Young Latinos who don't speak Spanish are reclaiming their culture after facing shaming

While language can connect people to their culture and be a source of pride, it can also bring about embarrassment and anxiety. According to the Pew Research Center, 78 percent of U.S. Hispanics say it’s not necessary to speak Spanish to identify as Latino. Still, 54 percent of those who don’t speak the language say other Latinos have made them feel badly about it. Laura Barrón-López reports.

Read the Full Transcript

Geoff Bennett: There are 65 million people in the U.S. who identify as Hispanic or Latino, and within that large demographic group are many different and vibrant cultures.

Latin America plays a big part in those cultural identities and is predominantly a Spanish-speaking region. But younger generations are asking, is language crucial to determining identity? What about those Hispanic Americans who don’t speak Spanish, sometimes referred to as No Sabo?

Laura Barron-Lopez tells us more.

Laura Barron-Lopez: While language can connect people to their culture and be a source of pride for some, for others, it can bring about embarrassment and anxiety.

According to the Pew Research Center, 78 percent of U.S. Hispanics say it’s not necessary to speak the language to identify as Latino or to the culture. Still, 54 percent of those who speak very little or no Spanish say other Latinos have made them feel badly about it.

We spoke to Latinos around the U.S. who shared their Spanish-speaking journeys with us.

Take a look.

Grasie Mercedes, New York: Hi. I’m Grasie Mercedes, and I’m from New York. My family is from Dominican Republic.

Wendy Ramirez, California: My name is Wendy Ramirez. And I live in Los Angeles, California. I identify as Latina, indigenous.

Diego Payan, California: My name is Diego Payan. I currently reside in Northern California. I identify myself as a second-generation Chicano.

Carmen Blanco, South Carolina: My name is Carmen Blanco. I currently reside in Greenville, South Carolina. I identify as Latina. I also identify as African American.

Grasie Mercedes: Growing up, my grandmother would speak Spanish to me. I would answer back in English. And I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s at a time where assimilation was everything.

Wendy Ramirez: Spanish was my first language. By the time that I got to high school, I lost my ability to speak Spanish. I couldn’t communicate with my mom really.

Carmen Blanco: My father is from Nicaragua. I’m first-generation and my mother is African American. So I didn’t really grow up with it in the household. My father was in that assimilation phase. So English was really important for him.

Diego Payan: Growing up, I didn’t speak Spanish fluently. It wasn’t really until my grandma, my abuela, passed away in 2016 where it really sparked my interest.

Grasie Mercedes: My Latina dad has been challenged because of my Spanish fluency. I think it’s extra hard being an Afro-Latina. Looking the way I do, people don’t assume I’m Dominican or have a Latin background.

Diego Payan: Definitely, shame is felt and given from family members, from community members. And it’s not a good feeling. So I have taken it upon myself to learn more, because I want to connect with my abuelos. I want to connect with family members and I want to be of service to my comunidad.

Carmen Blanco: There was always this feeling of being the only family member that was biracial and also not mastering the language. So I definitely felt sometimes ostracized.

Grasie Mercedes: Not all Latinos speak Spanish. Some Latinos speak Portuguese. Some Latinos speak French. So the fact that we’re even saying that you need to speak Spanish to be considered Latino, I think, to me, is wrong.

Diego Payan: Well, I have always identified as a Latino and I have always been around the cultura and the comunidad.

Carmen Blanco: Since I have gotten older, I have recognized that there are different aspects to that culture and that I have been able to connect with the culture, although I may not have that fluency.

Grasie Mercedes: I think, as a person of color in the United States, it’s often hard to feel truly American, because we are constantly othered and constantly put in a box. And I think that’s the experience of so many Latinos who are second- or first- or third-generation.

Wendy Ramirez: You know, it’s not just the language, the music, the food, the culture, the traditions. I mean, there’s a lot of things that make Latinidad.

Diego Payan: Not speaking the language does not mean that you’re not of value, that you don’t matter, that you don’t belong. You have to give yourself grace for your story and how that’s contributed to where your Spanish is today.

Laura Barron-Lopez: I’m joined now by Mark Hugo Lopez, director of race and ethnicity research at the Pew Research Center.

Mark, thank you so much for joining us.

Mark Hugo Lopez, Director of Race and Ethnicity Research, Pew Research Center: Thank you.

Laura Barron-Lopez: So I’m just going to say right off the bat I can’t speak Spanish. I was not taught Spanish by my parents. I’m fourth-generation Mexican American, a Chicana, if you will.

And many Latinos, myself included, feel like they’re stuck between two cultures. And a lot of that is tied to fluency with the Spanish language. Why is that?

Mark Hugo Lopez: Well, we are in a moment where, in the nation’s Latino population, 65 million people, you have many who are recent immigrants who are in many cases Spanish-dominant.

You have many who are the U.S.-born children of immigrant parents who grew up speaking both English and Spanish and are today fluent in the language. But that fastest growing group of Latinos today is actually the group that is of the third or higher generation, meaning they’re born in the U.S. to U.S.-born parents.

And so we’re in this mix of a refreshing of the population with new immigrants arriving who are Spanish-speaking, but at the same time a growing, prideful Latino population that also speaks mostly English.

Laura Barron-Lopez: In your study and some of the Latinos that we spoke to expressed embarrassment, if they had the language and lost it, or if they were never able to speak Spanish and said that they often faced jokes or teasing from other Latinos who were shaming them for it. I experienced that myself in high school.

Other Mexican Americans would say I wasn’t really Mexican because I couldn’t speak it. Why do you think this is such a common experience?

Mark Hugo Lopez: There’s a certain amount of street credibility or credibility of, are you truly Hispanic? Well, you’re only truly Hispanic if you speak Spanish.

And that has been a common theme. Those who are seen as truly of the group have to be Spanish speakers, close to their immigrant roots and proud of that. You also see it in recent cultural events. Like, there was an event a couple of years ago where a young boy was interviewed by a Spanish-language television after a soccer match in Los Angeles.

And the young boy didn’t speak Spanish. And immediately you could hear commentary from the studio in the background where people referred to him as a No Sabo kid, I Don’t Know kid.

And so this is something that’s been going on for some time and continues to this day.

Laura Barron-Lopez: I want to talk about that No Sabo kids trend, because that’s a shaming for not being fluent, right? And No Sabo kid is an incorrect translation of I Don’t Know, so I don’t know how to speak Spanish.

What started as a put-down has kind of changed, though. How? What is that new trend and are some Latinos reclaiming their cultural identity through it?

Mark Hugo Lopez: Absolutely, because, as you noted in from our report, 78 percent of Latino adults tell us that you don’t have to speak Spanish to be considered Latino in the nation today.

That’s unchanged from about 10 years ago, the last time that we asked this. And so you look at this and you see that, yes, there are many Latinos who are proud to be Latinos, to identify and to be part of the culture. And yet, at the same time, they’re also proud to say they don’t speak Spanish.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Right.

So how do different generations and age groups view this? Is there a gap when you’re asking older Latinos versus younger ones?

Mark Hugo Lopez: Older Latinos are more likely to be Spanish-dominant, particularly if they’re immigrants, so that’s perhaps no surprise.

But you do see that it’s younger Latinos that are experiencing the shaming more so than older Latinos. Particularly, college-educated young Latinos are the ones who are hearing it most. More than 60 percent of them will tell us that they have been shamed at some point for not speaking Spanish. That really speaks to this as a current phenomena. It’s something that’s continuing to go on, but it’s impacting young people.

Another part of this is data from the Census Bureau, where we see that among those who are — Latinos who are ages 5 to 17, more than half speak only English at home. Now, you look at older Latinos and you will see 70 percent-plus speak Spanish at home. So there’s a mismatch here in terms of the next generation and their ability to speak Spanish.

Laura Barron-Lopez: So many tie Hispanic heritage to the Spanish language, as you said, but there are some Latinos that don’t speak the language. They may speak Portuguese, other languages. So what about those other languages and how they do or don’t fit in to what it means to be Hispanic?

Mark Hugo Lopez: Well, the federal definition of Hispanic is one that’s very clear about people who trace their roots to the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America and to Spain.

Portuguese countries are not part of that definition. But the colloquial definition or the general sense among the public is that, if you want to be Latino, you’re Latino. And so that includes people of Brazilian background.

So this is not just a story about Spanish speakers.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Is knowing the language of the culture important to keeping traditions alive?

Mark Hugo Lopez: There is a link. In fact, when we have asked Latinos about this, more than half will say it is Spanish and speaking Spanish that’s the most important way you can maintain your cultural links.

However, there are many other ways to do it as well. And we also find that many Hispanic parents want their kids to speak Spanish. But, again, going back to the data and the experiences, the proof is — quote, unquote —- “in the pudding.”

Many U.S.-born Latinos are not necessarily picking up Spanish or not becoming fluent in it. They may take courses in high school, for example, or college, but don’t necessarily become fluent in the language.

Laura Barron-Lopez: I would just like to say that my family, and I believe yours, still has the culture. So it’s an important part of the upbringing.

But Mark Hugo Lopez of Pew Research Center, thank you for your time.

Mark Hugo Lopez: Thank you.