Many Latinos today are well aware of the stigmatizing “no sabo kid” stereotype, a label attached to Hispanic individuals who aren’t fluent in Spanish. The phrase has long carried a patronizing edge within first- and second-generation Hispanic communities — and Gainesville is no exception.
Spanish is the most widely spoken language in the city outside English. Nearly 29,000 residents — 7.35% of Gainesville’s population — speak it at home. It’s spoken by about 70% of Latinos across the U.S.
"No sabo" is a grammatically incorrect conjugation of the Spanish verb “saber,” which means “to know.” The phrase roughly translates to “I don’t know,” and it became associated with heritage speakers whose language abilities reflect a unique position between two cultures. Over time, it became a way to discredit Latinos with broken Spanish, implying they weren’t Latino enough or culturally integrated enough to belong to either their heritage community or mainstream American life.
At the CollegeBoard-hosted 2024 Preparate Conference, a national event uniting educators and advocates in support of Latino students, attendees described the phrase plainly: "language shaming," "broken Spanish" and "criticism from your own people that you're not Hispanic enough."
Nearly 14% of Gainesville's population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and the phrase still carries enough weight to instill embarrassment among non-fluent Latinos today.
Daniela Velazquez, a 20-year-old University of South Florida biomedical science junior and the daughter of two Colombian-born parents, knows that weight firsthand.
Velazquez grew up in Broward County, where not speaking Spanish as a second-generation Latino was common enough to go unremarked. She didn't feel the full force of the label until she left for college, she said.
She was shocked to feel differentiated by her own people, and her attempts at speaking Spanish were met with distaste.
"It’s never super blatant or super rude," Velazquez said. "It was always like, 'Oh…’, or like, 'OK, sure…' Minimal comments that are rooted in criticism."
The sharpest moments, she said, came from other first-generation students who questioned whether she could call herself Colombian at all.
Rather than retreat, Velazquez said the label became fuel.
"I am going to learn Spanish just to prove you wrong," she said. "The haters are your motivators."
Cultural stressors have widened the Spanish language gap among U.S.-born Latinos. Assimilation pressures, English-only schooling policies and immigrant parents who choose to speak English at home to protect their children from discrimination have quietly severed the linguistic chain across generations. Mexican American children were physically beaten in schools for speaking Spanish, and California, once a bilingual state, stripped bilingual representation as Hispanics lost political power.
Generation Z, which has reshaped advocacy through social media, is rewriting that story. Young Latinos have used TikTok to push back on Spanish-language shaming and redefine what it means to be Hispanic in the U.S. The hashtag #nosabo surpassed 644 million video views on the platform in 2023.
Some heritage speakers have reclaimed the label entirely, drawing attention to their unique position as bridges between two cultures — what researchers sometimes call a third culture, not fully belonging either but shaped by both.
Velazquez never let the gap in fluency convince her the culture wasn't hers.
"I still know the food, I still know the music, I still know how to dance," she said. "Culture is multifaceted."
That sentiment echoes what Skylar Paxton, a University of California, Irvine student journalist, argued in 2022: Cultural identity is defined by the way one consumes a parent's food, joins a cultural community or dances to ancestral music — not by the ability to conjugate a verb correctly.
The idea resonates with Mia Quiñones, a 21-year-old UF applied physiology and kinesiology senior. Though she grew up in an English-only household with Puerto Rican roots going back two generations, Quiñones spoke Spanish every day last summer studying abroad in the Galápagos Islands with a host family who spoke no English. The “no sabo” label, she said, has never broken her drive.
"It's still worth it for me to try, because I really crave that part of my culture," Quiñones said.
The label itself doesn’t bother her, she said, but feeling patronized does.
"I take it in a very lighthearted way," she said. "I think it's kind of funny, and I do identify with it. But [people] definitely look at me a different way, as if I haven't tried."
Quiñones said she wishes she had grown up speaking Spanish at home to better connect with her heritage. But despite her limitations, she’ll continue to push herself to learn the language, she added.
“I really do love my culture and would like to be able to experience it to the fullest extent,” she said.
Lauren Poe, the president and CEO of the Greater Gainesville International Center, has spent years watching immigrant and multicultural families build new lives in North Central Florida.
A two-time UF alumnus with a bachelor's in history and a master's in education, Poe served as Gainesville's mayor from 2016 to 2023 before taking the helm of the center, which works to connect international residents with the resources and community networks they need to put down roots.
Families who thrive in their new environment tend to share a common trait, he said, becoming the ultimate catalyst for forming a third culture.
"They have one foot very firmly in Gainesville and being an American," Poe said, "but also the other foot firmly — and I'd say proudly — identifying with their ancestral culture and what they brought with them.”
Contact Aaron Zagal Yaji at azagal@alligator.org. Follow him on X @azagalyaji.
Aaron Zagal Yaji is a Public Relations and Economics freshman in his first semester at The Alligator. He covers El Caimán's metro beat. In his free time, he enjoys going to the beach (or reminiscing about it), cooking Peruvian food, and squandering his money on golden shiny things.
