A Native Spanglish Speaker, Bill Santiago Is the First Born Of

Bill Santiago – Bio Bill Santiago is the first born of at least four children. He became a standup after narrowly escaping a career in journalism, facing the fact that as a comedian he was funny, but as a reporter he was a joke. It’s been said he was born to Puerto Rican immigrants, which is technically untrue, as Puerto Ricans are US citizens. Although, he’s got an uncle who was once deported to the Bronx. With the premiere of his first television special, “Comedy Central Presents: Bill Santiago,” he won over fans nationwide with his dead-on observations about Spanglish – “twice the vocabulary and half the grammar!” and his beloved catchphrase “¡Porque because!” Notably, his special premiered May 5, Cinco de Mayo, in a shrewd programming decision to attract a wider Latino audience, despite his not being Mexican (allowable under the “close enough” clause in his contract). Soon after, Santiago landed his first book deal, to write “Pardon My Spanglish,” based on his act and promising laughs for Latinos and the Latino-curious. He has also appeared on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” Comedy Central’s “Premium Blend,” “Que Locos,” “American Latino,” and is scheduled to appear on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” this fall. Last year, he hosted the Latin Grammy Person of the Year Award ceremony, honoring Juan Luis Guerra (the tallest Dominican he’s ever met), at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. Formerly an awarding-winning journalist (despite his worst efforts), he contributed regularly to newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer. While living in Puerto Rico, he worked as a staff writer for the San Juan Star. He was also a humor columnist for Mother Jones magazine online. When not on stage, he enjoys curling up with a good book or a well-read, Spanglish-speaking woman. He lives in New York City. Praise for Bill’s standup: ‘Playfully explores the subject of biculturalism’ -- New York Post “Like George Carlin in his prime, Santiago is expert at honing in on the way language reveals society’s bizarre fixations.” -- The San Francisco Examiner For more information, video and clips, and to see Bill’s updated calendar of appearances: www.billsantiago.com www.myspace/billsantiagocomedy www.pardonmyspanglish.com Printed from the East Bay Express Web site: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/artsculture/el_reconquistador/Content?oid=627759 El Reconquistador Comedian Bill Santiago wants to see your salsa moves. By Rachel Swan January 23, 2008 Wiry, curly-haired, Puerto Rican comedian Bill Santiago describes himself as a failed reporter who found his voice in stand-up, though he still has a reporter's curiosity about culture and a writerly love of words. Hence, Santiago's fascination with Spanglish, which he sees as one of the most pervasive signs of Latinization in the United States. He cited several examples in a Comedy Central special that aired in 2006, including new conjugations of the verb "to google" ("Yo googleo, tu googleas, nosotros googleamos"), and examples of department store announcements that you might here in East LA or Miami ("Atención K-Mart shoppers!"). Even more exciting is a new addition to the urban dictionary, "chancla," which Santiago defined as "a cheap sandal which doubles as a disciplinary device in Latino households." (He is, in fact, a survivor of such correctional measures.) Santiago champions the unintentionally ironic phrase, "Como que why? Porque because!" (Rough translation: "Because I said so!") After all, it's a great day for Spanglish when an expression that literally means "because because" can pass off as a snappy rejoinder. With his new book Pardon My Spanglish projected for fall publication, Santiago decided to tackle another subject within the theme of Latin America's "reconquista" of US popular culture: Latin dance. With his lean, rubbery frame, cartoony facial expressions, and Groucho Marx eyebrows, Santiago has no trouble impersonating the histrionic gyrations of Colombian superstar Shakira, and he could easily parody any swishy heel-clacker from Dancing with the Stars. ¿Cómo se dice Polyglot? Meet comedian Bill Santiago, the Spanglish explorer. by ANDREW GILBERT Originally published February 4, 2004, East Bay Express Given his previous life as an award-winning journalist for newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and The San Juan Star, it's not surprising that the stand-up comic Bill Santiago is obsessed with language. But you might have trouble finding the words he's been exploring lately in a standard English or Spanish dictionary. Santiago presents some of his research on Friday at La Peña in Spanglish 101: A Total Immersion Comedic Excursion into Latino USA, an evening-length piece he describes as a work in progress. As Santiago sees it, Spanglish isn't just an evolving pidgin tongue, it's "an identity, and everything that's involved with that." During a recent interview at Ben and Nick's Bar & Grill on College Avenue in Oakland, he elaborates: "There are so many issues around it. Is it the corruption of two languages? Is it a third language? A marriage of two languages?" The up-and-coming Nuyorican comic, who has opened for Margaret Cho and shared stages with Culture Clash and Marga Gomez, recently gained attention through his appearances on Comedy Central's Premium Blend and Galavision's Que Locos. He realized the potential of Spanglish as a comedy topic last year after a college performance in Santa Barbara. "Afterwards everybody wanted to come up to me and share their Spanglish experiences, their favorite words, how it's part of their life with their parents, grandparents, or friends," he says. As part of the show's development process, Santiago invites the audience during the second half of the performance to share their favorite Spanglish words and anecdotes about growing up Latino or interacting with Latino culture. Each time he performs "Spanglish," Santiago gathers more material, uncovering the regional differences between Los Angeles, New Mexico, New York City, and Miami. "It's dialect upon dialect upon dialect, this polyglot non-language called Spanglish," he says. "And when you say Latino, what are all the different groups and experiences? Mexicans are coming for specific reasons and how they get here is very different from, say, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. They're all coming here under completely different circumstances and get lumped into this Latino title." Born and raised in New York, Santiago attended film school at New York University, and dabbled in stand-up. But a job at The San Juan Star, an English-language daily, brought him to Puerto Rico, where his parents grew up. Unable to suppress his zingy one-liners, he made the move to stand-up after winning a prestigious national award for feature writing. Santiago is a captivating performer. His handsome, boyish face registers his lightning-quick emotional leaps. But he sees his writing as the key to success. As he has honed his comedic talent, Santiago has taken to dissecting classic routines by comics like George Carlin and Woody Allen, much the way jazz musicians transcribe solos by Charlie Parker and Lester Young. "I identify with Carlin's fascination for language, the way he can take one idea and unravel it into a piece that's enduring," Santiago says. "Seinfeld is the same thing, but he does it with a little bit more of a microscope and he takes out the edge. There's no politics. It's one of the reasons for his success." Comedian quips about Life with a Latino Beat by ROWENA COETSEE Knight Ridder, April 2003 SAN FRANCISCO -After examining the serious side of life, Bill Santiago knew he just had to get silly. The 31-year-old San Francisco comedian toiled in the trenches of daily journalism long enough to know lie wasn't destined for a conventional career. The son of Puerto Rican immigrants, Santiago instead has become an entertainer, doing parodies of Latino life that bridge the cultural divide. The Manhattan-born Santiago's earliest memories include watching Johnny Carson's monologues, an entertainer he still admires for the seemingly effortless way "The Tonight Show" host delivered his lines. But it never occurred to Santiago that stand-up comedy was a career option for him, too, until friends in the business encouraged him. After graduating from New York University's film school, Santiago took a job with a suburban newspaper while looking for a way to continue pursuing what he realized by then was his real passion. "The next thing I know, I'm in Puerto Rico," says Santiago, who accepted an offer from The San Juan Star and spent the next five years as a reporter for the English- language daily. He originally had thought the island was close enough to the mainland that be could fly to Miami for weekend gigs. But it wasn't, and he abandoned his plan. "I actually thought I could try not to do it," he said, "(but) every time I turned around people would say, `Oh, that's so funny!' and it would rip my heart out." "It was through the deprivation that I realized it was a calling," Santiago said. And so he returned to the mainland and moved to San Francisco, where he began working the comedy clubs. Until recently, Santiago got his laughs from observations he'd make about life in general. His bill on semantics: "I have no problems. No one has problems anymore, everyone has issues. "We’ve done away with problems overnight. What was wrong with problems? I miss problems. You could fix a problem.

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