(lively music) (singers vocalizing) - Good evening, and welcome to "Horizonte," a show that takes a look at current issues through a Hispanic lens.

I'm your host Catherine Anaya.

There is a movement among young Latinos in the U.S. who don't speak Spanish, but don't want to be labeled as not Latino enough because of it.

They are calling themselves No Sabo Kids or No Sabo Youth, and they're vocal about taking pride in their culture, even if they don't speak Spanish.

One of them is influencer and musician, Ana Saia, who calls herself The Redheaded Latina, and is known for her No Sabo videos on TikTok.

- Ma, why don't you speak to me in Spanish?

(speaking Spanish) (pensive music) - I don't want you to fall behind in school or get made fun of.

- Oh my God, is that Lucas?

Can I have some?

(speaking Spanish) - How do you know what these are, Leche?

- I mean, you can get them at Walmart, but my mom is also Mexican, so.

(speaking Spanish) (laughs) (speaking Spanish) Prove it.

- She actually didn't teach me Spanish, so.

(speaking Spanish) - I love that Ana is having fun with this, but it's a serious topic.

With us now to talk about the No Sabo Movement, Stella Rouse, Director of the Hispanic Research Center and Professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University.

Also joining us is Hope Gomez, a political science PhD student at ASU who identifies as a No Sabo youth.

Thank you so much for joining us, ladies.

Appreciate it.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

- So as I was mentioning, Ana, you know she's having fun with this topic, but it's something that people have not talked about for a really long time and we all have similar experiences.

My parents did not speak Spanish in the house when I was growing up.

They were reprimanded at school when they were growing up, so they didn't want us to experience the same thing.

Can you tell me about your experiences and how that impacted you and also your relationships with fellow Latinos?

Starting with you, Stella.

- Yeah, so I grew up in a very white neighborhood and went to a very white school when I was little in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

I was one of maybe two Latinas in the school and was heavily discriminated against, discriminated against when other students heard me speak Spanish to my mother.

And so it really created a sense of being part of an outgroup, rather than the ingroup.

And so it really influenced me growing up.

It influenced me when I had my own children, in terms of whether I wanted them to speak Spanish, even though I have a lot of pride in my Latina culture.

So it's something that was ingrained in me from very young, that was transformative through my adulthood and into being a parent.

- Well, I could relate, because I was bullied in school for some time because of it.

What about you Hope?

What was your experience like?

- Yes, I grew up in Laveen, Arizona, so a predominantly Latino neighborhood, and I grew up in a predominantly Latino school and I had a similar experience.

My grandmother was discriminated against for speaking Spanish in school as well.

So that led to my father not speaking Spanish and my mother didn't speak Spanish growing up as well.

So we, all my siblings, we didn't speak Spanish.

So when I was at those schools I was, everyone always asked me, like, why didn't I speak Spanish?

They knew I was Mexican, but always like wondering why and like, it was like kind of embarrassing and also like shameful, because they were having these conversations I just couldn't be a part of.

- Well, they're tough feelings and one of the things I think we all agree on is that it's nice to see a topic that wasn't discussed for so long being discussed by the younger generation.

Professor, can you explain the meaning behind No Sabo for those who don't know and the shift in how it has now not only been talked about, but embraced by this younger generation.

- So the meaning started out as being derogatory, because the one thing that unites Latinos or that people perceive as uniting Latinos is the language of Spanish.

And so if you don't speak Spanish, are you really Latino?

And so others that were not Latino we're saying, "Well, you're not really Latino if you don't speak Spanish," because that is the one thing that we identify the Latino population as a whole.

I think there's been a movement in the younger generation to take that label back and to say, "We are as Latino and as everybody else.

Language does not define us.

Other things define us.

Culture, our family, how we feel about our identity defines us and we don't want anyone else to define us."

And that's how the meaning has been taken away from being derogatory to being this movement about letting people identify themselves and not letting others put that identity on them.

- Hope, tell me about your decision to embrace it and where did that come about and how do you feel about, you know, taking pride in that phrase, which was initially supposed to be derogatory?

- Yes, I remember when it first, like, the term started coming out, I believe I was like an undergrad maybe, like the early 2020s, and I remember like first it was used being derogatory, especially on TikTok has a large presence on it.

And I just remember there was like, for some reason there was just like a quick shift and like people started engaged in the communities, like actively like having more of a positive spin towards it.

Like, "Yes, I'm No Sabo but that doesn't make me less than, doesn't make me less Latino than."

And how I personally embrace it, because as Dr.

Rouse was mentioning, it just reminds me of my family history and my family has a long history in the United States and it just makes me proud and honored to be able to just be a product of their history.

So just continue representing it by just living my life and identifying as Latino.

- Absolutely.

A September, 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 85% of Latinos feel it's important for future generations of Latinos to speak Spanish.

But at the same time, you have another survey that found that nearly as many Latinos, 78%, said it's not necessary to speak Spanish to be considered Latino.

So Professor, my question is, what does this say about Latinos and how they view the language?

- I think it says that it needs to be embraced organically.

It can't be forced on people to say, "Well, because I'm Latino, I must speak Spanish and I must speak in, you know, to certain people in that language."

It has to be something that comes from within that people identify with and that wanna speak it and wanna promote it to perhaps younger generations.

But it has to be within the community.

It can't be forced from outside the community.

- And I've seen on the internet that there is No Sabo merchandise.

I mean it, this movement has really taken off, you would call it a movement, right, Professor, among young Latinos about what it means to be Latino?

- Yes, I absolutely think it's a movement.

I think it's a movement on the right thing.

Again, as I said, people from the outside of the Latino community only identify Latinos or primarily identify Latinos because of their language.

It's harder to identify 'em, because they come in all skin colors, they come from all sorts of different countries.

And I think what the movement is saying is, "Let us identify ourselves, do not identify us, do not put a label on us."

And it's very important.

In our profession, it's called essentializing.

People essentialize other people based on certain characteristics.

And so this movement speaks broader to that idea of making sure that people are identifying themselves and are comfortable with who they are and not letting other people identify them.

- It's really about reclaiming in a lot of ways your identity, right Hope?

- Yes.

- So talk to me a little bit about what you're seeing on campus.

How did this sentiment grow among your fellow students?

Have you seen it and what do people say about why they're embracing it?

- I think it mainly grew because of how Dr.

Rouse was saying, just retaking back labels.

Like, we as especially within Gen Z is like, labels have become, like, I would say, a big part of how we've grown up within just, yeah, within the current U.S. political environment.

So I've just been seeing individuals, like, just reshaping and re-understanding language.

And I think within especially ASU, especially diversity within it has allowed for different individuals to be able to meet up and together just grow within these ideas themselves.

- Professor, you've been quoted as saying, "I would argue this is a political, social, and even economic movement.

This is a growing group that has the potential to be very influential."

Can you explain that and how it's happening?

- Well, I think Latinos are younger than other groups.

They make up the youngest sort of population of all the different racial and ethnic groups.

And so this movement is emblematic of their power, political, social, economic power.

And so then put being at the forefront of defining who they are and how labels are taken back, as Hope said, I think is really important for how people moving forward see the Latino community and the young Latino community in particular.

- And Hope, as we mentioned at the top of the show, you are pursuing a PhD in political science at ASU, to study Latino partisanship and voting behavior.

With Election Day just around the corner, or actually it's already passed by the time we air this, but with politics at the forefront right now, what are your feelings as far as the No Sabo Movement, youth, kids, shaping American politics going forward?

- Yes, I think it just demonstrates the non-monolithic nature of the Latino community, like the diversity of attitudes within it.

And it has to, especially among candidates, like, they have to appeal to different members of the communities.

And we can't just assume that all Latinos share the same political attitudes and these experiences, 'cause our experiences shape our political attitudes and how we understand our perspective of the political environment.

So I believe going in the future, there's gonna be more focus on understanding different segments in the Latino community and how we can actively politically engage them.

- Well, this is a question for both of you.

Would you both say that the No Sabo Movement is building a bridge, not just amongst ourselves, but with the community that maybe doesn't understand the history?

Like, we were talking about how we grew up, where our parents didn't speak Spanish in the home, because of the experience that they had.

Would you say that this movement is helping to bridge that gap in a way?

- Yes, because again, it just, removing this feeling of shame and embarrassment behind it.

It's just unveiling these new, like, feelings that previously were just shut into the corner and allowing people who have actually experienced these, like, feelings of negative emotions to be able to share their experiences and share how like they make them felt and just creating a more embraceful Latino community rather than segmenting different areas, but to again, to show our diversity of attitudes.

- Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

What about you, Professor?

- I think the first step in building a bridge is building awareness.

And this is what that movement is doing.

It's building awareness.

Is letting people know that to be Latino is not solely defined by the language that you speak.

That there's so many other aspects of being Latino and the pride that there is in being Latino.

And it also is a bridge to understanding that young Latinos are Americans, they are no different from other Americans.

And that just because they do not speak Spanish does not mean that they still don't embrace their Latino heritage and roots.

But at the same time they are American, most of them are American citizens.

Latinos now are largely native born, not foreign born.

And so that connection that they're trying to make to the Latino community, I think, through this movement is really important and really brings awareness to who they are.

- Well, I love the fact that we're having this conversation and that the youth is certainly putting it at the forefront as well, so thank you both for sharing your thoughts on this and your personal experiences, I appreciate it- - Thank you Catherine.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

And that's our show for tonight for "Horizonte" in Arizona PBS, I'm Catherine Anaya.

Thanks for joining us!

Have a great night.

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