Ruben Cobos, recorder, October 6, 1976
Item — Box: 13, CD: Lect 28
Scope and Contents
Lecture for his class, on Spanglismos, Spanglish (good recording, in Spanish, it opens with him talking to his students about their exam and what it will cover, then he refers to and reviews the previous lecture on Inglesismos or how English terms or words entered in the Spanish language of New Mexico, then follows with how Mexican terms entered into the Spanish language of New Mexico, Mexicanismos. This started before the coming of the Americans, came from Spanish and Mexican interaction along the frontera, the Mexican - United States border, from Agua Prieta, Ciudad Juareaz, Chihuahua, etc., and these new words passed up into Northern New Mexico, this included words, songs and other cultural factors. He explains that English words entered New Mexico with the Santa Fe trade and commerce, from Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, and that later the railroad brought in more American English speakers, who introduced industry, agriculture, cotton fields, mining, and these people had an impact on Las Vegas, Raton, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Mesilla, Santa Rita, Dawson, Madrid, etc. Cobos comments on the experience between Americans and New Mexicans, that Hispanics did not like the coming of the Anglos and did not want to work for them, because the Hispanic had their own homes, lands, ranches, so the Americans got other people to do their work for them, so in came the Chinese and Mexicans, immigration, and the first Mexican immigrant workers were poor and had nada so they willing worked for the Anglos, at first it was mostly Mexican men coming in alone to work in New Mexico, not families, some men also went into Texas, Arizona and California, these men were unstable, landless, illiterate, and the Hispanics of New Mexico did not like these Mexican men, sometimes the Mexicans began to marry the daughters of the Hispanic families, the old colonial Spanish families, and the term for them in New Mexico was surumatos, and in Arizona surumbatos, thus the origin of the word vatos, and in Sonora and California they used the word pochos, cholos, and chicanos, but Cobos said he believed the Mexican men workers spoke a better or more modern Spanish language than the Hispanos of New Mexico, he believed the Spanish language of Northern New Mexico was archaic and was a different dialect, that it had survived from the past after the passing of centuries in the isolation of New Mexico, so Cobos said the New Mexico Hispanic women liked the Mexican men better than New Mexican men, because the Mexicans spoke nicely, etc., he said also that some of the American soldiers with General Kearny and the occupation in 1846, and later other Norteamericano - American military forces, stayed on in New Mexico and influenced the language of New Mexico, thus there are Hispanic families with Anglo American surnames derived from one Anglo ancestor who settled here, but such a family is mainly culturally Hispanic and not Anglo. Then Cobos talks about the word greaser used in New Mexico, which he said originally referred to a worker, a man who greased or oiled the wheels of the wagons, the term later came to have a negative meaning like a man of the lower class, and took on a society and class meaning, also a color boundary, referring to Chino, Chinese, Filipino, Philippines, Nigger, African American, Negro, Jew, Judio, etc., meaning an illiterate, poor, foreign person, showing feelings of racist, discrimination, Cobos also describes the use of the term Nigger as being anti Negro, African Americans, when white children were told it was okay to have a Negro childhood friend but that they could not marry a Black person or someone of another culture or race. Cobos goes on to give examples of how people came to speak Spanglish, a mixture of Spanish and English terms in the same sentence, same conversation, he said that they were basically Bilingual to start with and used some of each language. In early New Mexico the Anglo people quickly learned to speak some Spanish to get by and work with the Hispanos who did not know English and were also learning as they went, and the same with the Spanish speakers. The Spanish and English people of New Mexico were forced to live together in a frontier situation, in a clash of two languages, systems, values, and cultures, in what was then an oral society, with little writing, so the Anglos picked up some Spanish words and vice versa, so it was a natural process, both the Spanish person and the English person mixed in the terms when they did not know the right word in that language for that item, sometimes there was no equivalent Spanish word for a new item, so used the Spanish person used an English term for it, sometimes the words were use to add humor. Cobos said that language is oral and active, a working, living thing, that the people had no time to check the dictionary and didn't even have a dictionary around, Spanglish is saying it as you think of it, using any word that comes to mind, or making it up, creating a word, changing the spelling, thus Spanglish consists of words of convenience, innovation, etc.).
Dates
- October 6, 1976
Language of Materials
From the Collection:
English, Spanish
Access Restrictions
The collection is open for research.
Extent
From the Collection: 13 boxes (12.25 cu. ft.)
Creator
- From the Collection: Cobos, Rubén (Person)
Repository Details
Part of the UNM Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections Repository
Contact:
University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections
University Libraries, MSC05 3020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque NM 87131
505-277-6451
University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections
University Libraries, MSC05 3020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque NM 87131
505-277-6451