Category Archives: Corazón
Keep Calm & Respetense Uno al Otro
If you’re a fútbol fan, chances are you know a big game is on tonight. El Salvador vs. Mexico. (The U.S. vs. Guatemala also!)
If you’re Salvadoran or Mexican, you know that games between the two tend to stir up some animosity. Even though a lot of people tell me I’m naive to think I can make a difference, each time Mexico and El Salvador play each other, I tend to make a public appeal that the teams, as well as the fans, respect each other and the game. Carlos has told me before that I’m wasting my time and that the two will always be bitter rivals. There’s no problem with a little rivalry, but I still think we can be respectful rivals.
If I keep even one Salvadoran from throwing things at Chicharito, or encourage even one fan of El Tri to rethink and ultimately decide not to make an ignorant comment about Salvadorans, then I’ll be happy.
Here are two graphics I made which I encourage you to share around social media. Help me spread the word. Keep Calm and Respect Each Other. Mantengan la Calma y Respetense Uno al Otro.
Click for larger version.
Click for larger version.
While I was creating these graphics, I stumbled upon a photo of President Obama holding a blue T-shirt. I couldn’t help but do a little photoshopping.
Looks like Pres. Obama is a reluctant fan of La Selecta. I think his facial expression reflects what a lot of us are feeling about tonight’s game. We’ll put on the azul, but maybe we’re not feeling all that hopeful.
Either way, buena suerte to both teams. Win or lose, I hope they give us a good game.
Mexican … $2.25
Today is Spanish Friday so this post is in Spanish. If you participated in Spanish Friday on your own blog, leave your link in comments. English translation is below!
Yo nací y crecí en Maryland. Uno pensaría que los estados fronterizos no serían muy diferentes. Uno esperaría que usaramos las mismas palabras para las mismas cosas y que compartimos las mismas comidas – pero uno estaría equivocado.
En el estado de West Virginia, en un ciudad sólo quince minutos más de la frontera con Maryland, comí en un restaurante y, mientras miraba el menú, vi algo muy confuso.
Leí:
Cheeseburger $3.50
Bacon Cheeseburger $3.75
BLT $2.95
Hot dog $1.75
Todo bien, buenos precios, pero el siguiente punto del menú era:
Mexican $2.25
¿Qué qué? ¿Un Mexican? ¿Un Mexican qué? Si se hubiera escrito como “Mexican Sandwich” yo no creo que me hubiera sorprendido, pero sólo decia “Mexican”.
Primero pensé que sólo era este restaurante, pero es un sándwich popular en la península del oriente del estado de West Virginia – y así se llama – es un “Mexican” – nadie le añade la palabra “sándwich”.
Yo todavía no he ordenado un “Mexican”, pero por lo que entiendo, es como un Sloppy Joe en un pan de perro caliente. Nadie sabe exactamente por qué se llama un “Mexican”, pero algunos dicen que es debido a las especias usadas para sazonar la carne.
Bueno, tal vez no es tan raro. Después de todo, los mexicanos tienen una comida que se llama “gringa.”
[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]
I was born and raised in Maryland. One would think that the border states would not be very different. One would expect that we use the same words for the same things and that we eat the same foods – but one would be wrong.
In the state of West Virginia, in a town just fifteen minutes from the border with Maryland, I ate at a restaurant and, while looking at the menu, I saw something very confusing.
I read:
Cheeseburger $3.50
Bacon Cheeseburger $3.75
BLT $2.95
Hot dog $1.75
All looks good, good prices, but the next item on the menu was:
Mexican $2.25
What? A Mexican? A Mexican what? If they had written it as “Mexican Sandwich” I don’t think I would have stopped short, but it only said “Mexican.”
First I thought it was just this restaurant, but it’s actually a popular sandwich in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia – and that’s the name – it’s a “Mexican” – no one adds the word “sandwich.”
I still have not ordered a “Mexican” but from what I understand, it’s like a Sloppy Joe in a hot dog bun. No one seems to know exactly why its called a “Mexican” but some say it’s because of the spices used to season the meat.
Well, maybe it isn’t that odd. After all, Mexicans have a dish called the “gringa.”
Day of the Dead-ify your Fotos!
Like many other people out there, I’ve come to love using the online image editor PicMonkey to edit my photos. It has every awesome feature you could want, plus some – and it’s free. I didn’t think I could love PicMonkey more than I already do, but I just came upon a super chévere seasonal addition. Not only have Halloween features been added, but there is now a Día de los Muertos theme!
This screen capture doesn’t even show all the features. Go check it out!
Although I’ve never had a desire to paint my face like a sugar skull before, PicMonkey made this idea very tempting. Carlos came into the room while I was in the middle of creating this.
Carlos asked me, first, what in the world I was doing, and second, “I thought you said you were busy writing?”
(Thanks a lot, PicMonkey, for distracting me and getting me into trouble!) … I’ll go back to writing now, the rest of you, go have fun!
Street Sounds of Soyapango
Today is Spanish Friday so this post is in Spanish. If you participated in Spanish Friday on your own blog, leave your link in comments. English translation is below!
Como escritora, me baso en la memoria de los sonidos del ambiente para llevarme de vuelta a otro lugar y tiempo. Cuando trabajo en una de mis novelas que se lleva a cabo en El Salvador, cierro los ojos y recuerdo lo que he oído.
Puedo oír el tráfico, los carros al ralentí, los bocinazos de los carros, los autobuses que pasan, y el chirrido de los frenos cuando hacen sus paradas.
Puedo oír las campanas del paletero, la voz cantarina de la mujer que vende quesadillas temprano en la mañana, los loros que hablan en los árboles, y baten sus alas verdes.
Puedo oír un aguacatero ladrando, una mujer barriendo la acera, los niños placticando en su camino a la escuela, los murmullos de un borracho caminando por la calle.
Puedo oír la lluvia a media tarde comenzando a caer – las gotas de lluvia caen gordas y lentas al principio, pero después hay un aguacero ensordecedor que ahoga todos los otros sonidos.
— Tu turno! Piensa en un momento y lugar. ¿Qué sonidos oyes tú?—
[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]
As a writer, I rely on the memory of ambient sounds to take me back to a different place and time. When I work on one of my novels that takes place in El Salvador, I close my eyes and remember what I heard.
I can hear the traffic, cars idling, cars honking their horns, buses passing by, and the screech of their brakes when they make their stops.
I can hear the ringing bells of the man pushing his ice cream cart, the singsong voice of the woman selling quesadillas early in the morning, the parrots talking in the trees and flapping their green wings.
I can hear a stray dog barking, a woman sweeping the walk, children chatting on their way to school, the mumblings of a drunk walking down the street.
I can hear a mid-afternoon rain begin to fall, the fat rain drops slow at first, and then a deafening downpour that drowns out all other sounds.
—Your turn! Think of a time and place. What sounds do you hear?—
Fiesta DC 2012
Taking photos at Fiesta DC this past Sunday was a challenge for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons was the sheer number of other people trying to photograph and video tape the event. At times I felt like I was in a group of paparazzi fighting for position – and then when I would finally frame the perfect shot, someone would inevitably ruin it by running across with a video camera or sticking their iPhone in front of me.
Some of the people were amateur or hobbyist photographers like me, some were obviously freelance professionals or working for media – And then there were young males, usually equipped with cellphone cameras, who were just trying to photograph the nalgas of the cachiporras to share on their Facebook.
Anyway, here are my favorite shots which I had some fun editing and a video of the general atmosphere.
By the way, speaking of nalgas, at one point during the parade a woman with a very generous backside stood in front of us. Carlos, to his credit, didn’t even seem to notice despite the fact that her “pants” were actually leggings and you could see her thong through the fabric.
“¡Qué bárbara!” a little old man said. The old man, not content to enjoy the view by himself and feeling the need to share, elbowed Carlos. Jutting his chin towards the woman in front of them he said, with a lascivious expression on his face, “Ella es Santa Bárbara, ¿vá?”
Carlos looked confused, “Oh, ¿sí?” he replied.
“Ssssíííííí,” the viejo hissed appraising the woman’s behind, practically licking his lips. Noting the fact that Carlos didn’t understand what he meant, the viejo then asked, “¿No sabes?”
“¿No?” Carlos said, the question on his face.
I rolled my eyes at the predictable dirty old man.
“¡Es santa por delante y bárbara por atrás!” the viejo said, erupting in laughter as if he had said the most clever and original thing in the world.
Carlos laughed politely and I pinched him.
“What?” Carlos said.
“Stand back here, away from the viejo chuco,” I said.
After the parade we had lunch. I wanted pupusas but Carlos made a good point that we eat pupusas all the time and that we should eat something different, so we ended up buying delicious Mexican tortas. (The boys and I had the torta milanesa de pollo with horchata. Carlos had the torta de carnitas with agua fresca de tamarindo.)
Just as we finished eating and were deciding what to do next, I heard “Los Hermanos Lovo” announced on a nearby stage.
“No way!” I said out loud, “Hermanos Lovo!”
Carlos looked at me like I had lost my mind as I pulled his hand in the direction of the stage.
“It’s the Chanchona music I blogged about. Remember?… Hermanos Lovo!”
For three songs I tapped my hand against my side, tapped my feet, and moved my hips, waiting for people to dance, but only a few people were dancing, and they were getting stared at. Everyone else just pretty much stood there and watched the performance. I found this a little strange given that at most Latino dominant events I’ve been too, there’s usually not a lack of dancing. I wonder if most of the people there have become too Americanized in this respect? Too self-conscious?
I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned toward Carlos and he leaned toward me so he could hear me.
“Want to dance?” I asked, eyes brimming with hope like a child asking for a puppy.
Carlos said nothing, just turned toward me and took me in his arms, and we danced.
Within seconds much of the crowd had turned to look at us and stood gaping. Carlos whispered in my ear, “We’re being photographed and video taped.” I felt a flood of gringa self-consciousness wash through me but we kept dancing, and soon, the people around us, were just a blur of colors.
Peperechas!
Today is Spanish Friday so this post is in Spanish. If you participated in Spanish Friday on your own blog, leave your link in comments. English translation is below!
El pan salvadoreño en la foto se llama “peperecha”. La peperecha es fácil de identificar por el color rosado que está encima. Adentro, este pan, (que no es muy dulce, igual que la mayoría de panes salvadoreños), tiene jalea de piña mezclada con dulce de panela.
El nombre de este pan me sorprendió la primera vez que lo ví, porque solo sabía el otro significado de la palabra “peperecha” que es “prostituta”.
Como ven, siempre cuando andabamos en público con mi suegra, ella me susurraba mientras señalaba a mujeres que llevaban demasiado maquillaje o usaban faldita muy corta, “Qué pecado. Mira vé como andan esas peperechas”.
Años más tarde cuando encontré un pan en la tienda Latina etiquetado “peperecha”, empezé a reir.
“¡Mira!” le dije a Carlos. “¿Por qué dice ‘peperecha’ en este pan?”
“Porque así se llama”, me dijo.
“¿Por qué llaman a este pan igual que las putas?”
Carlos encogió los hombros en su forma habitual. Él no parecía muy curioso sobre el nombre del pan y actuaba como si fuera normal, pero por muchos años yo preguntaba a otros salvadoreños acerca de la historia detrás del nombre de este pan y nadie sabía.
¡Pero hoy tengo buenas noticias! Encontré la razón porque le llaman “peperechas” a este pan!
[El pan que se llama "peperecha" es] “conocida así por la similitud al maquillaje que muchas de estas ocupan.” – CulturaCentroamericana.info
Por lo tanto, alguien puso el nombre “peperecha” a este pan por el color rojo que trae, igual al maquillaje de una prostituta.
Bueno, ahora sabemos. ¿Quién quiere una peperecha? – (Me refiero al pan.)
[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]
The photo is of a Salvadoran bread called “peperecha.” Identifying peperecha is easy because of the pink color on the top of the bread. Inside, this bread, (which like the majority of Salvadoran breads, is not very sweet), is a mixture of pineapple jelly and panela (a type of brown sugar.)
The first time I saw the name of this bread I was surprised, because I only knew the other meaning of the word “peperecha” which is “prostitute.”
You see, whenever we walked in public with my mother-in-law, she would whisper to me while pointing to women wearing too much makeup or wearing short miniskirts, “What sin. Look how these peperechas go about.”
Years later when I found a bread in a Latino market labeled “peperecha” I started to laugh.
“Look!” I said to Carlos. “Why does it say ‘peperecha’ on this bread?”
“Because that’s what it’s called,” he said.
“Why is this bread called the same thing as whores?”
Carlos shrugged in his usual way. He didn’t seem curious about the name of the bread and acted like it was normal, but for many years I asked other Salvadorans about the history behind the name of this bread and nobody knew.
However, today I have good news! I found the reason this bread is called “peperecha!”
[The bread called "peperecha" is] “so called because of the similarity to the makeup they [prostitutes] use.” – CulturaCentroamericana.info
Therefore, someone named this bread “peperecha” for its red color which is like the makeup of a prostitute.
Well, now we know. Who wants a peperecha? – (I refer to the bread.)
Gringos can’t dance?
Image source: http://www.audi-luci-store.it
“Los americanos no bailan” – it was something my suegra always said, usually with arms crossed over her chest while sitting at my Anglo parents’ house on a holiday. My parents were always kind enough to invite my suegra to dinner even though she never seemed to like anything about being there. She complained about the American food, complained about the overly-friendly Golden Retrievers, complained that my family spoke English and that she couldn’t understand, complained about the lack of music, complained that no one was dancing.
Because we never danced, Suegra then assumed that it was because we couldn’t dance – that we were incapable of dancing. “Los americanos no saben bailar” – she would say.
When it was discovered at a very early age that my younger son was a natural dancer with an amazing sense of rhythm, she took all the credit. “Puro salvadoreño,” she’d say, or “Este talento viene de parte de mi familia.”
Likewise, when we discovered that my older son lacked rhythm, that no matter how hard he tried, (and that the harder he tried, the worse it was), Suegra blamed it on me. “Ay, pobrecito,” she’d say, “no puede bailar, igual a su mamá.”
The truth is that Suegra has never even seen me dance – and despite what she might think, I don’t dance like Elaine on Seinfeld. Neither will I claim to be as good as Napoleon Dynamite, but I think I do alright.
It’s a common stereotype that white people can’t dance. I guess humans like stereotypes because it gives us a false sense of security that we better understand ourselves, our world and the people in it. The problem is that stereotypes attempt to group people together based on a common trait, but humans, even those that share many things in common, are much too diverse to be categorized in that way.
That being said, in my experience, and without doing scientific research, my hypothesis is that if you walk up to your average gringo on the street and compared his dancing skills with your average Latino on the street, the average Latino would more often be the better dancer. But, why?
I don’t think that this is a result of race or skin color but rather a result of culture. Gringos, as my suegra noticed, don’t tend to dance as often as Latinos. Dance, for many Anglos, just isn’t a part of daily life, perhaps due to our Puritanical roots.
Now, if we all know that “practice makes perfect”, wouldn’t it make sense that the group who practices less, (regardless of any man-made category we could put them in), would quite simply be less skilled than the group that practices more?
Again, this is my unscientific guess as to why “gringos can’t dance” – (and to be clear, this doesn’t apply to all gringos. Some are born with natural talent and some learn to dance very well, even on a professional level.)
If you don’t like my theory, Dave Chappelle has another one.
Stories from el Corazón
On SpanglishBaby I talked about a non-profit organization called Story Corps which records people’s true stories to create a sort of archive of American history for future generations. Some of these stories have been animated, and I shared a really hilarious yet heartwarming video from the Story Corps collection called Facundo the Great – (go check it out on SpanglishBaby!)
While I clicked around on the Story Corps website, I found several other animated stories I loved just as much as Facundo the Great. Here are two more, and if you love them mucho, check out Story Corps for más.
Keep Calma and Vote Obama
I’m not planning on getting too political here on Latinaish.com despite it being an election year, but I couldn’t resist sharing this greeting card I discovered this evening at Target.
Wow – this simple card manages to hit 3 demographics at once!
1. Spanglish speakers
2. Democrats or others voting for Obama
3. People familiar with the “Keep Calm” meme
Congratulations to the artist at Recycled Paper Greetings for hitting it out of the park. And for Republicans out there, no worries, there was a much less catchy “Keep Calm, Vote for Rom” version as well.
Dejémonos de Pajas
Today is Spanish Friday so this post is in Spanish. If you participated in Spanish Friday on your own blog, leave your link in comments. English translation is below!
Hoy quiero introducirles a un podcast de El Salvador que está disponible completamente gratis. El podcast se llama “Dejémonos de Pajas.” Primero, quiero explicar un poco que son “pajas” para los que no saben. Mucha gente conoce la palabra “paja” como el trigo seco en que duermen los animales de granja. Otra gente saben el significado alternativo, que es “la masturbación.” Pero, el uso de la palabra “paja” en este instante significa otra cosa! En El Salvador “pajas” son “mentiras.”
Así, este podcast es super honesto y muy divertido. A veces hablan de cosas chistosas, y a veces discuten temas serios – pero es siempre muy interesante. Este podcast es para todos, pero si eres de El Salvador, tienes que escuchar lo. Carlos y yo nos encanta, y yo sé que les va a encantar también.
Chécalo: En su sitio de web, en iTunes, en Facebook, y también en Twitter.
[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]
Today I want to introduce you to a podcast from El Salvador which is available for free. The podcast is called “Dejémonos de Pajas.” First I want to explain a little about what “pajas” means for those that don’t know. Many people know the word “paja” to be the dry wheat that farm animals sleep on. [Straw] Other people know the alternative slang meaning, which is “masturbation.” However, the use of the word “pajas” in this instance means something else! In El Salvador “pajas” are “lies.” [So the name of the podcast roughly translates to "Let's stop lying" or "Let's leave behind the lies."]
So, this podcast is super honest and very funny. Sometimes they talk about funny things, and sometimes they discuss serious issues – but it is always very interesting. The podcast is for everyone, but if you are from El Salvador especially, you have to listen to this podcast. Carlos and I love it, and I know you’re going to love it too.
Check it out: On their website, on iTunes, on Facebook, and also on Twitter.
