Spanglish ¡o Muerte!
¿Is it me, or does it smell like azufre in here?
—Hugo Chávez on the White House tour

Some people are very anti-Spanglish. In fact, les da asco. It makes them sick to their estómagos and nearly barf their lonche. English and Spanish extremists everywhere have got their chonies (as my Chicano friends suelen decir) all in a bunch about it. Spanish-purist ayatollahs hasta se han unido con los English-only jihadistas in issuing a big fat fatwahtazo declaring death a todos los Spanglish infidels.

Which, at least to me, begs an obvious question.

¿Por qué the hate, dudes? I mean really. No es pa’ tanto.

Yet these fundamentalists react como si el Spanglish fuera not only an insult to their mother tongues pero sino también to their actual mothers. Les parece tan y tan wrong, a deviant behavior tan repugnante, a dangerous and unforgivable barbaridad so cancerous, que they will stop at nada to make it stop.

Backlash of the Fundamentalists

As Spanglish grows, así mismo crece el backlash against it. But we the persecuted tenemos que ser firme. Such intolerancia must only gird us with strength unto la batalla. If enemies of the habla want to burn this book in mass protests, for instance, digo yo “bring it on.” Bueno, porque la verdad del caso es que you can’t buy that kind of publicity. Es más, yo mismo prendo el fósforo.

But again, para que estemos claro, the opposition has two faces. On the Spanish side, nuestro beloved Spanglish tiene cierta fama, not as a lingua franca, but rather a lingua fracasada.

Spanglish drives defenders of “pure” Spanish nuts, amenazando la sensibilidad de los más dogmáticos because it disgusts them as a horribly deformed variation of español, totally podrido de americanismos, anglicismos, and palabras sajonas. They particularly resent English, como el idioma que manda, the bully of all languages, mezclándose tan descaradamente with their own precious idioma and culture.

Más aún, they love to ridicule Spanglish como una forma inferior de comunicación, and as virtual analfabetismo. Which strikes me as cluelessly cocky. It’s kind of like a snobby stork burlándose de como vuelan los hummingbirds. “You call that flying?” le dice la cigüeña al colibrí. “Listen, it doesn’t qualify as real flying unless you can deliver a baby, OK? Speaking of which, I gotta go. Miss García is expecting twins for her quinceañera.”

Spanglish Envy

In the United States, cuna del Spanglish, the English-only supremacists hate any Spanish being spoken at all. If they had it their way, uttering so much as a “Dios mío,” in public would be enough to get you deported.

If you come to live en este país, giving up your Spanish is the price you pay, according to estos yanquis ultraconservadores and minute-men colaboracionistas. Don’t be trying to sneak in your contraband español as Spanglish, either. Por lo tanto, Spanish fraternizing with English de cualquier manera whatsoever, especially after 9/11, no se debe permitir.

Boy, I’ll tell you what I think all this hate and blanket dismissal is really about. Clearly, enemies of the habla suffer from severe Spanglish-envy. Así es. These celosos babosos are just jealous of our doble pertenencia lingüística and wish they could go back and forth como nosotros.

In any case, los enemigos del Spanglish cannot win. La suya es una lucha perdida de antemano. You might be able to stop global warming, but Spanglish just isn’t going away así de fácil. If you think otherwise, I suggest you curb your entusiasmo.

Grammar nazis and lexical fascists take note. Languages change, they evolve. ¿Cuál es el big issue? Sin esta dinámica de transformación, adaptación, experimentación y cambio, no existiría ni English, ni Spanish. We don’t have to surrender or apologize to the high priests of any language, especially those who like to chalk up Spanglish to pereza mental.

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