By Liv Eaton, M.A. ’26, Museum Studies
Washington, D.C., is both national and international. The capital city’s large number of embassies and historic tourist attractions exist alongside multicultural communities. In a D.C. Mondays program on June 9, 2025, hosted by the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies, Dr. Amelia Tseng, associate professor of world languages and cultures at American University, shared findings from her book Empanadas, Pupusas, and Greens on the Side: Language and Latinidad in the Nation’s Capital (Georgetown University Press, 2025).
Tseng’s research centers on D.C.’s Latinx community, specifically members’ identity formation and endurance. An important part of that story is the post-World War II rise in embassies across the city. As Tseng explained, these new embassies each brought staff with them, some of whom decided to move to the area permanently even after their jobs ended. Washington’s population continued to grow during significant times of migration, like the large-scale Central American migration in the 1980s or the immigration of Chilean refugees during the Pinochet dictatorship. Today, D.C.’s population is around 11 percent Latinx.
When most Latinx people immigrated and settled in D.C., the city’s population was over 50 percent Black—a status it held until 2011, Tseng explained. As a result, Latinx culture mixed with Washington’s distinct Black culture, or as Tseng quoted from one of her interviewees, “an infusion of whatever culture you had with the Black culture.”
The D.C. region is also unique because it is the only place in the United States where the largest Latinx group is Salvadorian, around 30 percent. Tseng’s interviewees described Salvadorian Spanish as the most common Spanish heard and spoken in the District. Her book examines the influence of Salvadorian Spanish and the wider culture on what her interviewees saw as “sounding Washingtonian.” One finding reveals Salvadorian Spanish to be widely viewed as more “rural” and rougher, even among native Spanish speakers. Local community members told Tseng that D.C.’s dialects, being a mix of African American English and Salvadorian Spanish, were “street language[s]” or “broken” languages, which sound Washingtonian to them. Tseng’s book explores the implications of considering a dialect as less refined.
Ultimately, Tseng focuses on how D.C. is a place identity, and language is both symbolic and emblematic of that identity. Salvadorian Washingtonians have great pride in their community, especially their role in D.C. society and the language they have used to help build that community and identity. As Tseng explained, her book is purposefully titled. Empanadas, Pupusas, and Greens on the Side mirrors such blended cultural identities: empanadas as Latinx, pupusas as specifically Salvadorian, and greens as soul food from Black communities.
You can watch a video of this D.C. Mondays program below and browse upcoming talks on the museum’s website.
About the Author
Liv Eaton has a B.A. in classical and medieval studies and is currently a second-year master’s student at GW studying museum studies with a concentration in collections management. She is the digital media editor for the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies.
Header image: Photo by Roberto Galan/Shutterstock.com.