Offensive Spanish Language Representation of Latin Americans

Imagine you were a hard-working Bolivian.

You live in the countryside with your wife (cousin) and the 10 children you had together.

In a small little shack in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

No public services available.

A job that involves producing some “particular crops” for the “motorcycle man” who helps transport it elsewhere.

It pays better than growing anything else these days after the DEA is gone…

But, when taking into account all of the other things to do each day, you are still putting in 12 hours a day of work.

Sometimes 14!

Not to mention the other struggles you have to endure in life…

Be it cancer in your kidney.

Or how your wife (cousin) is getting boned by that dude in the other village who is slightly taller than you (5’4).

And your pan flute that you use to play with the local band on the street for extra cash just broke.

Times could be better…

But then, amongst all of your struggles, you notice a particular offense that rises above the rest.

After getting enough data on your phone, you get on the internet and notice something particularly strange.

Upon trying to access a particular website or see any usual video, you notice the “Spanish language” option is represented by a SPANISH FLAG!

You gasp in horror.

The anger building up inside you.

You smash the phone onto the ground.

Raise your fist into the hair.

Your wife (cousin) comes jogging across the fields from the other village (half naked) to tell you in Quechua “mi amor, Cálmate. ¡¿¡¿Que le pasa?!?!”

And you profess to her the greatest offense that any Bolivian could ever see.

“For you see, my dearest Bolivian wife (cousin), we Bolivians have had it rough. Ever since the Spaniards stole our wealth at Potosi and the Chileans took the ocean. What else could go wrong?!”

She looks at you like you’re half-retarded.

“But not only did they steal the wealth at Potosi but NOW their flag is what represents the Spanish language on the internet.com?!!”

She now looks at you like you’re fully retarded.

Leaving you behind to the other village, you fall to your knees and weep.

“WHY!!! WHY WOULD THE SPANISH DO THIS TO US?!?!” you cry out loud in Aymara (ohhh a bilingual…).

The Issue of the Flag

It’s a very funny issue to worry about, isn’t it?

But I suppose one to bring up.

In all likelihood, most Americans like myself probably won’t even be able to relate well to it.

Or anyone in the world who has a life beyond getting angry about it.

Though am I much better if I’m writing a blog post about it?

Yes I am!

Anyway, the issue is a very small perception of injustice by literally 0.1% of the Latin American population when it comes to how the Spanish language is represented on the internet.

Obviously, your stereotypical dude growing “odd stuff” in rural villages of Bolivia probably isn’t too worried about this.

But it’s an issue that the special 0.1% of Latin Americans worry about whenever they go onto a website and have to switch the language to Spanish for example.

In doing so, they have to click on a button that has THE SPANISH FLAG next to it.

Not the Bolivian flag!

Not the Salvadorian flag!

Not even the FUCKING Uruguayan flag!

……But why would it ever be the Uruguayan? Aren’t they gay? You know – Ur-a-gay.

Haha haha haha haha …..

I see nobody is laughing. I’ll ….. uhhhh … take my mid 2000 jokes with me …..

MAYBE a Mexican flag though!

….Maybe

But it is really not much more than that.

It can sometimes be a matter though of accents.

You have this funny video anyhow. 

"Y está traducida al español de España, weón

Al español de España, weón

Al español de España, weón"

In real life, I have basically never actually met anyone who has gotten pissed about either.

About Spanish being represented by Spain (the flag or accent in movies).

Of course, to non-Latino Americans, I can imagine that many think the anger comes from some Latin American bitterness towards Spain for what it did during colonial times.

When I grew up in Iowa, I rarely heard ideas like that but not often as obviously Latin America and Spain rarely came into conversation.

Still, some Americans do think that Latin Americans still get angry about Spain (some on the left do but only when they do academic speak to explain away why their region sucks dick economically).

Stepping away from that point though and back to the topic, very rarely do I see a Latin American in REAL LIFE getting irritated or mad at the Spanish language being represented by Spain.

On top of my head, the only moment I had like that was when I brought a random chick from Tinder to my apartment to “watch a movie and have a drink” or “fuck” basically but we did end up seeing a part (like the first 20 minutes) of some movie on my Youtube account.

And, according to her, the accents were “re feo.”

“A bit ugly.”

How come?

She told me that they are “from Spain.”

It didn’t seem though – based on what I knew of her – that she hated Spain.

She just wasn’t a fan of the accent.

Which, to be fair, is perfectly normal.

After all, the Spanish accent is a bit gay sounding.

RUSSELL PETERS / LATINOS & SPANISH LANGUAGE / THE GREEN CARD TOUR

And when it comes to the flags?

That Latin American who gets pissed at seeing a Spanish flag next to some button that you have to click on to switch the language to Spanish on whatever website or video?

I have literally never met a Latin American who got angry or irritated about that.

Granted, I don’t go around asking Latin Americans if they get angry or annoyed about it.

So how would I even know?

And, for the Portuguese language as it is another significant language in Latin America obviously, I guess that’s a bit ironic, no?

I don’t ever remember seeing the Portuguese flag representing the Portuguese language in the same situation (but I’m sure it happens).

I just see the Brazilian flag more often used to represent the Portuguese language.

Now THAT I imagine might annoy the occasional rare Portuguese man.

After all, the language came from YOUR country and now it’s represented by a former colony?

How CUCKED could you be?

It’d be like if the English language was commonly represented by the American flag and you’re a limp dick British man seeing our SUPERIOR country’s flag represent YOUR language.

Ha ha ha ha – that would never happen, would it?

Anything to Add?

 In all seriousness, it’s a bit of a non-issue, no?

I guess I could’ve made this into two separate topics – those who get pissed about seeing the flag and those who get pissed at hearing the other accent used in movies.

But the amount of people who actually have any fucks to give about either issue is so low and the issue is so relatively non-important.

So why bother?

You get the point anyhow.

Few care about this in my opinion but maybe that occasional one in a thousand person does.

A funny little topic about the issues that those with too much free time on their hands have to complain about (or blog about their complaints – huh?).

Anyway, if you got anything to add, drop a comment below.

And follow my Twitter here.

Thanks for reading.

Best regards,

Matt