When I first heard a secretly recorded conversation

between

Four of LA’s most powerful politicians catching them spouting all kinds of racist and conspiratorial nonsense hardly surprised me.

The votes of then-Los Angeles City Councilman Nury Martinez, then-Councilman Gil Cedillo, Councilman Kevin de Len and then-Los Angeles County Labor Federation head Ron Herrera were known. The arrogant anti-blackness and jokes about Oaxacans sounded like some of my male cousins ​​when they sat six Michelob Ultras in a carne asada Sunday. The whining about Black LA having more political representation than it deserves at the expense of Latino LA is the same whining I hear from too many Latinos who should know better.

But what was most familiar to me was the way they expressed all of the above: in Spanglish.

Like some of the people on that tape, my first language was Spanish. Now I’m bilingual, using mostly English, though Spanish inevitably enters my everyday speech, mostly as filler words. Among non-Spanish speaking people, I will deliberately only use Spanish when there is a word that does not translate well, or to make a point. When I’m around people with the same language background, Spanish means: Hey, I’m about to get real now, and what I say is considered more important than if I had said it in English.

So I immediately recognized how Cedillo, De Len, Herrera and Martinez weaponized Spanglish on the tape. I listened to it last October, focusing on the sometimes ugly Spanish sentences as my colleagues and I prepared to tell the story that would shake up Los Angeles politics.

A year later, Los Angeles is still dealing with the aftermath, in part because Cedillo, De Len and Martinez are staging a comeback and whitewash

–

tour that no one asked for.

Cedillo is suing the LA County Federation of Labor and two of its former employees, alleging invasion of privacy and negligence, saying the release of the audio has caused him to lose income and job opportunities. De Len, who is running for re

–

election, filed a similar lawsuit with only the two former employees as defendants.

In an interview with my colleagues Brittny Mejia and David Zahniser, De Len characterized his comments about the tape that ridiculed black political power in LA and

then-Councilman Mike

Bonin’s son calls a luxury handbag artless.”

Martinez, meanwhile, is the star of a new four-part podcast from LAist Studios that allows her to tell her side of the story, but not without constant setbacks

by from

host

Antonia Cereijido

.

The combative trio all use the same tired bingo card of victimhood politics that Donald Trump keeps in his shirt pocket. But they are also using a new tactic to claim that it wasn’t them who did something wrong a year ago, but people like me.

Both De Len and Cedillo’s lawsuits contain word for word the same passage, claiming that the Spanglish comments on the tape were “taken out of context or improperly interpreted from Spanish slang into English by those without a full understanding of had. the meaning, let alone the context of the term.”

Here’s a Spanish sentence you can’t get out of context, Kevin and Gil:

Ppobrecitos

.

Poor, pathetic boys.

By my rough estimate, Espaol only made up for it

5% of City Hall leaked, and most of it came from Martinez. She used filler words and phrases, such as

quien sabe que tanto

(who knows how many) and

ask

(That). She used Spanish to compliment Cedillo’s love for his daughter

‘tas loco con esta nia

(You’re crazy about that girl). She delivered a particularly telling blow to former USC gynecologist George Tyndall, who recently died while awaiting trial on sex crime charges, by describing him as a

cochino

. This literally means pig, but had the implication of ‘creeper’, as she used it.

Then the conversation ended

former councilor Mike

Bonin, the Spanglish gloves came on. Martinez despised her former colleague and thus had no complaints about trashing his Black son if it meant scoring points during a private conversation. That’s why she described the young boy as one

changuito

little monkey and a

negrito,

which translates as little black man, but has connotations of dark. It’s also why Martinez said the word

judios

when she claimed that Jewish politicians were working with black politicians to screw over Latinos, when she could have just said their names.

The way I grew up with that word,

parece changuito.

It has nothing to do with skin color,” Martinez emphasized on the LAist Studios podcast. ‘It has more to do with behavior. You’re playing around a little.” She did admit that expressing it “was insensitive. It was meant to be,” while she blamed her immigrant background, she was born in the US to parents from the Mexican state of Zacatecas.

I think in Spanish, then I speak in English, Martinez told LAist. And so my vocabulary comes from learning English. And I think for me, those words [she uttered] The intention is not to hurt anyone or to sound racist. I guess they’re just words I grew up with.

Hey, Nury: my parents were also born in Zacatecas. I also learned English. But I certainly don’t blame my upbringing when I make a mistake. As we say at the rancho when someone tries too hard: “

le echas mucha crema tus taco

“You put too much cream on your taco.

While the ex-council leader was by far the worst Spanglish offender, others also used it to insult. Cedillo derisively referred to LA Councilmember Nithya Raman as Martinezs

comrade

female friend to incite Martinez. The Len described former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as one

viejita

a little old lady, who also uses the term for Marilyn Flynn, the former dean of USC’s School of Social Work.

When everyone in the room laughed at the so-called short stature of the Oaxacans living in Koreatown, Herrera said his mother was also referring to them

Native Americans

literally Indians, but with the same sentiment among Mexicans as the old West slur Injun.

Cedillo, who lost his city council

–

election bid months before the tape was leaked, gave a lengthy interview to La Opinin earlier this week in which he blamed the Democratic Socialists of America, black political leaders, this newspaper, the culture, basically everyone but themselves, for his assumed pariah status.

“Our community doesn’t care what is said [on the tape] because they understand Spanish, our culture, and they know the history,” he said in the interview.

Who needs the Santa Anas when you have all that incessant, annoying hot air?

For Cedillo, De Len and Martinez to claim they are victims of a witch hunt fueled by people who don’t understand the nuances of Spanish is not just weak salsa attitude, it’s self-loathing laughable at best. They’re trying to tap into generations of disgust that jingoistic Mexicans have felt toward Mexican Americans for supposedly not speaking Spanish well, or at all. They try to portray people like me, who look askance at Latinos who express the kind of bigoted language.

mierda

(nonsense) that they did, like

points of sale

(sellouts) who are not “real” Latinos and therefore cannot be trusted.

If the three ever talked to me, I would tell them honestly:

No, some

literally: “no spots” in Spanish in Mexico City and figuratively: “Give me a break.”

Since they are so persistent in letting the world know that they are the true keepers of Cervantes, I will follow in their spirit and repeat here some nuanced Mexican Spanish words and phrases that go along with all of this.

desmadre

(to measure).

The three of them

see pass

going beyond the boundaries of respectability.

See hacing

. They put on smells.

They are

sinvergenzas

a beautiful noun that translates as

without shame

people without shame.

Finally, I don’t need to translate the sentence

vaya con Dis

, which long ago entered the SoCal lexicon as a way to say goodbye. So here’s another parting sentence, one that many Angelenos learned all thanks to you:

For a

.

Get out of here.