Ecuadorians in NYC: Language and Cultural Practices of a Community in the Diaspora

Abstract

Given that Ecuadorians are one of the largest groups of Hispanics living in New York, they have become a tight community that they now call little Ecuador. Although Ecuadorians living in the diaspora in NYC come from different parts of the country (mostly from the Andean region), they share the same cultural practices they performed in Ecuador that give them the sense of being in their country without bearing the instability and turmoil their country experiences. This shows how the group has fostered a sense of a multifaceted, multidimensional simultaneity between the host country and the motherland. The goal of this paper is to analyze the strategies Ecuadorian migrants use to validate their language and cultural practices to negotiate their identity as a group. Data for this paper come from ethnographic observations, semi-spontaneous conversations, oral interviews with members of the group, along with pictures taken while walking the community and participating in some of their events. Our study reveals that participants hold varying perceptions regarding their linguistic and cultural practices. However, it is noteworthy that they recognize these practices as a manifestation of Ecuadorianness, signifying a sense of solidarity among community members.

1. Introduction

The city of New York can be characterized by its superdiversity, a condition that is distinguished by “a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants who have arrived over the last decade” (Vertovec 2007, p. 1024). Indeed, New York city (NYC) is the largest city by population in the United States and, according to the Racial and Diversity Report of the 2020 US Census, the boroughs where our data were collected have the highest diversity index in the state of New York: Queens County, 76.9% (Queens) and Kings County, 74.8% (Brooklyn). Moreover, Ecuadorians are the fourth largest group of Hispanics living in New York City from more than fifteen Hispanic nationalities (Bergad 2022). According to Ramírez (2021), Ecuadorians have been living in the United States for almost a century. Furthermore, their numbers have increased in the last decades because of political and economic crisis in Ecuador. Data from the US Customs and Border Protection show a change in the migration pattern of 2021 and 2023 where not only single individuals, but more families have crossed the US borders than before. All this explains why Ecuadorians have become a tight community in New York city, which nowadays is called “little Ecuador”.

In a context of superdiversity such as it occurs in New York city, with a rich history of migration and a high index of diversity, understanding how collective identities are formed is important to identify the strategies that diasporic communities use to construct symbolically and discursively their new home in the host country (Alexander 2017). As previously established by researchers, diasporic groups are not homogeneous communities but contain multiple identities (Buttler 2001; Canagarajah and Silberstein 2012; Tseng and Hinrich 2021); in other words, these groups’ identities are “frequently based on the homogenization of difference” (Gubitosi and De Oliveira 2020) since “a diaspora community is not a homogeneous group of people who share the same country of origin, but instead is a group of people who frequently have different backgrounds, culture and traditions” (Gubitosi et al. 2020, p. 215). This is critical when studying diasporic groups since, as this paper will show, Ecuadorians in New York may not come from the same neighborhood, or the same city, but they know they are fellow countrymen sharing the same linguistic and cultural practices even when they are not in the motherland anymore, and any empathy and fellow feeling among people must be accomplished situationally through language (Canagarajah and Silberstein 2012; Gubitosi et al. 2020).

The notion of community in the diaspora, then, must be reconceptualized, since the idea of homeland is no longer the goal of a long return journey but rather a newly imagined society where people recreate their home away from home. Language has a crucial role in this task because it is the main instrument to “mediate how communities are imagined, constructed, and maintained on all dimensions” (Tseng and Hinrich 2021, p. 652). Language has the power to build new discourses and negotiate new identities that are essential for diasporas to survive.

In this new context, migrants need to rebuild their sense of belonging and establish a new purpose for them and their families. In this process “practices and traditions from home affect migrants’ adaptation by providing them with a sense of familiarity, comfort and stability” (Marino 2018, p. 264). For that reason, when studying diasporic communities, it is important to examine not only the language but also the cultural practices that a group uses as strategies to negotiate their identities, resist assimilation, and construct conviviality (Márquez Reiter and Patiño 2021) with other diasporas with whom they share the new territorialized space.

Following Blommaert’s (2010) seminal work on sociolinguistic of globalization, this paper analyzes language and cultural practices of a diasporic group of Ecuadorians living in New York City in the hope that this investigation will shed light on how diaspora groups accommodate themselves to the new place and negotiate their new identities in a new reimagined home away from home. We understand that language in diasporic contexts should be studied as a “practice”, as migrant people “may (re)localize, (re)negotiate and (re)make certain available linguistic and cultural resources to achieve their communicative aims.” (Barret and Dovchin 2019, p. xiii). In that regard, we try to answer the following questions: what linguistic and cultural practices are used by Ecuadorian migrants living in NYC to (re)negotiate their identity, and how they reinforce their Ecuadorianness in this multilingual and multidiverse environment.

Our paper is organized as follows: in the next section, we discuss our methodology and present our data; then, we offer the discussion of our results, and, finally, we present our conclusions.

2. Materials and Methods

For the present study, a multimodal methodology was implemented to gather data, which consisted of ethnographic fieldwork and sociolinguistic interviews (Canagarajah 2017; Zimmermann and Morgenthaler García 2007).

As a first step, ethnographic fieldwork was conducted between 2022 and 2023 in Brooklyn and Queens. Fieldwork revolved around Ecuadorian community gatherings and actively participated in different events such as Ecuavolley, soccer games, and cultural festivities (e.g., the Ecuadorian Parade, Inti Raymi celebration, concerts), as one of the researchers is a member of the community. These events illustrate how the Ecuadorian community desires to recreate their cultural practices and to connect in a way with their motherland while living in a new home. Additionally, the semiotic landscapes of these events were documented. Finally, informal conversations with different members of the community were carried out while participating in different celebrations. All participants were from the Ecuadorian Highlands, whose variety of Spanish is known as Ecuadorian Andean Spanish1 (EAS) (Toscano 1953; Haboud 1998; Haboud and de la Vega 2008; Muysken 2019). These conversations were not recorded, and they were documented as fieldwork notes. We took part in these celebrations so we could understand their significance to members of the community. Participation in these events allowed us a first-hand overview of the languages used in this community, with Spanish being predominant.

As the research unfolded, the second step consisted of collecting sociolinguistic interviews that were designed based on the work performed during the fieldwork. The interviews were designed following conversational modules that included hobbies and special memories of the participants, city description, city traditions, and culture. However, the order of the questions and modules was adapted depending on the participants’ main interests. The interviews have two versions, one in Spanish and one in English. Participants were asked their preferred language for the interview, and all of them picked Spanish as their preferred option. The researcher conducting the interviews belongs to the Ecuadorian community and shares the same Spanish variety (i.e., Ecuadorian Andean Spanish).

In the present study, we only include data in which participants talked about the linguistic and cultural practices of Ecuadorians in New York City in order to answer the research questions stated above. We followed a reflexivity approach when collecting and analyzing our data. This approach included two connected steps of prospective and retrospective reflexivity (Attia and Edge 2017; Edge 2011). The first moment, the interview with the participants, was conducted by one of the researchers, who is a member of the community; a second moment, the analysis and discussion of the data, also included a second researcher from another Latin American country.

Regarding language practices, participants were asked about (i) how they perceived the way Ecuadorians speak Spanish in New York City, (ii) if they perceived any difference among members of the Ecuadorian community, (iii) if they perceived any difference between the speech of Ecuadorians and members of other Latinx/Hispanic communities, and (iv) how they perceived the Spanish spoken in their homeland and New York City. Regarding cultural practices, participants reflected on (i) which cultural practices are performed in the city; (ii) how authentic those practices are in New York City; and (iii) if they had perceived any changes over the years regarding the cultural practices performed by Ecuadorians in New York City. The sociolinguistic interviews allowed for us to analyze migrant narratives of the Ecuadorian diaspora community in New York City.

A total of thirty participants (sixteen women and fourteen men) were interviewed after obtaining consent from them. Participants were recorded in places they felt comfortable (houses, public spaces, etc.) and time varied in length from 15 to 40 min. Participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 63 years old (median = 34 years old), and they had lived in the city from 5 months to 28 years with a median of 18 years. All participants came from the highlands of Ecuador, one was originally from the city of Biblián, and the rest of the participants came from the city of Ambato. They were recruited through researchers’ acquaintances and from fieldwork in which some members of the community were willing to take part in this study. Later, participants were divided into three groups: newcomers, Ecuadorians who had lived less than 5 years in NYC (Group 1, n = 10); long-standing migrants, participants who had lived more than five years in the city (Group 2, n = 15); and participants who were born and raised in NYC (Group 3, n = 5).

Table 1. Participant demographics.

Participant	Age	Gender	City of Origin	Group
007_HP_NY	27	M	Ambato	Group 1
010_KC_NY	25	F	Ambato	Group 1
011_FP_NY	45	M	Ambato	Group 1
012_AC_NY	45	F	Ambato	Group 1
013_GA_NY	38	F	Ambato	Group 1
014_RP_NY	41	F	Ambato	Group 1
015_AL_NY	47	M	Ambato	Group 1
017_KS_NY	21	M	Ambato	Group 1
018_AS_NY	37	F	Ambato	Group 1
030_AD_NY	30	M	Ambato	Group 1
001_JM_NY	31	F	Biblián	Group 2
009_AC_NY	26	M	Ambato	Group 2
024_KT_NY	22	M	Ambato	Group 2
025_NT_NY	32	F	Ambato	Group 2
033_MS_NY	33	F	Ambato	Group 2
002_SC_NY	37	M	Ambato	Group 2
003_MC_NY	30	F	Ambato	Group 2
004_MT_NY	63	F	Ambato	Group 2
005_GP-NY	38	F	Ambato	Group 2
006_JP_NY	40	M	Ambato	Group 2
008_LC_NY	47	F	Ambato	Group 2
016_JP_NY	32	M	Ambato	Group 2
019_FC_NY	44	M	Ambato	Group 2
021_DT_NY	39	M	Ambato	Group 2
022_SM_NY	39	F	Ambato	Group 2
020_JR_NY	23	M	New York	Group 3
023_CT_NY	18	M	New York	Group 3
026_YJ_NY	18	F	New York	Group 3
027_LS_NY	24	F	New York	Group 3
032_KC_NY	19	F	New York	Group 3

shows the demographic information of the participants who partook in the sociolinguistic interview. Participants who only partook in the fieldwork events remain anonymous.

The division of participants was considered due to the current immigrant situation in NYC. While conducting fieldwork, long-standing Ecuadorian migrants mentioned that there are new linguistic and cultural practices that have not been seen previously in the city. This also contrasts with the knowledge of one of the researchers, who has been conducting research in the city since 2018. We considered it important to explore how Ecuadorians with different lengths of time spent in the city perceived each other and to explore how Ecuadorian identity is constructed as a whole despite some differences that can be attributed to the performance of certain linguistic and cultural practices.

This multimodal approach gives us a more accurate understanding of the complex and multidimensional lives of people in the diaspora. In the case of Ecuadorians in New York City, the use of different data allows for us to better understand how they manage to collectively build their Ecuadorian identity while at the same time negotiating it with the Hispanic/Latinx identity they need to live with in the new country.

3. Results

In this section, we will present the language and cultural practices found in our data. Culture is not a fixed but flexible and variable construct (Gutiérrez 2002), and practices can be understood as individual habits or collective routines that allow for investigators to analyze the “unconscious or automatic activities embedded in taken-for-granted routines” (Swidler 2001, p. 84). Therefore, cultural practices are common perceptions of how people routinely behave within a community (Frese 2015); they are multidimensional and involve sociohistorical considerations about people’s experiences (Gubitosi et al. 2023).

Several researchers have pointed out that people in the diaspora utilize their languages as one of the most important mechanisms of their semiotic system, emphasizing fluid repertoire use, including polylingualism and translanguaging practices (García and Li 2015; MacSwan 2017; Pennycook 2010; Tseng and Hinrich 2021). In other words, any competent language speaker has at their disposal a series of linguistic resources for highlighting different aspects of their identities according to the situation (Arias Álvarez and Gubitosi 2020; Joseph 2011; Llamas and Watt 2010; Beswick 2014). As stated above, diasporic communities need to negotiate new identities that reflect their new realities. However, while doing so, the sense of the homeland needs to be preserved and re-signified. Indeed, as Tseng and Hinrich (2021) point out, diasporas comprise awareness and recollection of the past as well as evolving practices. As the following participant from Group 1 attests, everything in the community looks like Ecuador:

• Excerpt 1:

Interviewer: ¿Y cuando llegó acá, cómo le vio a la comunidad ecuatoriana? ¿Ve que se ha mantenido la cultura, las tradiciones, o que han perdido?

“And when you arrived here, what did you think about the Ecuadorian community? Do you think that culture, traditions are maintained, or they were lost?”

Interviewee: No, lo mismo, lo mismo que Ecuador. Aquí la gente se porta así como somos ecuatorianos y hace la misma tradición, lo mismo de allá de Ecuador.

“No, it is the same than in Ecuador. Here people behave like we are Ecuadorians and have the same traditions, the same than those there in Ecuador.”

[015_AL_NY]

However, this perception of this newcomer participant is not the same as other members of the community, as the following excerpt shows:

• Excerpt 2:

Interviewee: Siguen llegando, ah ah, llegaron y siguen llegando.

“They keep arriving. They arrived and continue arriving.”

Interviewer: ¿Y eso ha afectado como se ve el barrio, los negocios que hay en el barrio?

“And that has affected how the neighborhood looks, the business that exist in the neighborhood?”

Interviewee: Sí, sí afectó porque nosotros, como decir, estábamos acostumbrados como decir al al al estilo de aquí, que no no se veía así como decir en las calles gente exponiéndose a los peligros de la calle o vendedores ambulantes en la calle.

“Yes, yes, it affected it because we were, how I would say it, used to, how I would say it, used to the style of our life here, we haven’t seen like people on the street open to street dangers or street vendors.”

[002_SC_NY]

What the previous paragraphs demonstrate is that people need to continuously negotiate their Ecuadorianness in the big city: What does it mean to live and adapt to the new home in a superdiverse, global city such as New York without assimilating? What does it mean to be an Ecuadorian living away from Ecuador? The newcomers bring back what the long-standing migrants were able to forget, such as the street food vendors. Nevertheless, because people share the same space, newcomers and long-standing migrants need to negotiate their cohabitation (Márquez Reiter and Patiño 2021) in a peaceful manner that Rampton (2015) describes as conviviality. As the following excerpt shows, the participant acknowledges the arrival of new people helps the group to “reinforce” its Ecuadorian identity:

• Excerpt 3

Interviewee: Y creo que ehm de verdad eh, es mejor es se está reinforcing the cultura aquí, y está, ah ah… porque también ha venido mucha gente de Ecuador. Entonces como que, eh, hay más gente de Ecuador. Entonces maybe cuando hacen los festivales y todo eso se llena más la gente, entonces I think it’s been more reinforce right now. Yeah

“And I think uhm truly uhm it is better, it is reinforcing culture here and is… Uhm… because so many people have arrived from Ecuador. Then, it is like there are more people from Ecuador. Then, maybe when they celebrate festivals and everything there are a lot of people, then, I think it’s been more reinforcement right now. Yeah.”

[032_KC_NY]

As Ecuadorian community members face their reality of being one of the many Latinos in the superdiverse city, they need to close ranks and strengthen their in-group solidarity. For this reason, and despite any differences they may have, the long-standing members of the community value what the newcomers have brought to the community, and how their own lives have also improved through the new market opportunities the newcomers have brought with them. Indeed, as these participants express, having more Ecuadorian people relocate to live in the community encourages supermarkets to bring more Ecuadorian products to satisfy their increased demand:

• Excerpt 4

Interviewer: ¿qué es algo que no había antes y que ahora les llamó la atención?

“Is there anything that was not here before and you notice you can have it now?”

Interviewee 1: Bueno, puedo decir cuando ya empecé yo a comprar cosas. Yo no veía el higo, no lo veía en cada supermercado. Pero ahora es en todo lado.

“Well, I can say that when I started to buy things, I did not see figs in the supermarkets. But now they are everywhere.”

Interviewee 2: o los chochos.

“Or lupini beans”

Interviewee 1: los chochos no lo veíamos, ahora los ponen en bolsitas como en Ecuador.

“We did not see lupini beans, now they put them in small bags like in Ecuador.”

Interviewer: ¿eso lo ven como algo bueno?

“Do you think it is a good thing?”

Interviewee 2: yo creo que es algo bueno para el país de uno también porque está representando lo que nosotros somos de la cultura que nosotros venimos y no se pierde

“I think it is something good for our country; also, because it represents what we are, the culture we are from, so it does not get lost.”

Interviewee 1—[025_NT_NY]

Interviewee 2—[006_JP_NY]

In parallel with cultural practices, community members must confront how their linguistic variety has changed and now it is different from the one spoken in their homeland. In our study, participants’ remarks during interviews unveiled patterns concerning the linguistic practices of Ecuadorian community members in New York City. All participants consistently observed that the Spanish spoken in NYC differs significantly from the Spanish spoken in Ecuador, the “accent” being the main distinction. When further examining the concept of “accent”, participants highlighted variations in the pronunciation of sounds like <r> and <ll>, as exemplified by words such as “ca[ɹ]o” or “[ʒ]uvia” (see Haboud and de la Vega 2008 for further details on consonant variation in EAS). Additionally, they noted the usage of distinctive words such as “ñaño” (referring brother or friend), “mijin” (meaning friend), or “achachay” (a Kichwa loan word signifying “it is cold”). Furthermore, participants recognized discourse markers like “ve” (see Zambrano Ojeda 2023 for an overview), and grammatical constructions emphasizing politeness such as “dame limpiando la mesa” (lit. give-me cleaning the table) (see Haboud and de la Vega 2008). Beyond these features specific to Ecuadorian Andean Spanish, participants also observed the recent presence of the Kichwa language in various parts of the city. These observations have been meticulously categorized and are presented in

Table 2. Ecuadorian linguistic practices in NYC.

Linguistic Practices	% of Mentions by Participant
Pronunciation	100
Ecuadorian lexicon	100
Presence of Kichwa in the city	80
Ecuadorian discourse markers	73
Politeness constructions	27

.

As we can observe in Table 2, all participants consistently highlighted the significance of the pronunciation and the lexicon. Notably, 80% of participants acknowledge the presence of the Kichwa language in diverse settings, including parks, schools, trains, among others. Additionally, 73% of respondents referenced the use of discourse markers, while 27% noted the employment of politeness structures. These linguistic practices serve as a dual purpose within the Ecuadorian community. Firstly, they facilitate the recognition of community membership, effectively distinguishing Ecuadorians from other Hispanic/Latinx communities. Secondly, these linguistic features play a crucial role in differentiating between newcomers and long-standing Ecuadorian community members.

A participant from Group 2 exemplifies how she perceived the way Ecuadorians spoke when she arrived, and the processes through which her variety has changed over the years:

• Excerpt 5:

Interviewee: porque uno, como uno bueno apenas llega ¿no? Y sí habla, se habla difere- o se habla como decir la manera de allá, pues y aquí sí sí cambia un poquito por lo que a veces te pega aquí como decir ‘oh’, ‘oh my god’ ‘sorry’, y pues allá es como decir se viene con ‘espera ve’, o sea el ‘espera ve’ ‘¿dónde estás ve?’ ‘ya ya, simón, simón’, o sea ya, y bueno, aquí dices ‘¿dónde estás? ¿En qué parte estás?’, o sea ya, o sea ya no el el ‘ve’, [o] sea ya le… aquí le perdiste al ‘ve ‘.

“Because, when one recently arrives… we speak differently, we speak the same way as there, and here yes, yes, it changes a little bit because sometimes we incorporate ‘oh’, ‘oh my god’, ‘sorry’, and there, we come with ‘wait ve’, it is like the ‘wait ve’, where are you ve?’ ‘ya ya, ok, ok’, it is like… and well, here you say ‘where are you?’ ‘where are you?’, it is like, here you lose ‘ve’.”

[003_MC_NY]

The participant reflects on how her speech has changed, which involves a process of incorporating new words and phrases while losing features of her Spanish variety, such as the use of “ve”, or the word “simón”, which means “yes”. The discourse marker “ve” has also been mentioned as a feature that characterizes the speech of the Ecuadorian community in general, but it is mostly linked to newcomers or Ecuadorians in the homeland. Even though participants in this study mentioned that one of the reasons to modify their speech is their perception of certain features that are considered “wrong” or “incorrect”, participants still use them, and in some cases, they have reincorporated them in their speech:

• Excerpt 6:

Interviewee: […] Y bueno últimamente he comenzado a usar otra vez, bueno por textos ‘¿dónde estás ve?’ Ya, o sea pero por texto, pero eso digo, no no sé porque otra vez volvió, pero yo digo cuando apenas llegué, sí era eso ‘¿qué más ve? ¿y dónde estás ve? ¿y qué haces ve?

“[…] Well, recently I have been using ‘ve’ again, in text messages ‘where are you ve?’ But in text messages. I do not know why it came back, but as I mentioned when I arrived, it was always ‘what’s up ve?’ ‘where are you ve?’ ‘what are you doing ve?’”

[003_MC_NY]

Several researchers have pointed out that Ecuadorian Andean Spanish has several features that are not considered standard and prestigious (see Haboud 1998; Flores Mejía 2014 for an overview). Language ideologies have an important role in informing people’s decisions about which linguistic variety should be spoken, when, and how frequently (Arias Álvarez and Gubitosi 2020). As a group that needs to negotiate their language with other Hispanic groups living in the city, Ecuadorian migrants tend to hide some features they are aware of, and they consider are not respected as an educated and standard variety. As observed in Table 2, all participants mentioned that most of the features are related to “la pronunciación” (the pronunciation) and “las palabras” (the words). In this regard, Zentella (2017) mentions that Latin American immigrants arrive to the U.S. with notions of “good” and “bad” Spanish that, on one hand, reproduce ideologies towards “standard language” and, on the other hand, reinforce linguistic insecurities causing speakers to consider their varieties inferior compared to others. In the case of Ecuadorians, we found that these ideologies were present in all participants, including participants in Group 3, which shows how the perception towards Ecuadorian Andean Spanish is reproduced and transmitted in New York City. One of the participants in Group 3 comments that such features are considered “broken-up Spanish”:

• Excerpt 7:

Interviewee: O sea, Broken up Spanish es… como una frase ‘apúrate ve’. O sea, ese tipo no es español, so es broken up Spanish, porque es como… corto el español. O la palabra ‘mijín’, eso en español español no hay, pero todos lo usamos. Ese es el broken up Spanish.

“Broken up Spanish is… like a phrase ‘hurry up ve’. That phrase is not Spanish, so it is broken-up Spanish because it is like… Spanish is short. Or the word ‘cause it is like… Spanish is short. Or the word ‘mijín’, which does not exist in Spanish, but everyone uses it. That is broken-up Spanish.”

[014_KT_NY]

The participant reflects that some of the phrases or lexical words used by Ecuadorians, such as “apúrate ve” or “mijin”, are not part of the Spanish language. However, it should be noted that these features were registered during the interview and the fieldwork. Later in the conversation, the same participant recognizes that these features are used, but in specific contexts:

• Excerpt 8:

Ah, es dependiendo de la… del nivel que estás, entre con amigos, con confianza. Uno recién conociéndole no le vas a decir ‘hola mijín’, So, solo es como cuando ya te conoces un cierto tiempo, ahí es donde ya es la confianza más… eh, pero más que yo… o sea yo uso… ehm, hacemos un ejemplo, un chiste, cuando está frío decimos ‘oh, está achachay’. So, algo así que solo los dos entendemos que nadie más lo entiende, ese es un tipo de frase que usamos.

“Ah, it depends on the… level of relationship you have, among friends. When you meet someone new, you are not going to tell them ‘hi mijin’. So, it is only used when you already know someone, when you have a certain degree of trust… eh, but I… I use… eh, this is an example, a joke, when it is cold, we say ‘oh, it is achachay’. So, something like we are the only ones that understand, nobody else understands it, that is the type of phrases we use.”

[014_KT_NY]

Language, as an important semiotic resource, allows for our participants to exhibit their in-group solidarity and membership (Arias Álvarez and Gubitosi 2020) while negotiating their Ecuadorian identity with other Hispanic groups by using their linguistic resources as their own agency.

4. Discussion

As we have previously discussed, cultural and language practices are crucial elements for people in the diaspora to negotiate their identities and express their in-group solidarity, even when Ecuadorian Spanish speakers feel their variety does not have the same prestige as other Spanish varieties. The following excerpt shows how these participants will consciously change the form they use depending on who they are talking to:

• Excerpt 9:

Interviewer: para pedir cosas, si necesitas sal, ¿cómo pides?

“To ask for anything, how do ask it?”

Interviewee 1: cuando ya compartimos con gente diferente que no somos los cuatro. “Sí, mira, por favor, puedes pasar”

“When we already shared [something] with different people we [would say] ‘well, look, please, could you give [me some salt]’”

Interviewee 2: deme pasado la sal por favor, gracias.

“Would you please give the salt, thanks” [lit. “give-me passing some salt”]

Interviewee 1—[025_NT_NY]

Interviewee 2—[006_JP_NY]

This particular use of the verb dar+gerund to express politeness is a special feature of Ecuadorian Andean Spanish (Haboud and de la Vega 2008; Haboud and Puma Ninacuri, forthcoming) that its speakers only use when among people of the same origin. This is also something that people value about the newcomers, as they bring to the long-standing community a fresh wave of language use among the children, as this participant asserts:

• Excerpt 10:

Interviewee: voy a dar el ejemplo de mis hijos. Los dos, como los dos han estado aquí en la escuela desde los tres años y solo han… ellos hablan español, entienden español, pero no querían, o sea no querían hablar aquí en la casa. So, ellas iban a la escuela, aprendieron inglés […] Pero cuando ya llegaron niños de Ecuador, como hace tres años y la abuelita empezó a cuidar a los otros niños recién llegados más mis hijos, ya se juntaron que los dos agarraron al español, les hablaban en inglés, pero luego se daban en cuenta que no les entendían y nosotros decía ‘no hablan inglés, ellos hablan español’. So, ahí se dieron en cuenta que como no hablan inglés y que tenían que hablar español.

“I am going to give you my kids’ example. Both of them, since they have been here at school when they were three years old and they only… they speak Spanish, understand Spanish but they did not want like did not want to speak here at home. So, they went to school and learned English […] But when the kids from Ecuador came here, like three years ago and the grandmother started taking care of them, my kids started to catch Spanish; they spoke in English but then they realized nobody understood them and we told them: ‘They do not speak English, they speak Spanish,’ so then they started to speak Spanish.”

[001_JM_NY]

Regarding how the community has changed, many of our participants noticed how the community has been growing these past years with the arrival of newcomers from Ecuador. They are now a visible group not only in the neighborhood but also in schools as the following participant expresses:

• Excerpt 11:

Interviewee: Eso ha pasado en el últ- los últimos tres años se podría decir. Especialmente porque, por ejemplo, cuando yo empecé… usemos dos años, tres, porque cuando yo llegué a trabajar en una escuela que yo trabaja- trabajaba en una escuela que está a diez minutos de acá. Yo cuando llegué el primer año a trabajar, era la escuela casi la mayormente era boricuas y dominicanos, no, dominicanos… todos los niños casi eran dominicanos; ecuatorianos, colombianos, era bien poquito. La escuela es como de 100 niños 103, pero ya estos dos últimos años la escuela se llenó vuelta solo de ecuatorianos, solo de ecuatorianos y ya los dominicanos ya eran solamente unos que, cuatro o cinco contados por salón, el resto era puro ecuatoriano

“That has happened in the last… the last three years one can say. Especially, because, for instance, when I started, let’s say, two, three years… because when I started to work at a school –I worked in a school that is 10 min away. When I arrived the first year, the school was mostly Boricuas and Dominicans, no, Dominicans… all the children were mostly Dominicans; Ecuadorians, Colombians there were a few. The school is like 100, 103 children; but now these two years, the school was filled up only with Ecuadorians, only Ecuadorians and now the Dominican kids were only four, five kids in each classroom, the remaining students were Ecuadorians.”

[001_JM_NY]

This last wave of migration also included people from indigenous communities, which was one of the significant changes that long-standing migrants noticed in the Ecuadorian community, as the next participant comments:

• Excerpt 12:

Interviewer: ¿Y a los niños ecuatorianos?

“And Ecudorian kids?”

Interviewee: La mayoría hablan, también hablan español y… y quechua.

“Most of them speak, also speak Spanihs and… and Quechua.”

Interviewer: Ah ya, ¿también?

“Ah, also?”

Inteerviewee: Sí, hablan aquí en la mayo-, en la escuelita de mi niño está mucha gente de Ambato que es de de de Quisapincha, que son indígenas. Y lo hablan Kichwa. Y Entonces, pero yo no entiendo eso y siempre les escucho que juegan ahí entre ellos, sí.

“Yes, they speak here in most of… in my kid’s school there are a lot of people from Ambato who are from Quisapincha, they are indigenous. And they speak Kichwa. But I do not understand it, and I always hear them when they play among themselves.”

Interviewer: Ah, ¿pero eso es reciente o siempre ha habido eso?

“Is that recent or has it always been like that?”

Interviewee: Este año ha sido… Mmm, hace dos años ha sido bien frecuente que están muchos niños llegando de Ecuador y solo se comunican en en quechua y muchos padres no hablan español.

“This year has been… Mmm, since two years ago it has been frequent that many kids are coming from Ecuador and they only speak Quechua, and most of their parents do not speak Spanish.”

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The presence of Kichwa in schools, as well as other public spaces such as parks, streets, restaurants, or train stations, was highlighted by long-standing Ecuadorians and corroborated by one of the researchers while conducting fieldwork. At first, this stirred up some controversies between long-standing and newcomer migrants. For example, 80% of participants mentioned that children were speaking Spanish with an Ecuadorian accent, which was not considered “correct” due to the ideologies towards this variety mentioned earlier. However, because they needed to forge a new identity of what it means to be an Ecuadorian in NYC, people accepted the new group and integrated them into a new, large community. This has changed the cultural and linguistic practices of Ecuadorians, and our participants now recognize being part of one big Ecuadorian community in which they feel represented, as one of our participants explains, “we are all Ecuadorians”.

Previous images taken during fieldwork show two of the cultural events with which the Ecuadorian community celebrates its heritage. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the Ecuadorian Parade, and Figure 3 and Figure 4 show the Inti Raymi celebration. Both celebrations took place in Queens in 2022. During these events, food, music, and traditional dances from Ecuador were highlighted by participants. They mentioned that they felt proud of being Ecuadorian, and these festivities let them feel like they were back home. Additionally, participants pointed out that regardless of being from different cultural and geographical backgrounds (e.g., Coast, Highlands, or Amazon region), all Ecuadorians are represented there.

Similarly, participants in the interviews indicate the importance of maintaining cultural practices in the diaspora:

• Excerpt 13

Bueno, como somos… [o] sea del mismo país yo creo que la cultura de nosotros transportamos ¿no? a cualquier lado. O sea, no nos contagiamos de la cultura de aquí… Nosotros somos nosotros mismos y ya. Creo que… porque igual en en el idioma, en la comida, en las costumbres siempre tratamos de ser los mismos, tanto aquí como allá

“Well, we are… we are from the same country, I believe that we move our culture with us, anywhere. We do not assimilate to the culture from here… we are who we are, and that is it. I believe… the same in the language, food, traditions, we always try to be the same, here and there.”

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• Excerpt 14

[…] antes no habían, como un- hacían como una vez al año [desfiles de ecuatorianos], festejaban la cualquier cosa, pero ahora ya están más ecuatorianos que hacen más, tratan de tener como la la cultura más, o traer la cultura de allá para acá.

“[…] Before, there were no… they organize once per year [Ecuadorian parades], they celebrate anything, but now there are more Ecuadorians who organize more activities, they try to keep more the culture… or bring the culture from there to here.”

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Cultural practices have been present in the Ecuadorian community for many years; however, long-standing participants mentioned that those practices are becoming stronger nowadays. Participants highlight that cultural events are becoming more frequent in the city and that many Ecuadorians are getting involved in those celebrations. Similarly, other events such as Ecuavolley games are now played in different parts of the city, as mentioned by participants in the following excerpts:

• Excerpt 15

Yo me acuerdo cuando yo vine a vivir aquí en Queens, era poco [el Ecuavolley]. Cuando íbamos a Flushing no había mucho, muchas canchas de [Ecua]volley no habían… eran, eran limitadas. So, ahorita usted va por todo el parque Flushing, en cada espacio que hay, está puesto canchas de [Ecua]volley.

“I remember when I came to live here in Queens, it was… When we went to Flushing there was not, there were not enough [Ecua]volley fields… it was scarce. So, now you go to Flushing Park, there is a [Ecua]volley field in every space.”

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• Excerpt 16

Aquí en Brooklyn, en las [canchas] de Madison, ahí era la primera cancha como decir que nosotros jugábamos. Te estoy hablando del 2000. Era la única cancha porque ni siquiera había campeonatos ni nada, a veces ni gente pa’ jugar había. […] fue aumentando con los años, con los años fue aumentando más y más, hasta que ya se abrieron campeonatos y todo.

“Here in Brooklyn, in the Madison courts, there was the first court where we used to play. That was around 2000. That was the only court, there were no tournaments or anything similar, and sometimes there were not enough people to play with. […] Over the years it has increased more and more, and now there are tournaments.”

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Participants consider these spaces as a good opportunity to preserve, transmit to future generations, and promote their heritage in the diaspora. Additionally, these spaces, while promoting their culture, also serve as spaces to promote Spanish use.

5. Conclusions

As we observed through this paper, Ecuadorians living in New York City have different perceptions of their linguistic and cultural practices present in the community. This research has shown different patterns of linguistic and cultural practices. However, all of them recognized that they contribute to reinforce their Ecuadorianness. Regarding linguistic practices, Ecuadorians are aware that they have changed the way they used to speak, and one of the reasons for doing so is the negative ideologies towards their Spanish variety. Zentella (2017) mentions that in-group distinctions and tensions among members of diaspora communities do not start in the United States, but these begin in their home countries. Notions such as “we speak wrong”, “our Spanish is bad”, and “other varieties are better” were frequently mentioned among participants. In fact, one of the participants created a new label called “broken-up Spanish”, referring to particular features of Ecuadorian Spanish. Even though participants expressed overt negative attitudes, Ecuadorians continue using those linguistic features as a key component of their identity as a group, as all participants mentioned that they keep some of the linguistic characteristics to differentiate themselves from other Hispanic/Latinx communities in New York City. Moreover, newcomer members bring linguistic repertoires that long-standing members do not have any longer. While some long-standing Ecuadorians argued that newcomers should adapt their Spanish variety, other participants praised that newcomers have recovered linguistic features of their Ecuadorian Spanish that they had lost over the years. Similarly, cultural practices have been strengthened in the community, in which newcomers have also influenced this (re)construction of Ecuadorian identity in the diaspora. Ecuadorian linguistic and cultural components serve as an expression of Ecuadorianness; showing solidarity among members of the community and constructing conviviality with newcomers with whom they now share a new home shows the important role that language and culture have in diaspora communities.