An ‘American Boy’ Calls Out the MAGA Haters

A recent New York Times article asked: Is Marcello Hernández the next Saturday Night Live superstar? Judging by his exposure, the answer is yes. The Miami-born comedian, actor, and writer of Cuban-Dominican descent is everywhere. He’s gone viral with SNL’s “Domingo” and “Protective Mom,” with Pedro Pascal, is a late-night talk show regular, and now headlines his own Netflix standup special, “American Boy,” which ranks among the platform’s top 10 most-watched shows.

But is he everywhere because he’s SNL’s secret weapon — bringing Latino culture to the show (and to an American audience) in a fresh way?

Or is he just a one-trick pony, relying on cartoonish Latino stereotypes — a reboot of Chico Escuela’s “baseball been berry, berry good to me”?

Watch the special and judge for yourself. I did. Twice. While much of the material is repetitive, Hernandez’s story as the hyperactive, Gen Z son of a Cuban mother and a Dominican father, both of whom are immigrants, raised by a strong-willed mother in a house full of women, growing up in Miami’s Latino bubble before college in Ohio, still resonates.

I first discovered Hernández while scrolling through social media last year, before seeing him on SNL — which he joined in 2022 after hustling for stand-up gigs since he was 18. He looked like a member of Menudo, with more than a passing resemblance to Cuban-American bandleader Ricky Ricardo. But Hernández stood out: he brought with him the verbal dexterity of Cantinflas, the crude wit of Alvarez Guedes, and the physicality of John Leguizamo in “Mambo Mouth,” which Hernández has credited as an inspiration

From the first joke I heard — “My name is Marcello Andrés Hernández Gonzáles, but I look like Timothee Chalamet… I look white, dude. I look like I tell my mom to shut up” — I was hooked. Even when he leaned on clichés, he made me laugh out loud. As a Puerto Rican, I could relate to his humor and, more importantly, to what it means to be Latino in the era of Trump and MAGA. You’re forced to navigate life as “the other” while holding pride in your national identity. It’s a constant xenophobic and racist siege. The worst part — the part that hurts the most — is not understanding why we deserve all the hate.

After watching “American Boy,” I came away agreeing with SNL creator Lorne Michaels, who believes Hernández is “the real thing” and will only get better. Marcello transcends SNL — he’s more than recycled Latino schtick. He’s a highly visible Latino with a loud voice at a time when we most need one. 

“American Boy” opens with Marcello and his mother, his comic foil, dancing to a Bad Bunny song on stage at Miami’s Olympia Theater. It’s cute, if a bit worn. It's his first special, and his nerves show it.

There’s nothing especially new in “American Boy,” a title referring to Hernández being the first in his family born in the U.S. He revisits familiar themes: his mother, who escaped communism in Cuba and insists she gave him freedom, and how she won’t accept his attention-deficit disorder diagnosis: “Everybody told me I have ADD, and I told my mom, ‘I have ADD,’ and she said, ‘No.’ So, I don’t have ADD.”

Her discipline, which some might call abuse, is the butt of many of his jokes. Hernandez recalls getting spanked in “the Colosseum,” the mall bathroom, for making a face. “Running makes it worse. If you know, you know.” I do. I, too, have dodged a flying shoe or danced to avoid a swinging belt.

But where Hernández truly shines — and shows the talent he could grow into — is in his dispatches from the violent, secret world of women. Having “grown up in Miami in salons and Brazilian waxes,” it’s clear he knows the female mind.

​“I saw it all. Women are very scary, they are, and they live a violent life behind the scenes. I have seen what you hide. Every woman has a mustache, did you know that?” Hernández asks. “All of it is scary, dog, and the blood, I saw the blood first hand … and the blood has Bluetooth, did you know that, because if three of you get together, you pair device.” 

That line had me on the floor. 

​Though he’s said in the past that he avoids politics to stay positive, Hernández couldn’t  sidestep the elephant in the room during “American Boy.”

“I’ve been watching the news now for the first time in my life because they are talking about us,” he says, opening his eyes wide. A little later, he responds to himself — “Maybe we are doing crime, but the biggest crime that we’re doing is working illegally, which is a pretty solid crime,” noting that many Americans refuse to do the work that immigrants do in the US. 

‘’I want to say something to the white people that think that Latino immigrants are scary. If you’re white, and you think that Latino immigrants are coming to America to grab a bunch of little kids and put them in a basement, no. That’s your thing. We don’t do that type of crime,” he says. 

He ends the special by saying that Latinos do “fun crimes” that belong in the movies. White people do “creepy crimes” that belong in documentaries. At that moment, I wanted to stand up and clap, just like the audience that cheered him when he said goodbye in his Dominican-flavored Spanish.  

The central takeaway from “American Boy” is this: Hernandez uses comedy to both shield himself from the pain and anxiety of being an immigrant in the U.S. today and wield it as a weapon. Just by stepping on stage — whether for stand-up, a Netflix special, or a viral SNL skit — he dismantles the MAGA narrative of “scary Latinos.” He’s living proof that Latinos are reshaping the face of the U.S. in clever and irreversible ways.

So, wherever Marcello Hernández’s career goes from here, whether he does or doesn’t become the next John Belushi, it really doesn’t matter. His comedy already helps make U.S. Latinos — 65 million strong and 20% of the nation’s population — less invisible. We thank him for that.​

A former News Director for Univision Puerto Rico and conflict correspondent, Susanne Ramírez de Arellano is a Columnist for The Latino Newsletter.

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