New York – A new Twitter account that makes fun of Michael Bloomberg’s struggles with Spanish has become so popular that even the New York mayor has not been able to resist the temptation to begin following “@MiguelBloombito.”
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Behind “Bloombito” is Rachel Figueroa-Levin, a housewife of Puerto Rican origin who only wanted to entertain her friends and fend off boredom while she waited shut up in her apartment for Hurricane Irene to pass, and it has become a real Twitter phenomenon attracting.
Rachel Figueroa-Levin told NBC New York she just couldn’t help herself when she started tweeting parodies of Mayor Bloomberg speaking Spanish during his press conferences.
“The Spanish is just so blatantly hilarious,” she said. “It’s the diction. It’s the pronunciation. It’s the accent.”
Soon after Bloomberg started addressing the Spanish speaking viewers on live television, Figueroa-Levin said her friends on Twitter couldn’t help but laugh. “It was like a collective LOL,” said 25-year-old Figueroa-Levin, who lives in Inwood. “I had to open a Twitter account in his name.”
The account now has almost 15,000 followers.
What followed were tweets like: “Hola Newo Yorko! El stormo grande is mucho dangeroso!,” and “Stay awayo para los next few days los parks y los trees. Que fall down! El Boom!
Demonstrating that his sense of humor is perhaps finer than his Spanish pronunciation, Bloomberg responded to the account with a smile. He responded on Twitter and at a recent briefing. “It’s hard to learn a new language at age 69,” he defended himself, laughing.
Since being outed as the woman behind the El Bloombito Twitter account, Figueroa-Levin’s phone has been ringing off the hook. A book publisher even demanded a meeting today.
Pretty funny.
I’d love to hear Figueroa-LEVIN say something in [half] Yiddish. . . . .
Bloomberg sounds like a real IDIOT when he breaks his teeth. I bet that nobody can even understand it.
He does it to prove a point, that the spanish speakers don’t have to learn english. If His Highness would really think its so important, he would have a Hispanic repeat his speech in spanish when he’s done.
Maybe she knows some Ladino. That’s a language and culture you need to hear more of (beautiful and endangered). If you all read Me’am Lo’ez, that was originally in Ladino, wasn’t it?
Puertoricans are notorious for their butchering of spanish/ castellano. She’s one to talk.
Their spanish has the equivalent of that of a third grader.