PicoBlog

Buen día,

Ever since I shared that TikTok where I explain the differences between Salvadorian, Salvadoran and El Salvadoran, I’ve been thinking a lot about language and how our geographic location in diaspora affects how we speak and experience Salvadoran identity. I was born in Los Angeles and raised in the sprawling LA-metropolitan area, where the largest number of Salvadorans outside of El Salvador reside, but are still vastly outnumbered by the historically large Mexican-American population. Now I live in Washington, DC, where there’s less Salvadorans numerically, but per capita we’re the biggest Latinx group AND also the largest immigrant group in the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia) area.

So growing up in Southern California, I more often then not code-switched into a neutral (read: more Mexican) version of Spanish to be understood by neighbors and my community. Now in DC, my Salvadorian accent is ✨healing✨ because it’s just the most common form of Spanish spoken here and I hear it everyday wherever I go — because Salvadorans are everywhere. It feels like the closest to El Salvador of any place in the U.S. I’ve lived or been to.

Here are some musings on the subject: (Also since Elon is a baby, I can no longer embed Tweets here - I’ll be sharing screenshots, but you can follow the convo here)

Poet and cachimbona Yesika Salgado even chimed in to share her experience as an LA Salvadoran who doesn’t speak Salvadorianly enough for some people:

Anyways, as a West Coast Salvadoran, I think we should all get to know our DC-area familia if ever given the chance.

Also, if you want to read more about my linguistic Salvadoran thoughts, check out this article on Vos vs Tú that I did a few years back.

I’ll be speaking tonight to Central Americans United Student Association (CAUSA) Dartmouth College. Tonight Wednesday at 6PM ET/ 3PM PT.

The zoom link is: https://dartmouth.zoom.us/j/5922304007

🗞️Boletín - El Salvador News April 12, 2023

Combining my news section this week — trying to see if one post per week works better for y’all. Let me know.

• AP: US, Panama and Colombia aim to stop Darien Gap migration

  Stricter border enforcement is coming to the Darien Gap that connects North and South America. It’s important to note that not only is the Darien Gap incredibly dangerous, it is also often a route taken by West African migrants, particularly those from Cameroon. A few years ago, I did a video about that and you can watch here.

Saludos,

Daniel

ncG1vNJzZmickaO2prjApa2aqpWjtKJ60q6ZrKyRmLhvr86mZqlno6WyorfIp55mq5Ghw6KwzqugmqZdq7KzusCcrKWZomKyrQ%3D%3D