accent

Watch out, Geico! Here comes El Martillo Tejano (video)

by


Who cares if switching to Geico can save you 15 percent or more on car insurance?

If I were to have a car — or live in Texas — (both very unlikely scenarios) I’d totally call Jim Adler, aka El Martillo Tejano, who promises to protect my people (i.e. The Hispanics) from sleazy insurance companies and give us the most compensation possible in case of a car accident.

Watch Adler inform us about his services in the best Gringo-Spanish I’ve heard in a while.

Take it away Jim!

Reprinted with permission from MiBlogEsTuBlog by Laura Martinez.

[P.S.: Martillo = hammer.]

Grammar vigilantes are on a mission to correct Quito graffiti (photos)

by

They may not be the heroes that Ecuador needs or deserves but they sure do get pissed off when you don’t know where a comma goes.

Since January, vigilantes in Quito, Ecuador have been correcting mistakes in the city’s graffiti.

These guerillas use stencils cut from pizza boxes to add commas, question marks and, ah yes, even accent marks to imperfect street art around town.

The members of Acción Ortográfica Quito take their pseudonyms (or superhero names) from punctuation marks: Diéresis, Tilde and Coma.

Diéresis, a 30-year-old lawyer/vigilante, told The Guardian in an interview, “Grammatical errors cause stress. We only make texts comprehensible that otherwise would not send any message whatsoever.”

Mas…Grammar vigilantes are on a mission to correct Quito graffiti (photos)

Anjelah Johnson: No, sorry, I don’t speak Puerto Rican (4 videos)

by


Pocha Anjelah Johnson from San Jose (408 shout-out!) may not speak Spanish, but she doesn’t speak Puerto Rican either. [This video was one of our most popular and then got yanked from YouTube. We just found this alternate version online, apparently video’d right off someone’s TV.]

Over at LatinoRebels.com, Bella Vida Letty says Anjelah’s new video has her performing in “brown face.”

Here’s the video she objects to. What do you think?

Mas…Anjelah Johnson: No, sorry, I don’t speak Puerto Rican (4 videos)

Me? In London, I’m a ‘culturally-American Mexican’

by

Regent Street with NFL bannersWhere are you from?

That is a simple question, isn’t? Well, for some of us, the answer is not so straight forward.

My experience in London in the past four months has included fascinating dialogue with people I have come across. It is one thing I have come to expect from such a global city where you are bound to meet people from so many places around the world.

Such interactions have sparked in me the need to explore my conception of identity as part of my own self-discovery process. Primarily because most of us conflate place of origin and ethnicity with identity.

If I claim to be from a certain part of the world, what does that mean about the way others expect me to look, speak, act and be? In engaging in this inquiry, the first realization I have made is that the answer to the question of “Where are you from?” is very telling not only about one’s own perception of identity but also of the one imposed by others.

Mas…Me? In London, I’m a ‘culturally-American Mexican’

Meet America’s first Latino astronaut: José Jiménez (audio video)

by

Just around the time actual Latino astronaut José Hernández was born, actor and comic Bill Dana (not a Latino) got famous playing José Jiménez, a sweet but dimwitted astronaut with a thick Latino accent.

It was the beginning of the Space Race and astronauts were America’s new heroes, but the very idea of a Chicano in space was a joke.

Mas…Meet America’s first Latino astronaut: José Jiménez (audio video)

Pocho Ocho props you need to be a proper Latino

by
Fruit hat

You know, sometimes it’s hard being Latino. You wake up, go about your day, do your business, and then people ask you where your donkey is, or whether your family is from Mexico.

And, you know, it may be that your family has been in the U.S. longer than theirs, or that no one in your family has a moustache, but why burst peoples’ bubbles with inconvenient truths like that?

So here’s a list of the Pocho Ocho indispensable Latino props — for those days that you forget you’re supposed to be a stereotype!

8. Sombrero — Don’t forget your hat, amigo!

7. Moustache — You know it does go with the sombrero, as does the poncho and/or donkey. Wouldn’t want you to leave home without it!

Mas…Pocho Ocho props you need to be a proper Latino

Secret New Hampshire: They lie about origins, talk funny and hate God

by

(PNS reporting from NEW ENGLAND) New Hampshire is the small Yanqui state where Republicans vote today in a primary election. When tonight’s results come in, remember where they’re coming from – a jurisdiction where people live a lie, talk in a dialect devoid in rhoticity and don’t go to church like other Americans!

These are the secrets of the Granite State: