Mock Spanish

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Mock Spanish is a term popularized by Jane H. Hill of the University of Arizona to describe a variety of usages common in some otherwise monolingual Anglo-American circles. Hill argues that the incorporation of pseudo-Spanish terms like "hasty banana" (for hasta mañana), "buenos nachos" (for buenas noches), "el cheapo", "no problemo", "hasta la bye-bye", and other humorous uses constitute a type of covert racism.

Mock Spanish is described as being used almost solely among upper-class Anglo-Americans as a type of in-joke, and this impression has been noted as a reason for its controversial standing. In at least one instance, an advertisement was pulled due to its perceived disrespectful tone (Cingular featured a ringtone mimicking the voice of a U.S. Border Patrol agent saying, "I repeat-o, put the oranges down and step away from the telephone-o. I'm deporting you back home-o.")

In José, can you see?, Ana Celia Zentella describes Mock Spanish as one half of a double-standard in which Latinas and Latinos are expected to conform to the linguistic norms of English while Anglo-Americans are free to ignore all grammatical aspects of the Spanish language they are borrowing from. According to Zentella, "Latin@s are visibly constrained by rigid norms of linguistic purity, but white linguistic disorder goes unchallenged; in fact, white linguistic disorder is essential to a congenial persona, and passes as multicultural 'with-it-ness.'"

Hill contrasts Mock Spanish with two other registers of "Anglo Spanish" that she refers to as "Nouvelle Spanish" (largely used to provide a Spanish flavor for marketing purposes, e.g. "The land of mañana" used to describe the Southwest, "Hair Casa" as the name of a beauty salon) and "Cowboy Spanish" (loanwords for region-specific objects and concepts e.g. coyote, mesa, and tamale).