I had just sent a voice note to my friend when a curious feeling came over me. “Let me listen back to it,” I thought to myself. As I did, an even stranger feeling came over me, a lack of recognition of my own voice. You see, I’ve been code-switching so long that sometimes I’m unsure where the real me begins. Obviously, this was my friend, so I was being genuine in my language. However, as someone who has been a professional for many years, as well as an academic, the voice that I heard on playback was just one of many. And for a lot of modern-day Latines, this is another aspect of the identity politics we have to reconcile with. That’s why it’s refreshing to see that recently many Latine celebs have been more candid about the pressure they’ve felt to code-switch or “talk white” and are openly rejecting the practice to embrace their authentic selves.
This is no doubt due to the current selling power Latines are enjoying on a global level. Buoyed by the popularity of reggaetón and Latin trap, Latin music as a whole is outpacing other markets with artists like Bad Bunny becoming global stars despite refusing to do music in English. For the past couple of years streaming services like Netflix have been investing heavily in dramas like “Casa de Papel,” “Narcos,” and, most recently, “Griselda,” starring Colombian actress Sofía Vergara. But you don’t have to go back too far to track down a time when this wasn’t the case.
In the early 2000s, the idea that music sung predominantly in Spanish could be successful in the English-speaking market seemed absurd. During that time, you’d also have been hard-pressed to find shows featuring Latine leads or focused on issues in and around our communities. This meant that to have a shot at success, many up-and-coming stars had to approximate whiteness.
Marc Anthony, Ricky Martin, and Thalia all released English-language crossover albums, catering to the US pop market. Puerto Rican actor Freddie Prinze Jr. has spoken about how rare leading roles written exclusively for Latines were at the time. Now, given the current acceptance of Latinidad, he’s more open than ever about how proud he is of his heritage. And to hear him talk today is to hear a more authentic person stripped down, complete with all the twangs and inflections code-switching so often tries to cover up. You can hear it in this interview he gave to “The Talk” while on a press tour.
But it’s not just Prinze. Recently, a video of Mario Lopez eating some food with a friend went viral for the candid nature of his speech. When I was younger, my parents and I would watch the actor on “Access Hollywood,” and the way he talked always felt performative to me. Seeing this side of Lopez in this footage, however, was refreshing. It’s nice to know that deep down, at his most relaxed, he’s just another homie. Now, that’s not to say that code-switching is always performative. Personally, I’ve always thought of being able to code-switch as a resource, one that allows me not to blend in but to be understood by people who normally wouldn’t understand me.
Over the years, I’ve developed a plurality of accents. I’ve got my Nuyorican accent that comes out when I’m around my family and cousins. Then there’s my Puerto Rican accent that comes out when I’m on the island, stretching the syllables of English-language words so that they fit into Spanish. And then there’s my academic side that comes to the table prepared with his $20 words. Years ago, I used to think that having these sides to me made me fake and that I wasn’t really Latine or Caribbean enough. But now I’m realizing that everyone’s authenticity is different and being Latine doesn’t mean being one thing. I’m reminded of the great Desi Arnaz, who never downplayed his heavy Cuban accent. For Arnaz, authenticity became an asset, and it’s no wonder that he was the first Latine to cohost an English-language television show in the US. I see parallels to him in Salma Hayek and Vergara, two amazing actors in their own rights who have always embraced their accents and whose stocks have risen because of it.
On the opposite end of the spectrum you have Latines like John Leguizamo, whose heavy New York City accent made it easy for casting agents to offer him stereotypical roles like junkies and criminals. But rather than taking on those roles or code-switching, he simply owned it and carved his own path through Hollywood, even getting the chance to deliver Shakespearean prose in his trademark accent as Tybalt in Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet.”
Today the groundwork that these Latine icons have laid has set the tone for many of us to reclaim our authenticity and do away with code-switching. Sometimes that looks like speaking with our true accents or using the vocabulary that comes most naturally to us. But we also see it in the way many of us have stopped anglicizing our names or are more willing to express ourselves in Spanish or Spanglish. For example, I love the way Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pronounces her name every time she introduces herself, even though Spanish isn’t her first language. I love the way Oscar Isaac and Pedro Pascal break down their full names in this interview with Wired because it shows that our Latinidad is something we always carry with us.
At the end of the day, being Latine means being part of a group for which no one size fits all. And I’m glad to see that we’re no longer feeling as much pressure to squeeze ourselves inside boxes that strip us of our sazón, whatever flavor that may be.
Miguel Machado is a journalist with expertise in the intersection of Latine identity and culture. He does everything from exclusive interviews with Latin music artists to opinion pieces on issues that are relevant to the community, personal essays tied to his Latinidad, and thought pieces and features relating to Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican culture.
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