{"id":5565,"date":"2019-10-16T23:48:23","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T16:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/?p=5565"},"modified":"2020-03-09T23:56:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T16:56:30","slug":"pocha-concha-turning-hate-into-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/pocha-concha-turning-hate-into-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Pocha Concha: Turning Hate Into Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finding your strength in your heritage.<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n

Column by: McKenna Frausto Bailey<\/strong><\/p>\n

With Hispanic Heritage month coming to a close, I wanted to reflect on something new I\u2019ve come to embrace about my Mexican-American heritage. My family on my mother\u2019s side is from Mexico. During the Civil Rights movement, my grandmother faced a lot of racism because she\u2019s Hispanic and speaks Spanish. My mother doesn\u2019t know Spanish since my grandmother didn\u2019t want to teach it to her, and as a result, I didn\u2019t grow up speaking much Spanish either.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I can speak Spanish (or rather Tex-Mex), but I\u2019m not fluent yet. I love my Hispanic heritage because Spanish is a beautiful language and there are so many mysteries about Mexican history that fascinate me. I love calling myself Tejano or Tex-Mex. I feel that it\u2019s a part of my identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, while scrolling on twitter I came across an interesting term from Buzzfeed; \u2018Pocha Concha\u2019. I recognized \u2018Concha\u2019 as it translates to \u2018shell\u2019 in English and is also used to describe my favorite Hispanic treat, Pan Dulce (sweet bread), aka Conchas. However, I didn\u2019t understand \u2018Pocha\u2019, or \u2018Pocho\u2019 if you\u2019re a boy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Maya Murillo (@mayainthemoment), a Buzzfeed producer who coined the term \u2018Pocha Concha\u2019 on their YouTube show <\/span>Pero Like<\/span><\/i>,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201c[A Pocha\/o is] a derisive term for people who are whitewashed in America but who have Mexican descent. It basically means your Spanish is bad, you\u2019re a 4<\/span>th<\/span> generation Mexican-American, and it\u2019s used to offend someone by telling them they aren\u2019t Latin enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Britannica Encyclopedia defines a Pocha\/o as, \u201cA derogatory term typically used by native-born Mexicans to describe U.S. born Mexicans that don\u2019t speak Spanish. They aren\u2019t considered either Mexican or American.\u201d Pocha has much of the same meaning as \u2018Chicano\u2019, but less political.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, there is more to the story. Maya continues, \u201cSo I took that word, reclaimed it, and combined it with my favorite dessert and now it\u2019s a term of endearment to describe love for others and self-love.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I fell in love with this immediately. While some might still see the term (Pocha), as racist, I think it\u2019s a good thing what Maya has done by turning a historically derogatory word into something we can take honor in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I welcome the term, Pocha Concha. It\u2019s a way for us Mexican-American\u2019s to find some of our identity in our heritage and embrace our culture. It makes us unique. It strengthens us. Knowing our roots and our culture gives us a powerful sense of self. Just because someone is a 4<\/span>th<\/span> generation Mexican-American, or has a bad Spanish accent, doesn\u2019t make them any less Latino. Maya emphasizes these ideas in her final statement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo go ahead, use Pocha Concha. Use it, and use it proudly. Don\u2019t let anyone else tell you that you\u2019re not enough. Take control of it. Be you. Be empowered by it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Now every time I see a Concha it reminds me of my self-empowerment; that I\u2019m reclaiming my culture and learning more about my heritage. Thanks to Maya, I have a special phrase to remind me of my journey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finding your strength in your heritage. Column by: McKenna Frausto Bailey With Hispanic Heritage month coming to a close, I wanted to reflect on something new I\u2019ve come to embrace about my Mexican-American heritage. My family on my mother\u2019s side is from Mexico. During the Civil Rights movement, my grandmother faced a lot of racism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4198,"featured_media":5566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[960,460],"class_list":["post-5565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-hispanic-heritage","tag-opinion-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}