Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez

[afterannabel.livejournal.com]

3) Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez

I have mixed feelings about this book. My biggest complaint was that I was often frustrated by Alvarez's use of Spanish words and idioms, of which she rarely provided translation. I took Spanish on and off in high school and college, and some words' meanings are intuitive (familia) or obvious from the context, so that was helpful. But it made me stumble many times throughout the book. I really liked the fact that Alvarez dug deeper and explored how young Latina women in America struggle with incorporating both cultures into their lives in meaningful ways, without compromising themselves.

Comments

[omnivorously.livejournal.com]

I bet you Alvarez used Spanish which wouldn't be obvious to English-speakers on purpose. It's a defamiliarizing tactic, a linguistic reminder that you're reading a book written from a particular perspective. Another function may be to mimic the experience of being in a foreign culture, not knowing what's going on, literally not understanding. And lastly, I don't know how much experience you've had with foreign languages, but translations are always inaccurate (probably the things which translate worst are poetry and colloquialisms). Using certain Spanish words and phrases may make her writing more accurate, more truthful.

And then I did some quick googleresearch to check that Alvarez wasn't born and raised in the US, and guess what she says on her website (http://www.juliaalvarez.com/about/):

It's not like I didn't know some English at ten when we landed in New York City. But classroom English, heavily laced with Spanish, did not prepare me for the "barbaric yawp" of American English -- as Whitman calls it. I couldn't tell where one word ended and another began. I did pick up enough English to understand that some classmates were not very welcoming. Spic! a group of bullies yelled at me in the playground. Mami insisted that the kids were saying, Speak! And then she wonders where my storytelling genes come from.

When I'm asked what made me into a writer, I point to the watershed experience of coming to this country. Not understanding the language, I had to pay close attention to each word -- great training for a writer.

[kmd.livejournal.com]

I was often frustrated by Alvarez's use of Spanish words and idioms, of which she rarely provided translation.

It takes English-only speakers work, then, to connect to Alvarez's work.

That doesn't seem like a bad thing. Seems like central to the point of this community, no?