'Do You Speak Mexican?' A Lesson in Identity and Culture

And why brands still get Latino culture wrong

“Allen, you speak Mexican, right?”

I was sitting in an ESL classroom in Los Angeles, fresh from Guatemala. The room was full of Vietnamese, Mexican and Armenian kids. I was the only Central American one.

So naturally, I smiled and said, “yes.”

And because I had a sense of humor, I added, “I also speak Guatemalan, Colombian and Argentinean.”

My teacher was amazed. “Wow, you speak all those languages?!”

I never corrected her.

Years later, working in advertising, I realized brands were making the exact same—still critical—mistake. Just with bigger budgets.

Growing up Guatemalan, branded as Mexican

Now to be fair, being labeled “Mexican” didn’t offend me. I love Mexican culture. I spent time in the homeland of El Chavo del Ocho, the show that defined my childhood (and which recently resurfaced on SNL featuring Bad Bunny as Quico), before moving to the U.S. at the age of 10. Mexico felt like visiting the neighborhood where so many of my favorite characters lived.

But Mexican Spanish isn’t Guatemalan Spanish. The words, the accent, the rhythm… everything shifts. Still, almost every Latino kid around me in school was Mexican, so I adapted. I picked up their slang and their jokes because that’s how you survive and belong.

I realize that while I grew up as a Guatemalan person, I’d long been lumped into a “Mexican” category. This same tension is exactly where marketers continue to go wrong.

One label, 18 countries

Here’s what many people in the U.S. still don’t fully grasp: There are 18 countries in Latin America where Spanish is spoken. And there are several other countries where Spanish isn’t the primary language. And yet in marketing decks, that variety gets flattened into a single convenient word: “Hispanic.”

One label to cover hundreds of millions of people with wildly different histories, foods, values and ways of speaking Spanish.

The differences aren’t cosmetic. A word that’s affectionate in one country can be vulgar in another. A joke that works in Mexico can offend in Colombia. A simple fruit, dish or holiday can mean something totally different depending on where your family comes from.

I’ve appreciated this variety—lived this variety—and I can often tell whether someone is Mexican, Guatemalan, Colombian or Argentinean after just a few sentences. And my brain automatically switches to fit. I even adjust my vocabulary to match theirs, to make the conversation smoother.

But my default is a neutral, Mexican-style Spanish because it’s what the market has unconsciously chosen. I call this adaptation the Art of Speaking Spanish in America: not just speaking the language itself, but choosing which Spanish to speak, and when.

I do this out of familiarity and respect. But here’s the thing: Almost no brands do this. Few probably even know it exists.

Translation is not a strategy

I’m going to say something which might shock some and upset others. But translation—viewed as a simple fix—is not strategic. Translation should not be employed in lieu of a multicultural marketing strategy as they will never be one and the same. And the number of times I’ve experienced smart marketers who convolute them… I can’t even begin. But suffice it to say that when I launched my career in advertising, my ESL memory came back.

I’d sit in meetings where marketers would say, “We need something for Hispanics,” as if that were a single, clearly defined audience. A persona with one set of beliefs and one shared childhood.

These people were solid marketers. But they’d never had to reinvent their voice to be understood. And perhaps that’s why they couldn’t realize how much nuance they were losing.

It’s also why they fall into the same obvious trap. Treating Spanish as a checkbox—taking an English script, translating it and calling it “Latino marketing.” Or picking a “neutral” voiceover—as if accents don’t signal identity, pride and history. Centering one country (often Mexico), while quietly erasing Central American, South American and Caribbean experiences.

The result is work that technically “reaches Hispanics” but which doesn’t really speak to many of us. And so, I can tell you without any ill will, that if your big insight is to “translate something into Spanish,” you don’t have a Latino strategy. You have subtitles.

What smart brands do differently

You don’t need to be an expert in every country. But you do need to stop pretending they’re interchangeable. Here’s where to start:

1. Stop using “Hispanic” as the finish line. Use it as a starting point. Who, specifically, are you talking to? Mexican families in California? Central Americans in Houston? Caribbean Latinos in New York? Precision isn’t a luxury; it’s how relevance happens.
2. Put the right people in the room. If you want to reach diverse Latino audiences, your teams should include Mexicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and others. Not just as translators at the end, but as creative and strategic decision-makers from the beginning.
3. Treat Spanish like creative craft, not production. Don’t just convert scripts. Adapt them. Ask: Would this joke land in Bogotá? Does this word mean something offensive in San Salvador? Can we express this idea in a way that feels inclusive but still human?
4. Be intentional with accents. Accents are branding. Know what you’re signaling.
5. Admit what you don’t know. If you only speak English, that’s okay. Partner with people who live inside these nuances every day. Listen when they tell you the “simple solution” you’re chasing is a problem.

My ESL teacher didn’t mean any harm—she just didn’t know better. One Latino kid, one label, one mental shortcut.

Brands don’t have that excuse. We have data. We have cultural experts. We have entire communities telling us exactly who they are if we’re willing to hear them as more than a single segment on a slide.

If you’re still talking to Latinos like they’re one uniform group, that’s not a lack of information. That’s a lack of curiosity. And in today’s market, lack of curiosity is expensive.

The brands that win will be the ones that understand this basic truth—The work doesn’t just need to be in Spanish. It needs to make someone think: They’re talking to me.