March 4, 2018
Now my parents are your traditional Mexican parents: both were born & raised in Mexico, moved to the U.S as adults, and both of them are extremely proud of their culture.
My parents spoke Spanish with us at home since that is the language they are most comfortable with but they do speak English. I included several spanish phrases for authenticity and I included the translation.
You know you grew up in a Latino household when…
If you didn’t like what your mom made for dinner you would literally starve. No she wouldn’t make something different to please you, you would simply starve. And she would literally tell you “Muerete de hambre.” Translation: die of starvation. In all fairness I am happy she did this because I was forced to eat traditional food and I am not a picky eater. With my youngest brother my mom decided he could have options and he grew up being so picky!
You know you grew up in a Latino household when…
You never ate at fancy restaurants, fast food restaurants, shoot just any restaurants in general. I honestly don’t remember going to any when I was younger and my mom would always have home cooked meals. I know I would ask for Mcdonalds because I would see other kids having it and she would tell me, “Estas loca, que Mcdonalds ni que nada,” or “no inventes.” Translation: You are crazy, no McDonalds.
You know you grew up in a Latino household when…
“Vas a ver,” and “Siguele,” were the most common phrases before getting in a lot of trouble. Both of these phrases mean “watch what happens, “or keep going and see what happens.” I was quite the rebellious one when growing up so I heard these phrases A LOT. I would try to explain to my mom that my friends had more freedom and I didn’t get why I was getting in trouble. My mom loved to tell me, “a mi no me importan tus amigos a mi me importas tu,” which means I don’t care about your friends, I care about you.
You know you grew up in a Latino household when…
They never wanted to take you anywhere. I am so thankful I had friends growing up that had parents who always picked me up/took me home. My parents always said “puedes ir pero no se quien te va llevar.” Translation: You can go but I don’t know who is going to take you. This was mind blowing because my answer was like shouldn’t you take me?! You are my parents right? They didn’t know that this motivated me and this was a challenge to figure it out. I always ended up figuring it out and then when I was leaving it was like, “Where are you going? And Who’s taking you?” I always found someone on Craigslist that was willing to take me you know, just kidding…it was always a friends mom.
Luckily, this was only for you know the weekend activities they did take me to school and any extra curricular activities I was involved in.
You know you grew up in a Latino household when…
You woke up to blasting music on Saturday morning which is the official “clean the whole house day.” Usually it was a either a Juan Gabriel, Pedro Fernandez, or a Gloria Trevi song and your mom being super loud next to your room so you could wake up. If you didn’t wake up, your mom would probably barge in saying something like “este cuarto no se va limpiar solo,” translation: this room isn’t going to clean itself. I dreaded Saturday mornings and sometimes I just wanted to watch the show Recess, uninterrupted from the sound of the vacuum.
You know you grew up in a Latino household when…
Your parents would claim your house wasn’t a hotel if you were out with friends for too long, “que crees que esta casa es un hotel.” Often saying you only used your home to sleep. This one was always funny because it was always a tad over dramatized.
You know you grew up in a Latino household when…
Your parents didn’t allow any bad words in the house unless they were using them, in Spanish. If my parents heard us saying any bad words in English we would get in so much trouble. My older brother and I knew we just couldn’t use those words. But Spanish bad words? Those words my parents would use ALL the time. Mostly at us. For the sake of my mother and father I will leave their favorite words they used out but one can only imagine. To be fair my parents are very proper but when we were growing up and getting in trouble, those Spanish bad words would come out flying.
In all fairness, I feel like I had a good childhood and these experiences molded me into the person I am today. I feel like there is so many more scenarios that I could just keep adding to this post. I have read many of these articles in the past and I wanted to try and pick ones that are not as common in those articles.
Do you have any, “You know you grew up in a Latino household when”moments? I want to hear your experiences as a child too, let me know!
I hope you enjoyed this entertainment piece and if you like posts like these, let me know in the comments.
Thank you for reading!
It’s been real.
xoxo,
Liz-Laugh-Love
