In recent years, the phrase “no sabo,” which is the incorrect way of saying “I don’t know” in Spanish (the correct translation is “no sé”) has become synonymous with young Latinos who aren’t fluent in Spanish .
Dr. David Hayes Bautista, professor and director at the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, said he likes to remind people that being “Latino is separable from Spanish.”
But what used to be a put-down term has now become a cultural hit online and a popular meme: TikTok alone has more than 644 million video views with the hashtag #nosabo and #nosabokid is close to 400 million.
On social media, teens and young adults will poke fun at no sabo experiences. In one TikTok video, a “no sabo” teen asks her sibling if she’s seen the “crayola” their mom is looking for, meaning carriola, or stroller. Another video shows a no sabo “olympics” where teens are quizzed on the correct Spanish word.
While most of the videos are playful and even hilarious, the growing trend of Latinos “clapping back” at the policing of Spanish has opened up an age-old debate on what it means to be Hispanic or Latino in the U.S.
Dr. David Hayes Bautista, professor and director at the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, said he likes to remind people that being “Latino is separable from Spanish,” and that being Latino isn’t a monolith — some may speak Spanish, some may speak Indigenous dialects and some may only know English.
“There are about 63 million Latinos in the United States, and no two people are Latino in the same way. It’s not language that makes you Latino,” Bautista said.
The debate is relevant for a growing number of Americans: Currently, a quarter of U.S. children are Latino.
In 2021, over 7 in 10 Latinos aged 5 and up spoke English proficiently — an increase of 59% since 2000 — according to the Pew Research Center, while there’s been a decline in those who speak Spanish at home.
As the #nosabo kids say in their own words online, they still maintain a connection to their Latino culture despite any language challenges.
It’s also resulted in Latinos who have decided to learn the language on their own terms in new and creative ways — and to take a look at how previous generations of Americans were discouraged from speaking Spanish, or even not allowed to. The U.S. has had a history of forcing Americans to speak English; this was the case with Native American boarding schools, for example.
“Mexican American children were put through similar violent language training,” Alexandro José Gradilla, an associate professor of Chicano/a studies at California State University, Fullerton, said. “They were physically hit and beat for speaking Spanish at school. … Teachers had “the right to physically punish children.”
About 50% of U.S. Latinos who do not speak Spanish have been shamed by other Latinos for it
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