Do You Speak American? (2005)

Episode 3

Now on the left coast, the series spotlights Spanglish – a hybrid of Spanish and English – with a segment on Patricia López, a video jockey on the local Latino television program Mex to the Max. It also explores Chicano – the thriving, distinct street talk of the Los Angeles Latino community – taking a trip to an inner-city park packed with urban teens accompanied by linguist Carmen Fought. MacNeil visits classrooms in which young students learn to translate Ebonics and the informal versions of English spoken at home into the classroom English they will need to succeed in the workforce. MacNeil gets a lesson himself in surfer-, skateboarder- and skater-speak. He meets up with screenwriters Amy Heckerling and Winnie Holtzman for a discussion about the impact of Hollywood on our language; comedian Steve Harvey, who says he sounds silly speaking anything other than “African-American,” but well understands the need for African-American children to be “bilingual”; and Cliff Nass, a Stanford University professor who poses thoughtful questions about the potential societal impact of voice-activated computers.