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Only Here Podcast: A San Diego Artist Puts Spanglish On A Pedestal

Artist Francisco Eme poses in front of one of his installations at his Spanglish show at the San Diego Art Institute in this photo taken in November, 2018.
Kinsee Morlan
Artist Francisco Eme poses in front of one of his installations at his Spanglish show at the San Diego Art Institute in this photo taken in November, 2018.
In border towns, Spanglish is everywhere. Blending Spanish with English helps the two countries communicate. It’s a natural and necessary byproduct of the border. In this episode, a story about a musician and composer who’s fallen in love with the sound of Spanglish.

Francisco Eme loves the way it sounds when people blend Spanish and English. He even loves the way Spanglish looks in writing. The San Diego musician and composer built an entire art exhibition around the concept of the hybrid language.

In a new episode of "Only Here," KPBS' podcast about art and culture at the border, Eme gives us a tour of his Spanglish show and explains why he's so obsessed with the language that was birthed at the border.