Category: Latino culture

Latino culture

A to Z Challenge: I is for ¡Imagínate!

Mona Alvarado Frazier
¡Imaginate! photo by ben white, unsplash.com

Some more words in Spanish or Spanglish this week for the A to Z Challenge.

Today is the letter I, as in ¡Imagínate!

After a juicy bit of gossip, amongst close friends, or comadres, I’d frequently hear the listener of said gossip shout ¡Imagínate! : Imagine that!

The word always perked up my ears. As a child, I’d inch closer to the comadres* and eavesdrop.

If the word was shouted, the gossip was really good.

Following the shouting or whispering of the word is the body language:

  • Sometimes the listener would slap her knee and laugh; which meant ‘go figure.’
  • or place her hand on her chest and inhale, which meant ‘I can’t even imagine.’
  • or make the sign of the cross, which meant ‘that’s unimaginable, I’ll pray for you’ or ‘I hope that doesn’t happen to me.’

The tone and body language usually told the story.

I think this “investigative” side of me is what helped me in my career in law enforcement, lol 😉

Until tomorrow, ¡adios!

*A comadre is technically the godparent of a child, however, the word is used to denote a close relationship

 

 

 

 

 

Latino culture

A to Z Challenge: H is for Helados

Mona Alvarado Frazier
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. Photo by Mark Cruz for unsplash.com

 

Welcome back to this week’s A to Z Challenge. I’m listing words, in Spanish or Spanglish, alphabetically. Today’s letter is H.

H is for Helados which means Ice Cream.

This is one of the most misused words in my Spanish speaking vocabulary.

For all of my childhood and teen years, I used the word “nieve” for Ice Cream although I was corrected a few times by the ice cream man.

“Nieve is snow, helado is ice cream.”

ice cream truck, photo by Paul Trienekens for unsplash.com

Most of the time I asked for ice cream in English to avoid any embarrassment.

On a trip to Mexico, as a young adult, I slipped and asked the waiter at a restaurant for nieve.

The response:

“It doesn’t snow here.”

My experience with Mexico wasn’t as great as I thought it’d be. I thought a return to the motherland would bring me good experiences.

For the most part, the sites did bring me that connection, but the people who worked in the hotels, service, and tours let me know that I wasn’t really Mexican. Not that they said that out loud. It was an attitude.

For someone of Mexican heritage born in the U.S, I was often called pocha.

The word wasn’t a compliment but an indicator that I spoke limited or ‘lazy’ Spanish. I’ll save a story about the use of the word for the letter P.

Until then, enjoy an helado today because every day is an ice cream day. 🙂