of South America waiting to be
explored yet infrequently reflected in our own culture. And maybe Tani’s excitement to engage
with the Spanish-speaking world shows the rewards of taking the steps to globalize one’s self
intentionally and incidentally.
diversity in the classroom. It finds that this promotes success for minority children. This program could
also give great benefit to all types of students, and is especially fascinating to me as a future educator.