Fernando Hurtado is a former TV journalist at NBC and Telemundo. A while back, he was researching a story about something called “Miami English," a dialect spoken in South Florida — when he ran across another phrase: Chicano English.
As a Mexican American, he was intrigued. He’d heard the term “Spanglish,” and he wondered if Chicano English was a euphemism. So, he started researching. And as he recently told The Show, what he found was much more interesting.
Full conversation
FERNANDO HURTADO: The difference between Spanglish and Chicano English is that to speak Spanglish, you need some sort of dominance in both Spanish and English, because you’re alternating between English and Spanish. The example I like to give is, ohh, tomorrow I’m going to go to the tienda, that tomorrow I’m going to go to the store, where you’re swapping out store for tienda, that’s Spanglish. Chicano English is a lot of Chicano English speakers actually don’t speak Spanish, nor have they ever. There are English dominant speakers whose English is very influenced by Spanish rhythm, Spanish phrasing and expressions.
SAM DINGMAN: So that is a really fascinating part of this, that what we’re talking about is more of a sensibility or a context around the English language. And as you got into this, you started to realize that you are a speaker of Chicano English.
HURTADO: Yeah, so I grew up in Chicago and I went to predominantly Latino elementary schools, and I would always get told by my friends, “Oh, you speak white, you sound white,” and I think they were alluding to my accent in English sounded very Americanized. Then I, by chance ended up going to a boarding school in California, a very ritzy, very not as diverse school, very white. And there I start getting the opposite comments of like, “Oh, your English is a little funny.” And one word that would always kind of rat me out as a Chicano speaker, I realize now, is that I remember I would ask my friend like, “oh did we have any homework to-day,” versus the standard American pronunciation, which is more, “today.”
DINGMAN: In addition to pronunciation though, there’s also different implications of certain words. And there’s one in particular that you call out in the video that’s super fascinating.
HURTADO: Yes, I barely realized the word is “barely.” So the word barely in standard English means almost not. If I told you I barely made it to the store, what I’m telling you is I almost didn’t make it to the store. In Chicano English, the use of barely that’s more common is just now or recently. So if I said I barely made it to the store in Chicano English, what I’m trying to say is I just arrived at the store.
DINGMAN: That’s so interesting. Is that the result of something in the translation between English and Spanish? Or is it something else?
HURTADO: Yes, so the linguist I spoke to says this is a clear example of Spanish influencing English. And again, you don’t have to speak Spanish to speak Chicano English. But if you’re a Chicano English speaker, maybe you’ve heard of the Spanish word, “apenas,” which means just now, like, “apenas zigaste,” you just got to the store. So it might be that Chicano English speakers are trying to find one word instead of just now that would tell you like, “Oh, I just got here.”
DINGMAN: Right, and then speculating of course, if we take a speaker like the one you were just alluding to who does speak both languages and comes up with this slightly different use for a word like barely, and then that person is living in a Mexican-American neighborhood like the one you grew up in, and their kids are growing up around other kids who are native English speakers, they’re then growing up in this context of English, where barely means something different.
HURTADO: Yeah, and so that’s where you might also be used to ending your questions with, “no,” that’s a I think another telltale sign of like, “Oh, you went to the store no?” And that is influenced by in Spanish, you do tend to end a lot of questions with, “no,” to get some affirmation. And the more one to one translation would be, “right” instead of no. Like you went to the store, right?
DINGMAN: Yep, but isn’t that so interesting? There is a colloquial analog in quote unquote standard English.
HURTADO: Yeah, and that opened my eyes as I did this story to the whole world of language period, where in my interview with the linguist, she said, “I’m never using the term correct or incorrect, like there’s a correct incorrect way to say something.” And what she was getting at is that that’s the point of language. Language evolves over time to communicate, and there is no right or wrong way to say something per se. But you could characterize it as like, oh, there’s a standard American way to say it sure, and not so standard variety.
DINGMAN: So what has it been like for you to come into this awareness, not just of the existence of Chicano English, but of this awareness that you yourself are speaking it? Has it changed your relationship to your own voice at all? Does it make you think about it more?
HURTADO: Absolutely. I think, you know, when I was in high school and my friend was commenting on how I said today, I was really self conscious. I didn’t want to be noticed for the way I spoke. And so, I really made it a point to polish my English, you could say. And then in doing this story, I realized, man, it’s so cool that I have a variety of English that isn’t spoken by everyone, but it is spoken by a lot of people in the U.S., and it’s also a variety of English that is very American if you think about it. It’s this hyphenated American way to speak. We are made up of hyphenated Americans, and what I mean by that is we’re made up of Irish Americans, Mexican Americans, Venezuelan Americans, Asian Americans, etc.
DINGMAN: Well, this gets to the YouTube channel that you started, which is literally called, “In the Hyphen.” And I wanted to ask you if this had ever come up for you in your career as a journalist, because one of the things I personally found really appealing about the video that you did on this is your style of narration in the video. It feels like you’re talking to a friend. You’re kind of conveying the information like you’re sitting across the table from me at lunch and saying like, “Check out what I just looked into.” It’s actually really really interesting. Maybe you’ve heard these words said this way. You’re not saying it in like a formal news narration type of style, and I’m curious to know, as somebody who was a journalist at a place like NBC, which is a much more corporate news environment, did you feel any pressure in that environment around the way that you used your voice?
HURTADO: That’s exactly why I launched in the hyphen, because yes, I, you know, working for NBC and Telemundo, where I was there for five years, and before that, other corporate media companies, I always felt like I was putting on my big boy American hat when I was writing a script for a video for NBC. And then I would turn around and then do a story for Telemundo, and it was the opposite, where I’d put on my Mexican hat to sound more Mexican than I actually was. And when I say I actually was, I mean a Mexican American. And I will never pretend that I grew up in Mexico. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in Mexico, but what I do know really well is that Mexican Americans experience, what I like to call, you know, living in the hyphen. And, you know, I just launched in January and it’s been really cool to get comments from non Latinos who are like, “Oh, my god, I relate to this so much.” I don’t speak Spanish, I don’t speak Chocano English, but you know, I have a version of this with, you know, my Filipino friends.
DINGMAN: There was somebody who commented, I think, who said they either live on or grew up on Native American reservation and they have rez English there.
HURTADO: Yes, and two things just stood out there. I’m like I need to go somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico because people keep talking about New Mexico English. I’m also very curious about what Arizona Chicano English might sound like.
