¡Hablas En Español, O Te Vas! / Speak Spanish Or Leave!

About

¡Hablas En Español, O Te Vas! or Speak Spanish Or Leave! refers to a phrase said by the TV Presenter/Lawyer Ana María Polo in the Caso Cerrado program when a participant refused to speak in Spanish. The viral video of her reaction became a meme on social media, being used as a soundtrack for trends on TikTok and other social platforms.

Origin

The program Caso Cerrado^[1] is presented by Dr. Ana María Polo and televised by Telemundo, an open channel on North American TV that is broadcast in Spanish. It addresses family issues that will be resolved by the presenter Dra Polo. She assumes the position of judge, analyzing case by case before making the final decision. On February 2021, an episode of the program went viral because the presenter shouted at a young woman born in Colombia who insisted on speaking in English. YouTube^[2] channel @PackTV2 shared the clip (see below) on February 22nd, 2021, in which Dra Polo shouts at the teen in Spanish "Ni good afternoon ni hello, aquí se habla en español. Tu nombre es Luna y aquí hablas en español." The phrase is translated as "Neither good afternoon nor hello, speak Spanish in here. Your name is Luna and you speak Spanish here." The video garnered 7.5 million views and 156,000 likes in two years (seen below).

Spread

Twitter^[3] user @cuevas_dawson shared the clip of Dra Polo confronting the teen on February 2nd, 2021, receiving 3.1 million views and 11,700 likes in two years (seen below).

Wow man…!!

Aquí se habla en español. pic.twitter.com/RqUeTw4m3T

— J.C.Cuevas Dawson (@cuevas_dawson) February 2, 2021

Through the years, the phrase said by Dra Polo on the program was repurposed as a message to embrace Latino culture and is often used as a catchphrase meme on social media. For instance, on October 19th, 2021, Twitter^[4] user @ferchu_finish retweeted an interview clip of the Argentinian Victoria Alonso answering a question in Spanish and added the text "ningún hello ni ningún good afternoon, aquí tu hablas español." The post received 34,700 likes and 4,116 retweets in two years (seen below).

ningún hello ni ningún good afternoon
aquí tu hablas español 😡 https://t.co/pQNkPgz75q

— slim thick ✨ (@ferchu_finish) October 19, 2021

Another user also shared the same phrase by retweeting a @WhatsApp post on the platform that says "Hello." The post garnered 21,000 likes and 2,631 retweets since uploaded to Twitter^[4] by @Jaime_Lopmart on October 4th, 2021 (seen below).

"¡Hablas En Español, O Te Vas!" TikTok Trend

The clip from the Caso Cerrado program was reposted by several accounts on TikTok, inspiring lip-sync trend videos. TikTok^[5] user @busto92 reposted the moment on March 9th, 2021, and the post served as soundtrack audio for 27,300 other videos on the platform. For example, @kimberly.loaiza shared a comedy skit on TikTok^[6] on May 9th, 2021, using the audio to joke about a friend that had their first English class. The post (below, left) garnered 36.4 million plays and 5.4 million likes in two years. Another TikToker used the audio for a skit about dating someone who still hasn't learned Spanish after a long time. @kbandkarla's TikTok^[7] (below, right) garnered 2.6 million plays and 519,900 likes since it was posted on February 6th, 2023.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References