Spanglish Risas
Angelo Colina performing at Netflix is a Joke Fest for the first time at Hollywood Improv. Photo by Desiree Ashley, courtesy Angelo Colina
One up-and-coming immigrant comedian is resonating with Latino audiences both in social media and on the stage
“Don’t paste one,” Venezuelan comedian Angelo Colina often quips, a literal but not direct English iteration of the Spanish phrase “o sea, no pego una.” While that phrase may get lost in translation to an English speaking audience, Colina has been continuously gaining a following in both languages as he performs shows across the United States.
Colina, a bilingual Venezuelan comedian living in the U.S., spotlights some of the cultural stereotypes and distinct mannerisms brought by Latino and Hispanic communities. In his show, he sticks to what works for him–his Latino identity and personal experiences. Colina also talks about his journey as an immigrant on stage, alongside his schnoodle dog Charlie, who shares his similar nomadic path.
Growing up in the city of Maracaibo, Colina wasn’t always certain a career in comedy would be within his reach. For one thing, the country was beset by political and economic turmoil, and violence was surging on the streets.
For another, his father wanted him to pursue a career as a lawyer. He started legal studies and sharpened his sense of humor while teaching at an English-language academy in his hometown. “I just had to be funny,” he says, explaining how comedic relief was a way to get the attention of and connect with his students. At the time, he didn’t know that he’d eventually use his humor in a totally different capacity.
‘We don’t really have someone out here speaking on our behalf. It makes me feel seen.’
Colina then went to the Colombian capital of Bogotá, where he taught English through the British Council as part of an exchange program. He left behind his mother and 10-year-old brother. “(Bogotá) was certainly what I needed at that age,” he says. “This was way different from back home; I didn’t have to worry about being thrown (at with) gas bombs or shot (by) bullets in the streets as a (teenager).”
When the exchange program concluded, Colina returned to Maracaibo to finish his communications degree at Dr. Rafael Belloso Chacín University (URBE). A year later, he returned to Bogotá to continue teaching.
After living in Bogotá and seeing that the conditions back home were only getting worse under the regime of Nicolás Maduro, he decided to reunite with his mother and brother, who had since moved to the United States. Once Colina joined his family in Salt Lake City, he started reaching out to comedy venues — literally knocking on doors — to see if anyone would give him a spot to perform. But like many comedians starting off, he struggled to get stage time and find an audience.
Angelo Colina performing at the Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco to a full audience. Photo by Jim McCambridge, courtesy Angelo Colina
“They wouldn’t reply because they didn’t think we could sell,” says Colina, “and the name of the show was Latino, and I knew that was a ‘no’ from them.”
In the meantime, he worked at a convenience store and as a T-Mobile sales associate, all while driving his mom to work, taking his younger brother to school and working on skits in his spare time. After nearly two years, he finally made his way onto a stage. His first stand-up show, which was in English, was at an open mic set in 2019 at Wiseguys Comedy Club at The Gateway in Salt Lake City.
“I only had three minutes,” says Colina, who had pitched his show several times.
The show sold out in less than a day and the venue wanted him back.
“There’s always these full circle moments, like the ‘I told you so’ moments, with people that did not think this was a possibility,” says Colina. “We are always told it’s not going to be possible for us, but it can be done.” “Everything just changed pretty quickly,” he adds, referring to his adult life outside of Venezuela. “I always knew I was going to find a way to do what I loved. I’m happier here.”
Angelo Colina holding his schnoodle, Charlie. Photo courtesy Angelo Colina
After his 2019 performance, Colina was hungry for more stage time, and his next big break came after meeting Venezuelan comedian Andrés Sereno in 2021. Sereno invited Colina to perform his first Spanish-language set in New York City. Colina credits his comedic success to relationships and friendships he has forged along the way, which include Sereno, Nacho Redondo from Escuela de Nada and Pepe Álvarez Gales, the Venezuelan film editor known for his work on Tiger King.
“Opening for Nacho Redondo made me realize how many people out there are just looking for more relatable voices in Spanish,” says Colina. Most stand-up comedians in the U.S. — 57% of them, according to the career site Zippia — are white. Hispanic or Latino comedians represent just 17% of the stand-up community. It can be assumed that the percentage of Latino comedians performing in Spanish is even smaller.
As Colina sought to find his comedic niche in the Big Apple, he and Sereno launched their own Spanish-language comedy show, “Español Please.” The show was featured at the New York Comedy Festival in 2021, where big names such as Trevor Noah and Kevin Hart have performed.
On stage, Colina, shirt tucked into loose-fitting vintage pants, projects charm and relatability. On his head is a blue ball cap with the phrase, “O sea, no pego una,” a popular Venezuelan expression that suggests nothing seems to be working out in life. And yet, what’s definitely working out is his use of humor to connect with audiences whose identities and life experiences overlap with his own.
A video of one of his go-to jokes, about his Dominican barber, Lucas, has garnered more than 14,000 likes on TikTok. “If I’m being honest,” he begins in Spanish, adding, “and I know this is going to be controversial — I really feel like I don’t need to go to therapy.” The crowd boos loudly before Colina pulls them back to wildly enthusiastic hoots and claps. “Because I have a Dominican barber,” he continues. “And no one makes a man feel better about himself than a Dominican barber.”
The crowd laughs. The joke, like most of Colina’s repertoire, pulls at a single thread of Latino identity and spools it out into a story that has the audience nodding in recognition and leaving comments like, “me identifico con esto” — “I identify with this” — and “The way you tackle these delicate subjects with elegance, intelligence and humor is incredible; you’re amazing. I feel so seen…. A standing ovation for you.”
In 2023, he started a new Spanish-language comedy circuit in Washington, D.C. that goes even deeper into the bicultural and bilingual experiences of Latinos. It’s called “Gente Funny.” The concept for the show arose from Colina’s own journey: it was only after he arrived in the U.S., he explains, that he started to see and understand what it meant to be Latino outside of his home country.
“I think you only get to fully understand it once you are here,” referring to the “Latino experience” of being part of a large minority. On stage, Colina explores this experience by playing with Latino customs and phrases, showing how translations often mean something entirely different.
Angelo Colina at a show at the Tampa Funny Bone in Tampa, Florida. Photo by Jose Araque, courtesy of Angelo Colina
“Back in the day, it was hard to find those relatable comedians,” says Jean Carlos who found him on TikTok, one of Colina’s many followers, who moved to New York City in 2007 from Guayaquil, Ecuador, and grew up listening to actors such as Víctor Aráuz and David Reinoso. “People had to come from your country to give a show,” adds Carlos. Now, with “(s)omeone like Angelo, who is Latino and is living here, (he) gives that sense of relatability in Latino comedy.”
Social media allows for more resonance and relatability, too. Colina’s jokes reach ever larger audiences thanks to Instagram and TikTok, where he has 101,000 and 74,500 followers, respectively. Many of Colina’s fans see themselves and their cultures reflected in him, and they are just as excited as Colina to see him take on bigger, better known stages.
This year, Colina has appeared on the stage at the renowned Los Angeles comedy club Hollywood Improv, which he considers an important milestone. In 61 years of the history of Hollywood Improv, only two Spanish-language shows have sold out. One was Colina’s. Fans celebrate this accomplishment, too. “I feel like his comedy is just a little special to us…. (W)e don’t really have someone out here speaking on our behalf,” says Kristel Garcés, who was 6 when she moved to the U.S. from Cartago, Colombia and attended one of Colina’s live shows in Brooklyn this year. “It makes me feel seen.”
But perhaps the greatest accomplishment of 2024 so far has been the presence of one special person in Colina’s audience. His father, with whom he shares a name, was among the sold-out crowd of hundreds at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco, cheering on his son, who managed to work his dad into the routine.
Angelo Colina Sr. and Jr. in May 2024. Photo courtesy Angelo Colina
“I think that specific example was very Latino, because as soon as I said ‘My dad is here,’ there was a sense of pride from the crowd of him being there,” says Colina. “My dad’s perception of this country is, you come here and you work hard. Having him there, I felt he saw I was working hard; it was just a different way of doing it.”
On May 5, Colina returned to Hollywood Improv, this time as part of the line-up for “Netflix Is a Joke.” Big names such as Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres and Dave Chapelle have been featured on the show. And now, Angelo Colina.
Colina views this level of visibility as part of his effort to fill the gap when it comes to Latino comedy in the U.S., especially as the Hispanic population — and his potential audience — grows. The U.S. Hispanic population reached 63.7 million in 2022, up from 50.5 million in 2010, according to Pew Research Center.
Colina aims to reach a new generation of Latino communities, as he makes headlines in the Latino comedic space. “Doing the shows in Spanish is getting closer to that 100 percent truth of what I am, and I am Latino,” he says.
Jordan Coll is an award-winning journalist with a pulse for reporting stories that fundamentally and truly matter. A Miami native, he is currently a freelance reporter, with over seven years of experience as a multimedia journalist, including reporting on national breaking news events across various digital and local print media platforms. He has a love and thirst for meeting people from all walks of life. He graduated with a degree in journalism from Florida International University and completed his master’s degree at Columbia University's School of Journalism. @JordanColl
Julie Schwietert Collazo is a bilingual writer, editor, fact checker, and translator, as well as the co-founder and director of Immigrant Families Together, a nonprofit formed in 2018 to respond to the family separation policy. Along with Rosayra Pablo Cruz, she wrote The Book of Rosy/El libro de Rosy, published by HarperOne and HarperCollins Español in 2020. Both authors are featured in the documentary, “Split at the Root/Dividida en la Raíz,” which is streaming on Netflix. @collazoprojects
Other palabra articles by Julie Schwietert Collazo: Show Us Your Papers, Para las Adolescentes Latinas, un Costo Mental, For Latina Teens, a Mental Toll, Safe to Learn: School Policing: The Blurred Lines of Safety, Safe to Learn: Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline, Safe to Learn: Students Need Safety to Learn, Lecciones From Mexico City, Lecciones Desde La Ciudad de México