Dreamland

A Spanglish Stand Up – Ish Comedy Show

By Henry Zapata

Este país, para muchos de nosotros, es un sueño. Algo que no podemos creer.
La verdad es que, desde el momento en que llegamos, nos llegan cuentas (bills) a la
casa. I mean… What the hell? But I just got here... Si acabo de llegar. Sí, acabamos de
llegar y ya tenemos cuentas que pagar.
Y, you know, el argumento de que: “Los latinos le robamos el trabajo a los americanos”.
I mean, really? The truth is, you don’t want this job! Si lo quisieras, ya lo hubieras
tomado. Si lo quisieras, If you really, I mean, reeeeaaaally wanted this job, yo ni
siquiera me habría enterado de este trabajo. Además, este trabajo donde pagan poco,
de 9 a 6, manejar tres horas en una autopista. I mean… Really? ¿Te estoy quitando el
trabajo?

Para el estadounidense, toda Latinoamérica es México. Really. (Se pone un sombrero

de charro). And, don’t get me wrong, I love Mexico, Everybody loves Mexico. We all
love Mexico. But, picture this: Mexico (suena música de mariachi)… Panamá (suena
música de mariachi)… Venezuela (suena música de mariachi)… Colombia… Brasil…
Chile… Argentina (suena música de mariachi). Así nos ven. That’s how you see us.
Everything outside the border is Mexico to you.
I remember, and this is a true story. I was watching an episode of NCIS. You know, the
TV show. Y había esta situación donde estaban investigando a alguien y tenían que
infiltrarse en la embajada de Venezuela en Estados Unidos. And there was a couple of
dancers, dancing a typical venezuelan dance… And they were dancing Tango. I
mean… Tango if from Argentina. If you’re going to show a Venezuelan typical dance, in
this case, is called “Joropo”. In Venezuela we don’t dance “Jarabe Tapatio”, which is
from Mexico, Cumbia, which is from Colombia or Tango, which is from Argentina.
I have a son. Tengo un hijo. Y en el momento nosotras nos convertimos en madres,
podría decirse que las mamás latinas nos convertimos en profetas del desastre. Yeah,
we turned into Disaster Prophets. That’s true. We see something and we say: “Oh, this
will be fucked up in 3 minutes”… And it fucks up in 3 minutes. When our son is starting
a new relationship we say: “Oh, that girl is gonna dump you in two weeks”… And the girl
dump him in two weeks. Or, cuando entramos en un sitio, when we enter a place, we
get that chill, that sudden goosebump, and we think: “Oh, I’m gonna get scammed in
here”… And guess what? We get scammed in there.
Is true. Is like we, latin moms, have this amazing and fucked up ability of seeing the
near future. I mean, we can’t see how’s gonna be from here to five years forward…
Although… With a little effort… Maybe, we can kinda feel the probabilities of something.
There is 50% of chance that those two are gonna end up fighting over the house.