rpanons | Your privilege at any time is only as strong as the wifi signal

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i assume he's a canon character whose origins you don't have much info on—b/c that's not giving much to go off of. was he born in the US? is he fluent in spanish? were his parents wealthy? first generation? does he live in LA? Texas? Ohio? it varies. and honestly, i'm sure you could gloss over things like that if they're not supplied in-canon.
and if he's an OC, hell you could keep it simple and make him a total coconut

as far as language goes, just know that mixing spanish and english words in a sentence is generally not how bilingual people talk (and i hate how often writes do that shit for their brown characters) unless they're speaking with someone who's also fluent in both languages. regardless of his fluency, he's probably not gonna say some spanish phrase while talking to someone who speaks english/wouldn't understand it. if you're gonna add in spanish, do it in interjections or maybe if he's talking to himself or something.
personally, i prefer writing something like "he curses in spanish," or "he mutters something in spanish about how he hates butterflies" to actually translating. because connotations are hard . but if you need it, wordreference.com is your friend, and stay away from google translate.

I grew up in a largely Hispanic area and no one ever mixed English and Spanish, especially when talking to someone who spoke primarily English and usually only spoke Spanish to other people who were native Spanish speakers. Also agreeing that you should stay away from Google translate. While it is one of the better online translators, it's not good enough to translate dialogue. I've seen people here and there "translate" by just doing something like <

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<i [...] english.>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Yeah when I think about it I was being a fucking moron and I didn't think; likely he spoke Spanish to his parents when they were alive and doesn't speak it to anyone unless it comes up now (which in his line of work it would)

sorry about the ambiguity :( I'm being vague because I do NOT want someone wanking on me like the above anon for even trying this character. He's a rare character so if I were specific I'd be instantly outed. That's why I asked in the first place -- I love this character, but by god do I not want to fuck it up and come off as that Not Hispanic Idiot Trying To Play A Hispanic Character. I already get pissed enough when people fuck up MY race.

And yeah fuck Google translate.

thanks for actual helping instead of being a jerk like the above anon

being deliberately ambiguous about the canon as it's obscure and I don't want to be outed, also nobody would know wtf it was anyway

he lives in the NYC area, he was born in the US (for the sake of simplicity I'm also going with NYC, though they don't say where he grew up), he makes a moderately good amount of money, he went through several years of grad school, we don't know much about his parents but it's heavily implied several times that they were probably poor immigrants and probably illegal immigrants

given that he doesn't do that in canon you're probably right and I was being dumb x_X I imagine he likely spoke spanish to his parents (they're dead now) and his siblings, but probably doesn't use it every day unless he has to, particularly since he's had several years of grad school and there's some implication that he's taken deliberate pains to distance himself from his own culture (esp because he had a bad falling out with his father due to taking a less-than-ideal career path) (like he makes enough to live on but he's not a doctor or a lawyer basically, unlike his siblings)

Eh, I would say brutal honesty than being a jerk.

except the reason I asked for help was so I could avoid falling into a trap of racist cliches

it's like damned if you do, damned if you don't

ask for help and someone says that you should give up

don't ask and go do it and you come off as a racist asshole

that's not honesty that's literally just shutting someone down, without even explaining why what I asked might have been questionable or racist

like I get it, it's a pain in the ass to take stupid morons like me by the hand and be like, "hey, now, here's how society has fucked you up so you think these stupid things" but if you can't help then let someone else do it

I came here trying to learn. And hey, because of the other anons I actually figured out already one of the stupid parts of my question.

tl;dr there's a difference between being honest (Which would be, "The way you've phrased this question is kinda racist in itself, and here's why, and here's some resources so you don't make the same stupid mistake; are you sure the character in question isn't a racist cliche in his own canon?") and "don't bother even trying to play a character who isn't white or anime-Japanese"

Okay. If he's deliberately taken steps to distance himself from his own culture/background, then the chances are he simply does not choose to speak Spanish very much, if at all.

You'd be surprised how quickly things like interjections and talking to yourself swap from one language to another based on immersion. If I'm speaking my second language to other people around me on a daily basis, then I don't swap into my native language to talk to myself or to curse if I stub my toe. It's actually, at least in my experience, more of a mental effort to switch gears than to just stay in the same language for things like that.

(Obligatory ymmv; obviously I'm not speaking for all bilingual people everywhere, but this is my experience with bilingualism.)

My advice, honestly, would be to avoid showing him speaking Spanish unless he has a particular reason to, such as communicating with someone whose English is poor, trying to keep a conversation more private, etc.

no problem, friend. i'm not very in touch with my heritage, but the mexican character i play isn't as americanized as i am - so i worry about getting stuff like this right too.

anyway, like bilingual anon said, not everyone is going to speak in the same way (i'll admit i'm just a sucker for the code-switch trope though), and based on that description i'd agree with them about your character not using spanish at all unless necessary. in the same vein, he probably wouldn't face anything too bad in terms of prejudice either - maybe an off-color joke every once in a while, if anything.

Your privilege at any time is only as strong as the wifi signal

allow me to attempt helpfulness

+1

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bilingual anon

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