Episode 050: Spanglish, Saved by the Bell, and Unmasking

First from our social media roundup [01:57] we have Strega Nona, Furnas, São Miguel, and a traumatizing earthquake museum. Our culture topics [16:00] are Spanglish the movie and Spanglish the linguistics phenomenon and our nostalgia topic [36:12] is 90's con 2023 debrief. For our mental health segment [01:04:22] we discuss the concepts of unmasking and gratitude journaling.

Key Moments:

01:57 Social media roundup Foreign family magic soup secrets à la Strega Nona

08:10 Social media roundup Furnas, São Miguel Monitoring and Research Center

13:51 Social media roundup Lisbon, Portugal earthquake museum

16:00 Culture Spanglish (2004 film) overview and actors Adam Sandler, Téa Leoni, Paz

Vega

18:28 Culture Portuguese language sounds (rolled r's, "lho") and missing sounds ("th")

21:03 Culture Téa Leoni plays an infuriating character

23:01 Culture Immigrant moms and their American daughters ("Is that what you want

for yourself, to become someone very different from me?")

26:47 Culture Spanglish (linguistics) overview and word examples with comparison to

Portuguese/English hybrid speech patterns

36:12 Nostalgia [90s con 2023 event recap] Meeting Danica McKellar & Mahaila

McKellar and discussing their Portuguese heritage

43:18 Nostalgia Meeting Mario Lopez, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Elizabeth Berkley of

Saved By The Bell (A.C.Slater, Zack Morris, and Jessie Spano) and an overview of

their interview panel

55:28 Nostalgia Overview of the Full House interview panel with Jodie Sweetin, Dave

Coulier, Andrea Barber, and Candace Cameron Bure (Stephanie Tanner, Uncle

Joey, Kimmy Gibbler, and DJ Tanner)

59:21 Nostalgia Meeting Omri Katz of Hocus Pocus (Max)

01:00:46 Nostalgia Why we didn't meet Steve Burns of Blue's Clues

01:02:37 Nostalgia Meeting Kel Mitchell from All That, surprise guest appearance by

Kenan Thompson, and announcement of Good Burger 2

01:04:22 Mental Health Mel discusses the exhausting practice of performative masking vs.

authenticity

01:07:15 Mental Health Kel invites listeners to join her on a 21-day gratitude journaling

effort beginning April 1

Engage with Us!

Melissa on TikTok @melanncoley

It's Called Culture on TikTok @itscalledculture

It's Called Culture on Instagram @_itscalledculture

Episode 049: Electricity, Blue's Clues, and The Wellness Spectrum

First from our social media roundup [01:36] we have Portuguese beach boys and steak plate ratings spreadsheet. Our culture topic [08:23] is home improvements and our nostalgia topic [19:04] is 90's con. For our mental health segment [37:49] we discuss how opposite ends of the wellness spectrum appear to converge.

Key Moments:

01:36 Social media roundup Portuguese Beach Party song

03:27 Social media roundup Portuguese Steak Plate Ratings

08:23 Culture Mel's dad completes MacGyver-style home improvements

13:26 Culture Kel's dad hires family for home improvements

14:11 Culture Kel's family carbon monoxide leak

16:01 Culture Supervision needed for precise home improvements

18:20 Culture Kel discusses her dad's trades and work experiences

19:04 Nostalgia 90s con overview and 2022 event recap

20:08 Nostalgia Meeting the Lawrence brothers and their Italian heritage and name change

from Mignogna to Lawrence

22:34 Nostalgia Danica McKellar's (Winnie Cooper of the Wonder Years) Portuguese

heritage and Kel's doppelgänger

24:53 Nostalgia Mel reveals she also has a surprising doppelgänger from The Wonder Years

27:12 Nostalgia Saved By The Bell Cast (Mario Lopez and Mark Paul Gosselaar) immigrant

families and heritage

28:27 Nostalgia Meeting Scott Weinger from Full House and Aladdin

29:54 Nostalgia Chugging an Orange Soda with Kel Mitchell from All That, Good Burger,

and Kenan & Kel

31:26 Nostalgia 90s con 2022 attendee recap and the sitcom celebrity with the longest meet

& greet line

33:51 Nostalgia We recap the tearjerking message from Steve Burns from Blue's Clues

37:49 Mental Health Kel uses a 48 hour total reset as a stress coping strategy

39:51 Mental Health Mel discusses how opposite ends of the wellness spectrum appear to

converge

Engage with Us!

Melissa on TikTok @melanncoley

It's Called Culture on TikTok @itscalledculture

It's Called Culture on Instagram @_itscalledculture

It's Called Culture (ICC) #1: Introducing Melissa & Kelly

Culture is a way of life for an entire society. Melissa and Kelly met in Kindergarten 30 years ago. Our culture is from the Azores - a remote group of Portuguese islands. But we don't live there. We live in America as part of the millennial generational culture. This podcast is our experience at the intersection of these cultures.

In this episode, Mel & Kel discuss their heritage as Portuguese-American children of immigrants from the Azorean island of São Miguel (or "Hawaii of the Atlantic" as they describe it). Their families immigrated as late as the 1980s to Fall River, Massachusetts, a city now known for having a dramatic Portuguese influence and population. The distinctive and religious Portuguese island culture was wholly preserved in this new land.

Mel & Kel grew up completely immersed in their cultural customs, beliefs, and traditions while also attempting to navigate life as an American millennial in the 1990s and beyond. After Mel moved away as an adult, she wanted a way to reconnect with the culture and share that culture with her own daughter and thus created the company Folk and Fad. Her first order of business was to launch the It's Called Culture podcast and recruit her lifelong friend Kelly to co-host.

Below, Kelly showcases Melissa's 8th birthday gifts.

Listen to It's Called Culture (ICC) Episode 1 (trailer) here.

What makes us qualified to host this show?

We are bilingual, first-generation Portuguese-Americans. We attended the oldest Portuguese Catholic school in America. We grew up in the city with the nation's highest percentage of people of Portuguese descent (nearly 50%). We didn't meet a non-Portuguese person until we were in high school! Mel's DNA test results came back. Turns out, she's 100% that bitch. Just kidding. That's Lizzo. But Mel's DNA results did (somewhat surprisingly) come back at 100% Portuguese. Kel has been a hold out in the DNA world. Maybe because she's watched too much true crime. Or maybe because she would be devastated if it came back anything other than 100% Portuguese. So we don't "know" her results, but, I mean, we know...

Portuguese Ancestry

Accent Disclaimer

---

Portuguese Ancestry

Nobody's Ancestry DNA Kit comes back 100% anything. There's always at the very least a few random ethnicities sprinkled in for the last few percent. Mel had always thought of herself as 100% Portuguese only because both sides of her family came from The Azores. However, there WAS an adopted grandfather on one side of the family that subsequently had offspring with features that were not traditionally Portuguese (e.g. red hair). So, doubt did creep in about what the results would show.

At the end of the day, the results did come back 100% Portuguese and the Ancestry app even drew a dotted circle around the easternmost tip of São Miguel encompassing the villages where both sides of her family were from. When Mel posted about this on her TikTok account (@melanncoley), a commenter pointed her to a clip of Conan O'Brien as a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Conan took a DNA test that revealed he was 100% Irish which shocked his doctor. When Conan asked his doctor how rare it was and what it meant, he replied "it means you're inbred!". Well, shit...

Accent Disclaimer

Not all Tik Tok comments are created equal, so when another commenter expressed to Mel that he "could have gone his whole life without hearing your voice", we realized an accent disclaimer may be necessary. Our unique voices are the result of a combination of several factors. We are first generation Americans. We are directly descended from non-English speaking families. We grew up learning two languages at once. Kel grew up in a Portuguese-speaking household and had to learn English through the school system. At best, we grew up around an informal English-Portuguese hybrid. And our Portuguese was not even the proper European kind. It was a brute, slang-y version spoken in the most remote parts of the island of São Miguel. Pair all of that with being raised less than 60 miles from Boston and you've got yourself a real recipe for disastahhh.

We hope you find our voices and our show endearing, or you keep it to yourself if you don't!

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