Quotes About Spanish Culture

“When you were talking about the caste system, I was thinking about how Mexicans still have to come to terms with this in our own culture. We spoke earlier about the castas paintings that were made during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Mexico. The Spanish, establishing a form of racial apartheid, delineate the fifty-three categories of racial mixtures between Africans, Indians, and the Spanish. And they have names, like tiente en el aire, which means stain in the air; and salta otras, which means jump back; or mulatto, a word that comes from mula, the unnatural mating between the horse and the donkey. "Sambo" is now a racial epithet in the US, but it was first used as one of the fifty-three racial categories in the castas paintings.”

— Amalia Mesa-Bains

“A truly enlightened attitude to language should simply be to let six thousand or more flowers bloom. Subcultures should be allowed to thrive, not just because it is wrong to squash them, because they enrich the wider culture. Just as Black English has left its mark on standard English Culture, South Africans take pride in the marks of Afrikaans and African languages on their vocabulary and syntax.
New Zealand's rugby team chants in Maori, dancing a traditional dance, before matches. French kids flirt with rebellion by using verlan, a slang that reverses words' sounds or syllables (so femmes becomes meuf). Argentines glory in lunfardo, an argot developed from the underworld a centyry ago that makes Argentine Spanish unique still today. The nonstandard greeting "Where y'at?" for "How are you?" is so common among certain whites in New Orleans that they bear their difference with pride, calling themselves Yats. And that's how it should be.”

— Robert Lane Greene

“This happens to a lot of kids from different backgrounds - they lose a lot of their parents' and grandparents' teachings, language and culture because they have to deal with another language and culture 24/7. By the time I was 44, I was terrible at Spanish. I was always intimidated whenever I had to speak it.”

— Erik Estrada

“My father was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. His family is from Spain. My father never taught me how to speak Spanish when I was little. That's very disappointing to me. I'm still planning on learning it on my own. I really want to travel to Spain and immerse myself in the culture and learn it on my own.”

— Kether Donohue

“I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.”

— Salma Hayek

“My mother is not a woman of ordinary culture. She knows literature and speaks Spanish better than I do. She even corrected my poems and gave me advice when I was studying rhetoric.”

— Jose Rizal

“Before anyone learns my last name, they always assume I have some type of Latin background in me somewhere. I love it! I think the Latin culture is sexy. It's one of my goals to learn to speak Spanish one day; then I will really be able to fool people!”

— Torrey DeVitto

“I really wanna do a Spanish album. I have that Latin culture background. It's a part of me. I'm not the best Spanish speaker, but I have a longing to connect with that. I just think how supportive the Latin community has been, even during 'Idol.' I'd like to give back with something like that.”

— David Archuleta

“I love the Italian culture - it's a beautiful culture. I love the language, the Italian people, their music, their attitudes ... I just love it! Sometimes I think I'm an Italian trapped in a Spanish woman's body.”

— Penelope Cruz

“I don't believe in the so-called Latino explosion when it comes to movies. Jennifer Lopez doesn't have an accent. She grew up in New York speaking English, not Spanish. Her success is very important because she represents a different culture, but it doesn't help me.”

— Salma Hayek

“The first time I went to Mexico, it was really difficult. Number one is the language, I didn't know any Spanish language. Of course, the culture itself. Very different from where I grew up.”

— Tomoki Kameda

“I've always loved to sing in Spanish. To me, it's just my culture. It's what I am; I'm Latina.”

— Paula DeAnda

“When I was 11, I moved to the United States with my two brothers and my mom. We moved to northern New York, up near the Canadian border, from Argentina, and there was nobody there that spoke Spanish, and because there was no internet at the time, not even cable TV yet, I lost the connection with my childhood friends and the culture I had been brought up with for my first decade completely.”

— Viggo Mortensen