Spanglish Is As Proper A Language As English Or Spanish

By Wuicho Vargas

There are sentiments that swirl around my existence, as the Spanish and English languages ferociously debate about whose importance I should favor. Grammar, rules, chains, accents, punctuation abound, but when are we going to get to the cultural clash? The area where A and B collide is where we all just come to realize that there is no such thing as pochismo, Spanglish or code mixtures. Si asi hablamos, es por que nos sentimos bien chilax and it is not to bother, hurt, or injure anyone’s alter ego and overprotective obsession with their cultural background.

Some people argue about the intellectual weight and damage these kinds of cultural lingoes bring to individuals and their professional careers, and I agree about certain damaging practices but not to all. There are places where this kind of language is not expected and that is how it should be, and we, people from the border know about such places.

It is one of those things that you apply naturally and without any kind of previous training. It is as if we were trained subconsciously by the border spirits and or tu mamá or pa’. We know, but I think that the memo did not get through to the rest of the world — the ones who invented the borders. This is probably why I keep hearing the same arguments from the same people about certain things about the border people. Therefore I will try to explain and hopefully get to a point where we could debate the real truthful importance about this.

Some argue that the border lingo is a vivid example of a magnified discouragement to use the “proper” English or Spanish. Which in a way could, if not treated and or limited, create a chain reaction that will also create in effect, total chaos and nemesis to language and grammar. This means that every time you mix both languages, you are in effect helping on the deterioration of a language.

But isn’t true that language is just a common system people use to communicate?

The language barrier that we do not follow and at many times don’t even acknowledge does not only represent us as a region but it also represents this denial and acceptance of a border. If there is a big hostile sentiment against its acceptance and expansion I really do not know the reasons why, but wouldn’t it be nice to expand it and work on it? Maybe one day there would be high quality Spanglish written materials that not only depict our reality, but also a greater cause.

Wuicho Vargas is a writer who lives in McAllen, Texas.