Their language, our Spanish

Abstract

This study exposes 'gringo Spanish' as a discursive site for the reproduction of privilege, racism and social order in White public spaces. I begin my arguments by exploring Whiteness, doing so by unpacking what I term 'Gringoism', which involves the active celebration of a White, monolingual (un)consciousness through particular linguistic and cultural performance. Brief analysis of one particular educational text (Harvey 1990) supports greater discussions of indexicality, intersubjectivity, the elevation of Whiteness and discourses of 'making sense' of Spanish-speaking Others. The study closes with implications for the field of Mexican American studies, which in turn offers considerations for scholars studying Spanish within greater educational, anthropological and socio-cultural contexts.

Speaking with (dis)respect: a study of reactions to Mock Spanish

“…The aim of this project has been to contribute to the debate over whether Mock Spanish is racist discourse (Breidenbach, 2006;Hill, 1995Hill, , 1998Schwartz, 2008;Zentella, 2003) and to the related discussion of the use of Spanish by non-native speakers (Callahan, 2004(Callahan, , 2005Urciuoli, 1996). The results have shown that Mock Spanish is indeed perceived as potentially insulting.…”

Uptake (un)limited: The mediatization of register shifting in US public discourse

“…Work that has examined switches into LOTS by heritage speakers of SAME as studies of CROSSING, by contrast, are less numerous and have tended to find that this type of switching tends to be negatively evaluated by hearers (Cutler 2003). Related studies of the use of some elements of LOTS linguistic repertoires by heritage speakers of SAME in the study of MOCKING find that heritage speakers of LOTS negatively evaluate these types of shifts too (Hill 2008;Schwartz 2008;Alim, Lee, & Carris 2010).…”

Linguistic and cultural authenticity of ‘Spanglish’ greeting cards

“…I will return to these concepts in the greeting card analysis, but it is important to keep in mind that the codeswitched cards I examine are not intended for monolingual Anglophone consumers. Differently from Hill (1998), Lipski (2004) and Schwartz (2008), the comedian Bill Santiago (2008) in his chapter titled 'Spanglish a lo Gringo' humorously accepts and even promotes 'gringo Spanglish': Spanish and pseudo-Spanish words and phrases pour constantly from the mouths of monolinguals in this country who don't really know Spanish per se. In fact, gringos enjoy a certain advantage as Spanglish speakers over Latinos.…”

“…Do bilingual Latinos see SpanishÁEnglish codeswitched cards favourably, as an enactment of bilingual identity (Mahootian, 2005), thus granting linguistic authority to the card makers (Jaffe, 1999)? Conversely, to what degree is the language of codeswitched greeting cards considered 'not used by real people' (Papson, 1986), an artificial language (Einbeck, 2004), Mock Spanish (Hill, 1998) or Gringoism (Schwartz, 2008)?…”

“…In a society that has become increasingly intolerant of racial and ethnic slurs and offensive discourse disguised as 'just plain fun,' the continued acceptance of pseudo-Spanish is a stark reminder of the challenges that remain. Schwartz (2008) uses the term 'gringo Spanish' to describe such uses, arguing that they constitute acts of 'the reproduction of privilege, racism and social order in White public spaces' (p. 224), while Gringoism is his term for 'a larger framework in which Mock Spanish finds its place ' (2011, p. 656). He argues that many Anglophones have begun to co-opt the term 'gringo' as a re-appropriation of pejorative language in order to promote 'solidarity among those not only identifying as monolingual Anglos, but more importantly, those taking mutual comfort and pride in their inability to speak Spanish' (p. 230).…”