BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE:
MONOLINGUAL IDEOLOGIES, BILINGUAL U.S. LATINO TEXTS
by
SONJA S. BURROWS
A DISSERTATION
Presented to the Department of Romance Languages
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
June 2010
ii
University of Oregon Graduate School
Confirmation of Approval and Acceptance of Dissertation prepared by:
Sonja Burrows
Title:
"Beyond the Comfort Zone: Monolingual Ideologies, Bilingual U.S. Latino Texts"
This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree in the Department of Romance Languages by:
Robert Davis, Chairperson, Romance Languages
Analisa Taylor, Member, Romance Languages
Monique Balbuena, Member, Honors College
Holly Cashman, Member, Not from U of 0
David Vazquez, Outside Member, English
and Richard Linton, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean of the Graduate
School for the University of Oregon.
June 14,2010
Original approval signatures are on file with the Graduate School and the University of Oregon
Libraries.
© 2010 Sonja S. Burrows
111
in the Department of Romance Languages
Sonja S. Burrows
An Abstract of the Dissertation of
for the degree of
to be taken
IV
Doctor of Philosophy
June 2010
Title: BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE: MONOLINGUAL IDEOLOGIES,
BILINGUAL U.S. LATINO TEXTS
Approved:
----------------------
Robert. 1. Davis
This project examines reader reception of U.S. Latino-authored narratives that
engage in varying degrees of textual code switching and bicultural belonging. The
analysis builds on the argument that these narratives, as part of a larger body of minor
literatures, playa role in revolutionizing traditional Anglo-American discourses of
knowledge by marginalizing the monolingual and monocultural reader historically
positioned as the prototype of cultural literacy in the United States. This project further
proposes that marginalization is achieved by a textual appropriation and structural
weakening of the dominant language and culture via the creation of a narrative space that
privileges code switching to articulate bicultural identities. U.S. Latino texts that alternate
between English and Spanish mirror the misunderstandings and failures of intelligibility
in the multicultural situations they depict, thereby requiring the monolingual and
monocultural reader to experience this unintelligibility first-hand.
vIn order to tackle broader questions about how these literary texts and their
reception reflect what is at stake politically, nationally, and culturally for Latinos in the
United States today, this interdisciplinary project draws upon a diversity of perspectives
originating from linguistics, literary analysis, sociology, and history to identifY how
literary texts mirror bicultural identity for Latinos. As a part of this analysis, the project
examines the history of Spanish language use in the United States, Latino immigration
history, the standard language ideology privileging English monolingualism, the
persistence of bilingualism, oral and written code switching, the publishing industry, and
analyses of reader responses to bilingual texts based on survey data. In situating these
histories within discussions about the bilingual, bicultural nature and reception of the
U.S. Latino narrative, this project shows how the linguistic makeup and the subsequent
receptivity of these texts mirror the bicultural identity and changing social positioning of
the Latino population in the United States.
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Sonja S. Burrows
PLACE OF BIRTH: Peterborough, New Hampshire
DATE OF BIRTH: September 29, 1973
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
DEGREES AWARDED:
Doctor ofPhilosophy, Romance Languages, 2010, University of Oregon
Master of Arts, Spanish, 2007, University of Oregon
Master of Arts, TESOL, 1999, School for International Training
Bachelor of Arts, English, 1996, University of Pennsylvania
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
U.S. Latino Literature, Culture, and Identity
English-Spanish Bilingualism, Code Switching, and Spanish in the U.S.
Teaching Spanish as a Heritage Language
Foreign Language Teaching Methodology and Second Language Acquisition
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Romance Languages, University of
Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, 2004-2010
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Center for Applied Second Language Studies,
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, 2006-2007
English Language Professor, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea, 2000-2002
English Language Professor, Universidad del Mar, Oaxaca, Mexico, 2000
VI
Vll
ACKJ\TOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank Professors Robert L. Davis, David 1. Vazquez, Analisa Taylor,
and Monique R. Balbuena, of the University of Oregon, and Holly R. Cashman, of the
University ofNew Hampshire, for their assistance in the preparation ofthis manuscript.
In addition, special thanks are due to the Department of Romance Languages at the
University of Oregon for their support of this project from its earliest stages of
development through to its final iteration. I also thank the many scholars listed in these
pages who have paved the way to make this research possible.
To my husband and children, for being what matters most.
V1l1
IX
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. SPANISH-SPEAKING IDENTITIES IN THE UNITED STATES....................... 14
Introduction............................................................................................................ 14
Selective Memory and Reconstructing the Past..................................................... 15
A Brief History of the Spanish Language in the United States 18
Racial Formation and Alien Citizenship in the United States 24
Latinidad: The Politics ofIdentity and Identifiers 30
The Emergence of Latino Literary and Cultural Studies 39
Conclusion 43
III. LANGUAGE AND POWER................................................................................. 46
Introduction............................................................................................................ 46
Language Change: A Resisted Inevitability 47
Standard Language: Myth and Ideology................................................................ 50
Language Contact, Bilingualism, and a Nation Threatened.... 57
Bilingual Society/Monolingual State..................................................................... 63
Bilingualism from a Bilingual Perspective 69
Conclusion............................................................................................................. 72
IV. CODE SWITCHING 74
Chapter
Introduction .
From Hodge Podge to Language .
The Linguistic ABC's of Code Switching .
Social Motivations and Interactional Implications of Code Switching .
Theoretical Debates in Code Switching Research .
Textual Code Switching ..
Code Switching as a Resource in U.S. Latino Narrative .
V. THE "MINOR" IN U.S. LATINO LITERATURE ..
What Is Minor Literature? .
U.S. Latino Literature as Minor .
The Latino Writer's Linguistic Micro-Hamlet .
Weird English .
Spanish Made Easy .
Favoring the Bilingual .
Radically Bilingual .
Conclusion .
VI. THE MARKETING AND PUBLISHING OF LATINIDAD .
The Myth of the "Authentic" Text .
The Machinations of the Publishing Industry ..
What People Read .
More Than Meets the Eye: The Writer's Perspective .
x
Page
74
75
78
83
88
92
95
103
103
107
110
115
119
124
132
136
138
138
141
144
149
Chapter
Xl
Page
Latino Literature: The Flavor of the Month? 154
Language(s) Fit to Print 158
(Il)literacy in the United States 160
VII. THE EFFECTS OF BILINGUAL LITERATURE ON (MOSTLY)
MONOLINGUAL READERS 163
Theory Meets Evidence: The Triangulation of Literary Studies with
Linguistic Research 163
Language Ego Permeability and Reader Reception............................................... 166
An Empirical Examination of Reader Receptivity of Spanish in .Tunot Diaz's The
Brief Wondrous Life ofOscar Wao 169
Introduction to Study 171
Materials and Methods Used in Study............................................. 173
Results and Interpretations of Study............................ 177
Discussion and Conclusion of Study.............. 180
Immigrant for a Day 184
Pedagogical Implications: Code Switching Narratives as a Path to
Transformative Learning 189
BIBLIOGRAPHY 192
Xll
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Equivalence Constraint.......................................................................................... 80
2. Free-Morpheme Constraint.................................................................................... 81
3. Receptivity 178
4. Spanish Language Proficiency and Receptivity.................................................... 179
1CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This project is about the challenge to monolingual ideology posed by contemporary
U.S. Latino l narrative that engages in code switching, or the alternation between two
languages within single texts. Specifically, it examines the steps U.S. Latino writers take
toward inscribing, and thereby legitimizing, the practice of code switching in mainstream
consciousness. Many bilingual U.S. Latino writers create texts that not only alternate
between English and Spanish but also articulate a bicultural identity, one that
encompasses the cultures linked with each code or language. The bilingual and bicultural
texture of many works created by these writers, when examined within the framework of
what Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari term minor literature, serves as a means used by a
minority to appropriate the majority's language and culture and to weaken its structures.
These writers achieve this appropriation in part by privileging the bilinguallbicultural
reader, while also marginalizing the monolingual/monocultural one, who has been
historically positioned as the embodiment of cultural literacy in the United States. By
requiring a circumscribed reading for the monolingual, U.S. Latino authors who code
switch achieve a metaphorical displacement of the ideal monolingual reader by producing
texts whose poetics require bilingual, cross-cultural competency.
1 I have elected in this project to make use of the term "Latino" without the dashed
gendered ending in favor of narrative flow. Consequently, the words "Latino" and
"Latinos" are used throughout this text to indicate both masculine and feminine subjects.
2In order to tackle broader questions about how these literary texts and their
reception reflect what is at stake politically, nationally, and culturally for Latinos in the
United States today, this project examines several closely related histories, including: the
history of the Spanish language in the United States, U.S. Latino immigration history, the
standard language ideology privileging English monolingualism, the continued
persistence of bilingualism, linguistic analyses of oral and written code switching,
discussions ofminor literary theory, an examination of the influential role of the
publishing industry, and applications of reader reception theories. In situating these
histories within discussions about the bilingual, bicultural nature of U.S. Latino
literatures and how they are received by readers, I hope to show how the linguistic
makeup and the subsequent receptivity of these texts mirror the bicultural identity and
social positioning of the Latino population in the United States. Indeed, changes in the
demographic structure of the pan-Latino population and how this grouping is
conceptualized clearly indicate that U.S. Latino identity is currently undergoing a period
of intense re-examination, not only by Latinos themselves but also by U.S. society as a
whole.
At its core, this project defines itself as belonging to the discipline ofliterary
studies. However, like other disciplines in the academy, literary studies is in a state of
transition away from its traditional self-contained roots, evidenced by the disparate
methodologies from varied disciplines steadily creeping into the analysis of literature.
Consequently, this dissertation aims to reflect the changing disciplinary reality ofliterary
studies by informing its central argument with a multi-perspectival approach originating
3not only from literary analysis, but also from linguistics, ethnology, history, cultural
studies, and language pedagogy. By elucidating points of contact between these
perspectives, this project seeks out connections across disciplinary lines, thereby drawing
a broader view of these texts and their significance beyond the scope of traditional
literary studies alone.
Beyond the joining of disciplines, however, this project also brings together larger
philosophical approaches to knowledge in the academy; namely, humanities and social
sciences. Certainly, this is not the first project aiming to partner literary studies with
linguistics2; however, a close examination of the details pertaining to this particular study
illuminates the reasoning behind the decision to connect these fields in analyzing the
import of the U.S. Latino narratives discussed throughout the project.
In order to investigate the question of how readers receive texts and what actually
transpires between the narratives and their interpreters, this project attempts the joining of
academic fields traditionally operating independently from one another: literary studies
and linguistic research. Philosophically, these two spheres of knowledge do not always
overlap; consequently, both literary studies and linguistics often approach the central
questions of this project from different perspectives. In bringing together these
approaches, however, this analysis attempts to forge a complementary relationship
between the two, therein amplifying the possibility of both accurately and creatively
examining readers' reception of the texts in question.
2 For example, the pairing of literary criticism with linguistics is evident in the field of
semiotics, or the study of signs and symbols as a means of language or communication.
Semiotics represents a methodology for the analysis of texts, playing a role in literary
criticism as well as audio and visual media.
4The field of linguistics falls under the disciplinary umbrella of the social sciences,
emphasizing quantitative and qualitative research methods to study language. To that
end, questionnaires, field-based data collection, and archival database information are
some of the measurement techniques used. The quantitative methods used in the social
science disciplines of sociology, ethnography, and sociolinguistics place great importance
upon measurement and analysis of language phenomena, focusing on the difficult-to-
attain goal of objective research or statistical hypothesis testing.
Literary studies, on the other hand, as an academic discipline belonging to the
humanities, examines the human condition using methods that are primarily analytic,
critical, or hypothetical, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the
social sciences. At the center of a humanistic approach to study is a belief in humankind's
urge to understand its own experiences via self-reflection. This understanding, according
to the humanist, ties like-minded people from similar cultural backgrounds together and
provides a sense of cultural continuity with the philosophical past (Dilthey 103). Literary
scholars often draw conclusions about language and society that stem from the idea that
people possess a narrative imagination which allows them to understand lived realities
outside of their own individual social and cultural context. Through that narrative
imagination, literary scholars develop a conscience believed by the humanist to be suited
to the modem multicultural world (Nussbaum 3).
What distinguishes the humanities from the social sciences is not a certain subject
matter but rather the mode of approach to any question. Humanists focus on
understanding meaning, purpose, and goals and further the appreciation of singular
5historical and social phenomena - an interpretive method of finding "truth" - rather than
explaining the causality of events or uncovering an objective truth of the social world
(Dilthey 103). For the humanist, imagination serves as a vehicle to create meaning which
invokes a response from an audience. Since a humanities scholar is always within the
nexus oflived experiences, no "absolute" knowledge is theoretically possible; knowledge
is instead a ceaseless procedure of inventing and reinventing the context in which a text is
read. Of course, many social science practitioners, like humanities scholars, may also
eschew the notion of absolute truth and recognize that any observation is necessarily
partial, biased and conditioned. Yet for the social scientist, the quest for empirical
knowledge is key because it emphasizes the role of experience and evidence in the
formation of ideas while discounting the notion of innate suppositions.
Many of the arguments of this project address the question of Latino narratives
and how they are received by readers from a humanist perspective. Namely, responses
and effects are imagined, based on close analysis of relevant contexts such as history,
identity and language. The humanist approach emphasizes analytic, critical and
theoretical elements through which these texts help to revolutionize hegemonic
discourses of dominant and subordinate languages and cultures of the United States. The
juxtaposition of this literary theoretical model with a social sciences approach
emphasizing empirical data analysis of actual responses from real readers of the
narratives in question makes the argument about these texts more robust. To that end,
beyond naming these literatures as revolutionary, this project aims to quantify the actual
effects these texts have on real readers via emp~rical analysis of data collected from
6reader responses to the narratives in question. Ultimately, then, in order to best approach
the central questions of this project, the social scientist's conscientious concern with
empiricism is conjoined with the humanist's analytic and critical hypothesis formation,
thereby triangulating these perspectives in order to present not only a richer picture of
what effect these texts have on readers, but also to draw wider conclusions about
bilingualism and cultural transformations at play in contemporary U.S. society.
Chapter II, entitled "Spanish-Speaking Identities in the United States," examines
Latino identity and immigration history, as well as the history ofthe Spanish language in
the United States, closely linking these stories to socially determined concepts of racial
formation and non-native citizenship in the nation. These considerations are followed by
an examination of the diverse identities of Spanish speakers in the United States today, to
the ways in which these identities are connected to the history of the speakers, and to the
variety of ethnic labels (and the consequences of their use) attached to the approximately
34 million Spanish-speakers in the country ("Selected"). The chapter also includes a
discussion of the ways in which the identities of Spanish-speakers are represented in
narratives that capture the racial, cultural, and linguistic "in-betweenness,,3 of being
classified as Latino in the United States today. A driving theme behind the discussions in
this chapter is the notion that the Spanish language itself is closely linked to the identities
of the Latino population, regardless of actual proficiency, and that in many cases its use
has become symbolic of the population as a whole.
3The term "in-betweenness" here refers to the experience of dwelling among multiple
languages and cultures (rather than just one of each), and thereby perceived as only
partially belonging to anyone language or culture.
7Chapter III, entitled "Language and Power," examines the hierarchical
relationships between the idealized and so-called standard English privileging
monolinguals, and the many linguistic varieties of non-standard contact language
phenomena4 arising in bilingual communities in the nation. The discussion centers
primarily around English-Spanish bilingualism and its sociopolitical positioning in U.S.
society. Using Janet Holmes' concept oflinguistic entrepreneurs (meaning innovators in
language use) as agents oflanguage change (200) - change that is inevitable but often
resisted by socially powerful groups - this chapter discusses the ways in which speakers
of monolingual English in the U.S have come to accept unconsciously the privilege of
assuming that monolingual, uniform English is the norm. Within this framework, any
variation from this standard, such as bilingualism, represents not only a corruption of
language but also an essential threat to the unity of the nation. I argue that the value
system privileging monolingual English use leaves its mark not only in the way English-
Spanish bilingualism has historically been regarded by English-speaking monolinguals in
the U.S., but also in the way it is regarded by bilinguals themselves. According to many
sociolinguistic studies, multiple language use is a practice that many bilinguals
themselves condemn (Holmes 45). In reference to this phenomenon, Rosina Lippi-Green
notes that speakers of peripheralized languages, or participants in stigmatized linguistic
4 Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The most
common products of language contact are pidgins (simplified languages that develop
between groups not sharing a common language), creoles (stable languages originating
from pidgins that have been nativized), code switching (the alternation between multiple
languages within discourse), and mixed languages (the fusion of two source languages).
The primary contact language phenomena under examination throughout this project is
code switching.
8practices such as the blending of two languages, sometimes accept external negative
scales of value to their own detriment (175).
Against this backdrop of nativist hostility toward bilingualism and the ensuing
widespread perception of multiple language use as a communicative deficiency, chapter
IV, entitled "Code Switching," begins with a review of the facts about language
alternation; namely, that switching between English and Spanish within single utterances
does not constitute "bad Spanish" or "bad English." Rather, code switching requires high
proficiency in both languages and reveals a robust grammar system comprised of two
varieties. Furthermore, much like rhythm, intonation, stress, or pitch, code switching
serves as one of many possible communicative tools available to speakers to signal
meaning. As such, language alternation bears significant social and interactional
implications, most of which revolve around Spanish-English bilingual speakers' joint
membership in both the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking worlds. Finally, this
chapter examines how textua11anguage alternations differ from spontaneous, verbal code
switching. I examine the ways in which several Latino-authored narratives deploy
language switches as a resource through which to articulate the cultures and realities
linked with each language.
Chapter V, entitled "The 'Minor' in U.S. Latino Narrative," argues that the
capacity shared by many Latino writers to interrogate linguistic and cultural hierarchies
via bilingual and bicultural narrative situates U.S. Latino literature within the minor
literature framework established by Gilles De1euze and Felix Guattari. Examining Latino
narrative through the minor literature lens provides insight into these texts' revolutionary
9potential- both linguistically and culturally. I have found that texts written from Latino
perspectives yet read widely by English monolinguals, such as The Brie/Wondrous Life
o/Oscar Wao by Jooot Diaz and Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros, possess the capacity to
upend the linguistic and cultural hierarchy in the U.S. by simultaneously inviting
mainstream readers to participate and excluding them from fully comprehending the
texts. By destabilizing the central positioning of the English-speaking monolingual reader
in this way, these narratives challenge traditional Anglo-American discourses of
knowledge, forcing the monolingual into a space of limited access to the text. Only the
bilingual, traditionally at the margins, has the capacity to completely enter into the
linguistic and cultural worlds created by these Latino writers.
Chapter VI, entitled "The Marketing and Publishing of Latinidad," examines the
role of the publishing industry in determining which types of Latino-authored texts are
made available to readers, what sort of literature is written by authors, and also how this
selection affects the reading public's awareness of social realities and of language.
Motivated by profit, the industry tends to choose texts that have a niche market and that
meet reader expectations. Since sales constitute the highest priority, mainstream presses
are likely to choose minority-authored books that are less concerned with reflecting truths
about how people really live, think, and feel and more with what monolingual English-
speaking people want to read and believe about minorities. Furthermore, given the
perceived national threat posed by bilingualism as discussed in chapter III, only the most
accessible and well-glossed types of bilingualism normally find their way into narratives
published by mainstream presses - even those composed by bilinguals. Many ofthe most
10
commercially successful, widely read narratives by Latino writers are those written
primarily in English but with Spanish language entries that are easily understood by a
monolingual English speaker and with a monolingual reader in mind (Rudin 229,
Callahan "Metalinguistic" 418, Torres 79). This constitutes the kind of Latino literature
that sells, the kind that gets published, and the kind that is perceived as representing
Latino reality in the United States.
Chapter VII, "The Effects of Bilingual Literature on (Mostly) Monolingual
Readers," examines the degree to which code switching Latino-authored texts influence
language and culture relationships in the United States. Specifically, this chapter contains
an empirical, ethnographic analysis of reader responses to the Spanish language entries in
Junot Diaz's 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative The Brief Wondrous Life ofOscar
Wao. The narrative, though written predominantly in English, features numerous lengthy
passages of untranslated, unexplained Dominican Spanish, which the reader must grow
accustomed to over the course of the 352-page text. The text, therefore, while mostly
accessible to the English monolingual reader, is fully comprehensible only to the
bilingual. Hence, the narrative challenges the English monolingual to continue reading in
spite of multiple comprehension failures. In order to measure how this bilingual narrative
technique is received by readers of varying linguistic backgrounds, a short study was
conducted in which reader responses to the text were analyzed and categorized in terms
of degree of receptivity to Spanish insertions in the narrative.
Throughout the process of researching and constructing the arguments contained
within this project, I have felt compelled to articulate a personal connection to the subject
11
matter. To that end, this Introduction concludes with a brief note about the authorial
relationship to the content of this dissertation. A theoretical question posed to me at the
outset of this work warrants repetition here: By what right maya native monolingual
English-speaking white person speak to the experience of being Latino and bilingual in
the United States today? How could such an individual be justified in addressing this
particular experience of marginality, arguably never having lived it first-hand?
A good response begins with an insistence that I do not presume to know these
experiences, or to speak for those who do. Rather, these realities are inspiring because of
their connection to language, identity, and power. Language is more than communication;
it is an important marker of who we believe ourselves to be as human beings. People use
language to connect to others as well as to differentiate from them. We employ language
to convey our very essence and to position ourselves in society. Given what language
does for human beings, what happens to identity when individuals are unable to express
themselves, or when the language surrounding them is incomprehensible? What happens
when people can no longer use language to navigate systems of social and political
services, or to convey a sense of membership in a nation? In this situation, identity is
virtually stripped, obliging subordinated groups to buy into discourses initiated by
dominant groups and to take on identities determined by others, without any agency.
While these experiences constitute a daily reality for people of Latin American descent
living in the United States, they could not be further from the comfortable linguistic
world to which many privileged monolingual English speakers automatically belong in
this nation.
12
Within this context, language learning arises as one possible tool to raise
awareness about these alternate and sometimes invisible realities by presenting learners
with a chance to enter new cultures first-hand while simultaneously re-examining their
personal identities. Stretching beyond the comfort zone of one's native language into new
linguistic terrain holds the potential to transform an individual's perspective. The
experience of reaching beyond oneself with language provides a chance at awakening to
other realities, other worlds, other experiences beyond the nexus of one's own life. New
languages and the experience of incomprehensibility they entail are doors into
unimagined realities that cannot be accessed in any other way.
For that reason, privileged monolingual English speakers in the United States
urgently need awareness-raising about what is classified as "other" in the nation, as well
as about how groups like U.S. Latinos create linguistic agency for themselves. Being
positioned outside of one's linguistic comfort zone constitutes a means of achieving that
end. This positioning can be attained in a number of ways, the first of which is simply by
working at becoming bilingual. Learning multiple languages does not instantly transform
individuals into cultural insiders; however, striving to attain a second language helps
learners to understand realities outside their own. Another means of raising this critical
awareness is through the experience of incomprehensibility with regard to a text. Latino
writer Junot Diaz described in an interview a goal in the composition of his novel The
BriefWondrous Life ofOscar Wao: " .. .1 wanted everybody at one moment to feel kind of
like an immigrant in this book. There would be one language chain that you might not
get. And that it was okay. It might provoke in you a reaction to want to know - and that's
13
good, because it'll make you go look, and read other books and start conversations" (Diaz
"Junot"). Diaz strives to create the immigrant reality for his English-speaking
monolingual reader - the experience of cultural displacement, of disorientation, of
mutability - so that this reader can begin learning first-hand about the daily reality of the
approximately 38 million immigrants living in the United States today ("US In Focus").
The critical first step into that transforrnative experience comes about via the powerful
moment of required incomprehensibility.
14
CHAPTER II
SPANISH-SPEAKING IDENTITIES IN THE UNITED STATES
Introduction
How do readers respond to contemporary Latino-authored narrative that utilizes
code switching between English and Spanish to articulate bicultural identities? This study
aims to address how these narratives form part of a larger body of minor literatures,
transforming traditional Anglo-American discourses of knowledge by marginalizing the
English-speaking monolingual and monocultural reader who, as Frances Aparicio argues,
has been "glaringly positioned throughout history as the prototypical embodiment of
cultural literacy" ("Sub-Versive" 800). Latino writers achieve this marginalization in part
through a textual appropriation and structural weakening of standard English vis-a.-vis the
natural and uncompromising appearance of Spanish in their texts, creating a bilingual
narrative texture that reflects the linguistic reality lived by many Latinos in the United
States.
A complete analysis of the manner in which these texts broaden readers' linguistic
and cultural awareness begins with a close examination of the U.S. Latino population
itself- who Latinos are, where they are from, how they define themselves or are defined
by others, and how the Spanish language is closely linked with their core identities. To
that end, this chapter opens with a brief recounting of the history of the Spanish language
and its speakers in the United States, extending from the colonial period through waves
of Spanish-speaking immigration leading to the present moment. This discussion is
15
followed by an analysis of the ways Latino identities are constructed through problematic
concepts ofrace as well as a myriad of heavily contested cultural labels. Finally, the
chapter concludes with an examination of how changing perceptions of the Latino
population in the U.S., brought about in part through civil and human rights movements,
have led to the introduction of Latino studies in higher education, a field of study that
serves as a key site for the re-examination of Latino identity on a national scale.
Selective Memory and Reconstructing the Past
John Locke perceived that human beings by necessity remember the past
selectively. He wrote that ideas in the mind quickly fade and often vanish from thought,
leaving no more traces than shadows passing over cornfields. Once these memories are
gone, the mind is as void of them as if they had never existed. Only those ideas that are
most frequently repeated, noted the philosopher, affix themselves best in the human
memory, and remain clearest and longest there. Revisited ideas, then, become the
memories that are seldom lost. Locke concluded, "[t]he pictures drawn in our minds are
laid in fading colours; and ifnot sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear."
In what ways do we revisit ideas so as to retain them as clear and lasting
memories? The narrating of past events is one means of achieving Locke's ideal of
retention through repetition. When the past refreshes itself in the human mind via written
or oral narrative, it is reborn into the present moment and consequently stands a greater
chance of fastening itself in the memory. Recounting the past thus becomes a selection
process whereby the narrator - intentionally or otherwise - elects those ideas that will last
due to their inclusion in the narrative, and those that will fade because they are omitted.
16
Memory, then, reconstructs the past through the course of selection,
simplification, and emphasis - processes that Howard Zinn argues are inevitable for
cartographers and historians (8). In order to present a usable drawing, the cartographer
must select out of the confounding mass of geographical data those bits and pieces of
information required for the purpose of any given map. However, as Zinn notes, while
the mapmaker's distorted representations of physical space are a technical necessity
shared by anyone creating or using a map, the historian's distorted representations of the
past are more than technical: they are ideological, reflecting the historian's sociopolitical
assumptions and projects. For in the narrating of a history, any chosen emphasis,
simplification, or exclusion of events supports an interest, whether national, political,
economic, racial, or sexual. 5
Furthermore, this ideological interest is not openly expressed by the historian, but
rather is presented as if all readers ofhistory shared it; hence, readers of such accounts
are drawn into the values presupposed as universal by the historian. This keeps them in
the dark about what James Loewan describes as the very nature of history: furious debate
informed by evidence and reason, not blind acceptance of a discrete list of facts, dates,
and answers to be learned (5). Zinn and Loewan each build a broad critique of U.S.
society's construction of education and knowledge as technical problems of excellence,
rather than as tools for contending social classes, races, and nations.
5 Contrary to Zinn's dismissal of the mapmaker's choices as merely technical, one could
argue that the cartographer's selections are equally fraught with ideological interest; how
could representing space not also by necessity require choices that support social ideals?
17
Given both Zinn's and Loewan's polemic about society's passive approach to
looking at the past, I propose in this chapter that a generally uncritical acceptance of
narrated histories - which are, by necessity, incomplete and ideologically-motivated
accounts - very much characterizes how the nation has come to view its own history
through an Anglocentric lens. For example, the familiar story of the origins of the nation
typically begins with the founding of the first permanent English settlements in America
at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, followed by the arrival ofthe Pilgrims at Plymouth,
Massachusetts in 1620 (Rurnbaut 90). Meanwhile, the "Hispanic" (meaning of Spanish
origins) presence in what is now the United States has until relatively recently been
excluded from narrated histories of the nation - even though Spanish settlers arrived in
present-day Florida a full four decades before the founding of Jamestown (Ruiz 656).
The shadow cast over the Spanish past - and over the Uto-Aztecan indigenous
past and present - of the United States has persisted over time; society's continued denial
of this heritage is rooted in age-old racial and ethnic stereotypes that still entangle today's
immigration debate (Horwitz). The same shadow is responsible for the national amnesia
characteristic of society's memory and acknowledgement of its Latino immigration
history, a history that has left an indelible, if ignored, imprint throughout Florida, the
Southwest, and elsewhere in the U.S. (Rumbaut 90). Today, as the Latino population
continues to expand and shape U.S. culture and society, the Spanish-speaking presence
has emerged seemingly suddenly in the Anglo-American imaginary as a visible and
pervasive new element of American life - even though it has been present since before
the founding of the nation.
18
A Brief History of the Spanish Language in the United States
As Phillip Carter points out, several popular misconceptions about Spanish and its
position in the history of the nation warrant a re-examination for the purpose of critiquing
the cycle of reproduction and promulgation of myths surrounding the story of Spanish in
the United States. For example, local, regional and national news stories have recently
raised the misconception that native Spanish speakers are only now beginning to populate
areas of the United States in large groups. In spite of the fact that recent Census reports
show that the U.S. Latino population has experienced an upsurge since the early 1990's,
what we now think of as Latino communities and varieties of the Spanish language have
been maintained in the United States for more than four centuries, a fact discussed in
depth below. Furthermore, Spanish actually predates English in the areas that now make
up the composite United States - a fact that surprises many Americans (Carter).
Indeed, the early history of what is now the United States was Spanish, not
English. Spanish was the first European language spoken in North America, having been
brought to present-day Florida by the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon in 1513. In spite of
this, beginning in the colonial era, the history of the United States is often narrated with
an emphasis placed on the thirteen British colonies as background to the American
Revolution and the formation of an independent nation (Ruiz 656). Details and histories
not supporting the narrative leading to this important revolution are frequently excluded
from the history of the nation since they do not bolster the ideological interests of a
society favoring the notion of the building of a linguistically and racially homogeneous,
19
English-speaking nation (Carter). The remainder of this section aims to recount some
these marginalized histories.
After the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon's initial arrival in the present-day
United States in 1513, the Spanish established their first permanent colony in present-day
Florida in 1565 under the leadership of Pedro Menendez de Aviles. The Spanish then
explored the Atlantic coast between 1520 and 1570, with specific interest in what are
now the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia and the New England coast. A century and a half
later, the Spanish attempted to exert further influence in the Southeast by purchasing
Greater Louisiana from the French in 1763, though the territory was later resold to the
U.S. in 1803 (Carter).
After failing to build prosperous colonies along the Atlantic coast, the Spanish
refocused on the unexplored territory in the West and Southwest ofthe present-day
United States, where they left an indelible cultural and linguistic mark. Today, much of
the long-term U.S. Spanish-speaking population is located along these areas, which
include portions of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Texas
(Carter). The first Spanish explorations ofthis region began in 1540 led by Francisco
Coronado, followed by Juan de Oilate in 1598. Spanish settlements were established
throughout the Southwest. Present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico, was claimed for Spain by
Coronado in 1540, and in 1605 was established as one of the oldest cities in what is now
the United States. Spanish colonization of the Southwest was deemed successful, and by
the mid-nineteenth century as many as 100,000 Spanish speakers were living in the
region (Hernandez-Chavez v).
20
The nineteenth century also marked the beginning of historical ties between the
United States and three Spanish-speaking nations that contributed enormously to
populations ofD.S. Spanish speakers: Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.6 When the Treaty
of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ceded the Southwest territories to the United States in 1848 at the
end of the Mexican-American War, Mexico lost over 500,000 square miles ofland,
which comprised over half of its national territory, and approximately 80,000 inhabitants
of Mexican and Spanish origin who were residing in that territory instantly became U.S.
citizens (Rumbaut 94). Yet, as Vicki Ruiz points out, historians tend to focus on the
Mexican War as "the fire bell in the night" with the subsequent acquisition (not conquest)
of new territories, an accomplishment that would bring to the forefront the inflammatory
matter of slavery in the territories. After this moment in history, writes Ruiz, survey texts
generally turn eastward to narrate the circuitous path leading to civil war (Ruiz 660).
What of the Spanish-speakers who remained in the Southwest, newly-appointed U.S.
citizens after 1848? Simply put, states Ruiz, Mexicans on the U.S. side of the border
became second-class citizens, commonly dispossessed of their land, political power, and
cultural privileges (660).
The geographic absorption of territories after the Mexican War, alongside the
American policy of westward expansion fueled by the ideological notion of "manifest
6 While other Spanish-speaking nations from Latin America and the Caribbean have
contributed importantly to the overall population of Spanish-speakers in the United
States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba have historically supplied the largest numbers of
Spanish-speaking immigrants. For this reason, as well as due to the focus of this project, I
have elected to emphasize in this section the immigration histories of these three nations.
21
destiny"? helped facilitate the spread of English across most ofNorth America. It also
lead to the disappearance of Spanish as the first language of most ofthe area's future
inhabitants. However, despite the marginalization of Spanish, the language endured in
many Southwestern communities and developed into unique regional varieties. Though
English of course eventually became the dominant language of the United States, Spanish
played an important role in the early linguistic landscape of the country, as the Spanish
influence spread to nearly every region by the mid-nineteenth century (Carter).8
The end of the nineteenth century saw the start of an increase in two additional
influxes of Spanish-speaking communities to the United States: Puerto Ricans and
Cubans began to enter the nation in periodic waves starting at the close of the Spanish
American war in 1898. This war began after Spain rejected America's demand for a
peaceful resolution of the Cuban fight for independence. The war ended with the Treaty
ofParis, which gave the U.S. control of Puerto Rico and Cuba, among other territories.
This stimulated various immigration waves in the early twentieth century, leading
eventually to approximately 100,000 Cuban immigrations and 888,000 Puerto Rican
migrations by the year 1960 (Rumbaut 96).
Twelve years after the Treaty of Paris, in 1910, the Mexican Revolution started
with an uprising led by Francisco Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Diaz. The
? This term refers to the belief that the United States was destined or even divinely
ordained to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to
the Pacific Ocean.
8There were of course other groups and other languages besides English and Spanish
spoken in what is now the United States. The Anglo majority and dominance was not
always a given; for example, German has a history of a strong presence in parts of the
country, where it was at one time allowed as the language of instruction in schools.
22
choices were simple for Mexicans who opposed the fighting: hide away or leave the
country. Many chose to immigrate to the United States, leading to as many as 1 million
Mexicans crossing the border for refuge between 1910 and 1920 (Rumbaut 95). Also
during this decade, the passage of the Jones Act in 1917 gave Puerto Ricans U. S.
citizenship and made them eligible for military draft, requiring approximately 2,000
Puerto Ricans to fight for the United States in World War I. The Puerto Rican migratory
flow was increased as a result of the Jones Act (discussed in the following section), and
consequently over 50,000 Puerto Ricans had migrated to New York City by 1930
("Chronology").
About a decade later, the U.S. initiated the Bracero Program (1942 - 1964), a
temporary contract labor program in which the United States government hired Mexican
citizens to come across the border to work in agriculture programs and on the railroad.
Over the 22-year period, the Bracero Program sponsored about 4.5 million border
crossings. The end ofthe Bracero Program prompted increased flows of undocumented
workers from Mexico, an occurrence that has continued through the beginning of the
twenty-first century (Rumbaut 95).
The year 1948, just six years after the start of the Bracero Program, saw several
events of significance to Latino history and hence to the history of Spanish in the United
States in general. Among these were Perez v. Sharp, in which the California Supreme
Court struck down an anti-miscegenation law and allowed the union between a woman of
Mexican descent and a man of African descent. Furthermore, 1948 marked the start of the
American G.I. Forum. Approximately 500,000 Latinos had served in World War II, the
I
I
i
23
end of which signaled a significant shift in social relations for Latinos (Ruiz 666).
Consequently, the period after World War II represented a claiming of public space as
Latinos attempted to bridge the lines of inequality through protest, politics, and popular
culture (Ruiz 671). These events served as a catalyst for the struggle for civil rights
among Spanish-speaking Latinos in the United States.
A few years later, in 1952, Puerto Rico became a commonwealth of the United
States, a status that fimdamentally distinguished the island's relationship with the U.S.
from other Latin American and Caribbean areas. As U.S. citizens by birth, Puerto Ricans
were granted the ability to travel freely between the island and the mainland, without
having to pass through Immigration and Naturalization Service or Border Patrol. Another
event which contributed to Puerto Rican migration included Operation Bootstrap, a
project initiated by Governor Jose Luis Alberto Munoz Marin which industrialized Puerto
Rico in the mid-20th century. While Operation Bootstrap rapidly increased the island's
industrialization and urbanization, it did not resolve unemployment rates and population
growth problems. Ultimately, the project intensified pressure to migrate to the mainland.
The Puerto Rican population within the United States grew steadily, such that between
1950 and 1960 it had tripled to 888,000 (Rumbaut 95-96).
Although Cubans had been present in cities like New York, Tampa, and Key
West for nearly a century, the 1959 Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro contributed
significantly to further immigrations of Spanish-speakers to the United States. The
revolution resulted in the overthrow of the U.S. proxy ruler General Batista's regime,
signaling the start of a large exodus of Cubans to the United States. From 1960 to 1979,
24
250 thousand Cubans, mostly from the upper and middle classes, immigrated to the U.S.
and settled primarily in Florida and New York, among other places (Rumbaut 96).
The last four decades of the twentieth century saw what David Gutierrez refers to
as a "demographic revolution,,9 in the United States, which changed the dynamics of
identity and social orientation among various Latino subpopulations. The resident Latino
populations expanded over this period, and their numbers were augmented by millions of
newer immigrants of Latin American origin or descent (Gutierrez 2). In 1960, there were
fewer than one million foreign-born Latin Americans in the United States. Today,
according to a 2007 census report, there are close to 44 million Latinos, who represent
almost 14 percent of the U.S. population (qtd. in "How many Hispanics"). This number
includes both foreign-born Latinos as well as those of Latin American heritage. As
Gutierrez points out, these shifting demographic balances over the last four decades of
the twentieth century are largely attributable to the passage of the Hart-Celler
Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, which abolished the
discriminatory national-origins quota system known as the Johnson-Reed Act, which had
been in place since the 1920s and which, once lifted, stimulated significant immigration
flows from Latin America.
Racial Formation and Alien Citizenship in the United States
The Immigration Act of 1924, also called the Johnson-Reed Act, limited the
number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States based upon their country of
9 I interpret Gutierrez's use of the term "demographic revolution" to mean a change in the
demographic structure of the U.S. population to include far greater numbers of people
originating from Spanish-speaking Latin America.
25
origin. The Act ushered in an era of restricted immigration to the U.S., in sharp contrast
to previous years of open immigration to the nation (Ngai 17). The quota provided
immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the
United States as of the 1890 national census ("Immigration"). The law deemed all
Europeans to be part of a white race, distinct from those considered to be non-white, and
the Act favored the former over the latter. As an exclusionary measure, this new
immigration policy completely barred immigrants from specific origins in the Asia-
Pacific Triangle, and placed a varying limit on immigrations from other parts of the
world. The national origins quota system classified Europeans as nationalities and
assigned quotas in a hierarchy of desirability based on race. Thus, the Johnson-Reed Act
repositioned and solidified racial categories within the legal system, as Mae Ngai
explains, and thus represents not only a site for the official construction of race, but also a
significant moment for legally backed, large-scale white hegemonic practices in the
United States (7).
This restrictive immigration law successfully produced new categories of racial
difference in the United States, and created a hierarchical system favoring certain races
over others by law. Yet the Johnson-Reed Act was by no means the first illustration of
social constructions ofrace in the history of the United States. lO As Michael Omi and
Howard Winant point out, the designation of racial categories and the determination of
racial identity has for centuries precipitated intense debates and conflicts in the nation.
10 The term "social construction" refers to a concept or practice that is the creation of a
particular group of people in society. Consequently, to say that race is socially
constructed is to focus on its dependence on social identities and relationships.
26
Many of the disputes have arisen out of the inadequacy of claims that race is only a
matter of differences in human physiognomy, such as skin color (Omi and Winant 54).
As an alternative to this definition, Omi and Winant suggest that race is actually "a
concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to
different types of human bodies" (55). Furthermore, they note, the selection of specific
physical characteristics for purposes of racial classification is always and necessarily a
social and historical process (Omi and Winant 55).
Omi and Winant describe this process of selection as one of racial formation, a
socio-historical method by which racial categories are invented, lived, altered, and
deleted (Omi and Winant 55). This theory claims that race is formed as a result of
historically positioned undertakings in which individuals and societies are represented
and organized into hegemony. From this perspective, race is a matter of both social
structure and cultural representation (Omi and Winant 56). The theory of racial formation
suggests that society is suffused with racial "projects" to which all members are subjected
and hence inserted into a comprehensive racialized social structure. These projects, which
both identify and standardize perceptions of race, are the heart of the racial formation
process (Omi and Winant 60).
As a racial "project" according to the above definition, the Johnson-Reed Act
represents a means of identifying, signifying, routinizing, and standardizing race on a
national level. As Mae Ngai points out, given that race is not a biological fact but rather a
socially constructed category of difference, the classifications of race created by the
Johnson-Reed Act are historically specific to the 1920s and reflect the nation's attempt to
27
codify immigrants based on an internally-constructed value system (7). David Gutierrez
notes that the decades leading up to the Act were characterized by high levels of
xenophobia and nativism. American protectionists, alarmed at the rapid increase of
immigration from southern and eastern Europe, became convinced that these so-called
new immigrants were racially and culturally inferior to white Americans of Anglo-Saxon
heritage. Hence, as early as the 1880s, they began to agitate for restrictive federal
immigration legislation (Gutierrez "Economic" 51). The Johnson-Reed Act represents an
affirmative response to that agitation.
While the Act technically set no limits on immigration from Latin America and
therefore had no directly identifiable impact on numbers of Spanish-speaking immigrants
entering the United States legally, the enforcement provisions of restriction such as visa
requirements and border control policies profoundly affected Mexicans entering the
nation. The result of these restrictions was that Mexicans, who had historically been able
to cross between Mexico and the United States unimpeded, became the single largest
group of undocumented immigrants by the late 1920s (Ngai 7). The growing social
association between Mexicans and illegal immigration led to Jim Crow segregation laws
applied to Mexicans in the Southwest. It also led to the creation of "Mexican" as a
separate racial category in the census (Gutierrez "Economic" 61).
Ngai notes that during the 1920s, both Asians' and Mexicans' race and ethnicity-
which she defines as a nationality-based cultural identity capable of transformation and
assimilation - remained conjoined, unlike Euro-Americans whose ethnic and racial
identities became separated during this time (8). In other words, a European could be
28
legally classified as a member of the white race while retaining an ethnicity based on one
of a number of possible national origins within Europe; meanwhile, an Asian or a
Mexican were simply classified as belonging to the Asian or Mexican race, terms
intended to denote both racial and ethnic belonging in one fell swoop. As such, the legal
racialization of these ethnic groups' national origin cast them as permanently foreign and
unable to assimilate to the nation. They became what Ngai terms "alien citizens" -
namely, Asian Americans or Mexican Americans born in the United States with formal
U.S. citizenship but cast as alien or unassimilable to the nation (Ngai 8).
While the concept of alien citizenship evoked a condition of racial otherness, a
pennanent state of foreignness that could not be altered, it was more than a racial
metaphor. Even though it was not technically a legal condition, this supposition of alien
citizenship influenced structures of racial discrimination and was at the center of large-
scale racist policies such as the repatriation of 400,000 people ofMexican descent, halfof
whom were U.S. citizens, during the Great Depression O'Jgai 8).
Hence, the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 had the cumulative effect of instigating a
new legal system of racial discrimination against those legally classified as non-white,
including Spanish-speaking Mexicans who, as mentioned earlier, at that time were
coming to the United States in increasing waves after the Mexican Revolution. Between
1910 and 1930, the number of Mexican immibJfants counted by the U.S. census tripled
from 200,000 to 600,000. The actual number was probably far greater (Diller et al).
Therefore, even if the Johnson-Reed Act did not directly influence the countable Spanish-
speaking population in the United States, the policy had an unquestionable impact on the
29
social status of the language and its speakers. Due to Spanish-speakers' popular and legal
classification as either illegal aliens or alien citizens, created in large part by the Act's
racialization of them, the national origins quota system contributed significantly to a
sharp reduction in the prestige value of spoken Spanish in the United States.
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality
Act Amendments of 1965 abolished the Johnson-Reed Act, stimulating significant
immigration flows from Latin America and shifting demographic balances of Spanish-
speakers in the subsequent nearly five decades leading to the present moment. As
Gutierrez notes, the policy resulted in distinct changes in the composition of immigrant
flows over the last decades of the twentieth century ("Introduction" 4). While in 1960, 75
percent of immigrants to the U.S. came from Europe and 14 percent originated from Asia
and Latin America, by the end of the century that ratio had been reversed. In 2000, only
15 percent of the foreign-born population of the United States originated in the nations of
Europe; the vast majority, more than 77 percent, originated in the nations of Latin
America and Asia (Gutierrez "Introduction" 4). While it is important to note that the
ability to speak Spanish is not necessarily a given for every person of Latin American
origin or descent living in the United States, the language remains an important marker of
identity for this diverse group as a whole. As such, Spanish has become a racialized
language. Today, according to a 2007 survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, there
are approximately 34 million people, comprising about 9% of the total population, who
report speaking Spanish as their primary language at home ("Selected").
30
Latinidad: The Politics of Identity and Identifiers
Thus far, this chapter has developed discussions centering around Latino
immigration history and the history of the Spanish language in the United States, closely
linking these stories to socially determined concepts of racial formation and alien
citizenship in the nation. These considerations logically lead to an examination of the
diverse identities of Spanish speakers in the United States today, to the ways in which
these identities are connected to the history of the speakers, and to the variety of ethnic
labels (and the consequences of their use) attached to the approximately 34 million
Spanish-speakers in the country.
As Paula Moya notes, the concept of identity remains one of the most disputed
topics in literary and cultural studies. Beginning with the final two decades of the
twentieth century, the trend among scholars in a variety of fields engaging in debates
over identity has been to make claims that social or cultural identity is theoretically
incoherent and politically pernicious (Moya 2). Moya addresses these attempts to
dismantle the concept of identity by constructing a postpositivist realist framework in
order to recuperate it. This theory reveals that identities can be both real and constructed:
that they can be politically and epistemically significant, while also changeable, extrinsic,
and historically determined (Moya 12).
Linda Martin Alcoff supports Moya's framework, noting that realists about
identity view identities as markers for history, social location, and positionality (6). The
realist structure argues that identities are not bewildering inner quintessences but rather
socially embodied facts about people in the world. Alcoff develops the theoretical issue
31
concerning identities beyond the discussion of whether they are constructed - arguing
that they always are, since they are socially determined - and refocuses instead on
questions of how different kinds of identities create different experiences of the world.
In her argument, Moya highlights these differences in noting the correlation
between structures of inequality and categories of identity, suggesting that their
interconnectedness is a fundamental element of social liberation and oppression (Moya
8). Within the context of U.S. Spanish speakers and the low social status historically
bestowed upon this diverse group as a whole, Moya's obervation underscores a
connection between the perceived identity of Spanish speakers -linked to race and class
- and the history of discrimination against them. Given that goods and resources are
distributed according to identity categories, and that who people are - meaning who they
perceive themselves or are perceived by others to be - significantly affects their life
chances, one can conclude that the historical perception of Spanish speakers in the United
States as racially inferior undocumented workers has played a significant role in the
social oppression suffered by this sector of society (Moya 8).
Of particular interest to the discussion of socially constructed racial identification
is the issue of ethnonyms, or identity markers often used as implicit racial descriptors
despite their claim to denote ethnicity and not race. Nicholas De Genova and Ana
Ramos-Zayas unpack the ethnonym discussion through their examination of the
possibilities and obstacles of a shared sense of "Latino" identity, or Latinidad, among
diverse groups of people of Spanish-speaking Latin American origin or descent living in
the United States. Indeed, since the passing of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, thousands of
32
Spanish-speaking people from Latin America have made their way to the United States,
where they have joined other immigrants or exiles from South and Central America, the
Spanish-speaking Caribbean, and Mexico, as well as Puerto Ricans and sectors of the
Mexican American communities who have long lived in the United States as citizens. Yet
regardless of the varying historical processes that brought diverse Spanish-speaking
populations of Latin American origin to the U.S., their lives are today directly affected by
the use of the terms "Hispanic" or "Latino" to characterize them. The term "Latino" was
officially adopted in 1997 by the United States Government in the ethnonym "Hispanic
or Latino," which replaced the single term "Hispanic" that had been in place since the
1970s (U.S. Office of Management and Budget).]]
De Genova and Ramos-Zayas begin their argument by asserting that, in spite of
claims to the contrary, the ongoing reconfigurations of "Latinos" are very much a matter
of racial formation in the U.S. They note that the essential unintelligibility of social
categories such as "Latino" or "Hispanic" (unintelligible because they are so broad),
combined with their enduring meaningfulness (meaningful because they do nevertheless
denote race), are suggestive indicators that these terms are indeed racial and not ethnic
signifiers (16). The U.S. Bureau of the Census, among other commentators, claims that
Latinos are not a "race" and that those whom the term describes may be, variously, Black
or white or some "other" race. Indeed, the U.S. Census has unequivocally held the
"Hispanic" category to be an officially non-racial classification. Nevertheless, De Genova
]] In Latin America, unlike in the United States, the term Latino (meaning Latin in
English) tends to refer to a common Latin culture, language (meaning derived from
Latin), or shared history as members of the Roman Empire. Within this context, Italians
and French are also considered Latinos, something unheard of in the U.S.
33
and Ramos-Zayas argue that this hegemonic "ethnic" differentiation appointed by the
u.s. state has been key to the distribution of affirmative action entitlements, revealing
what these scholars describe as a deliberate construction of "Hispanics" into an
effectively homogenized minority population comparable to African Americans. In fact,
this group has been homogenized even to the point of excluding other Hispanics, such as
Sephardic Jews. Therefore, the "Hispanic" status of Latinos is in fact widely treated as a
racial condition, at least in the important arena of bureaucratic visibility and services.
As De Genova and Ramos-Zayas note, the terms "Hispanic" or "Latino" are not
only racialized ethnonyrns. They also act as descriptors that serve to homogenize people
of Latin American origin or descent living in the United States. The process by which
groups have corne to be blended together as "Hispanics" or "Latinos" cannot be separated
from the way in which these pan-Latino labels were first devised by the U.S. federal
government. The "Hispanic" label was formulated by the U.S. state as a calculated
method of deletion with regard to the more particular histories of groups originating from
individual nations in Latin America or the Spanish-speaking Caribbean (De Genova and
Ramos-Zayas 17). Suzanne Oboler also cautions against the government's use of
umbrella terms such as "Hispanic" as homogenizing markers that erase cultural histories
and have the potential to spread negative connotations leading to stigmatization and
discrimination against all of the designatees (Oboler xviii).
Critics of these homogenizing ethnonyms argue against their use by claiming that
social identities such as "Hispanic" or "Latino" are infamous for the obscurity and
inconsistency they entail in identifying diverse groups of Latin American origins (De
34
Genova and Ramos-Zayas 17). In spite of these inherent ambiguities and incongruities,
however, the labels have become widely used and increasingly significant, particularly
for hegemonic practices that lump together these groups as a composite "minority"
population, a political constituency, or a market segment (Davila 2).12 Furthermore, the
production of a Hispanic ethnic identity could serve to distract Latin American
populations within the U.S. from political mobilization on the basis ofrace or nationality
(De Genova and Ramos-Zayas 18).
Hence, some scholars and activists have been inspired to repudiate generic labels
like Hispanic or Latino altogether as homogenized cultural markers evocative of
historical experiences largely generated by politicians, social scientists, the mass media
and advertising industry. Meanwhile, others have come either to internalize the terms to
varying degrees, or to strategically appropriate them for purposes of self-identification,
representation, and organization (De Genova and Ramos-Zayas 19). Thus, the terms
"Hispanic" or "Latino" have come to be used as tools for creating community and
building strategic coalitions for self-representation (De Genova and Ramos-Zayas 17).
Scholars like Oboler note that there is a need to forge the political unity of the various
groups of Latin American origin or descent under one umbrella term in the search for full
citizenship rights and social justice (Oboler xviii). Therefore, while Oboler has
reservations about the use of umbrella ethnonyms as described earlier, she does see a
political utility in these pan-ethnic identifiers.
12 The multitude of ways in which generalized ideas about "Hispanics" have been
marketed and advertised appears in chapter VI, The Marketing and Publishing of
Latinidad.
35
David Gutierrez acknowledges that so-called Latinos in the United States are a
diverse population derived from the complex colonial and postcolonial history of
Spanish-speaking people in the Western Hemisphere. However, he also points to a
number of powerful historical and cultural ties that are shared by Spanish-speaking
people of Latin American origin or descent, in spite of the multitude of differences that
make up this population. According to Gutierrez, the term "Latino" could designate the
following six shared characteristics: a Spanish-language heritage 13, a legacy of genetic
and cultural mestizaje (what he describes as a melding of European, African, and
indigenous gene pools and cultural traits), a Christian tradition, a common history of
national liberation from Spanish imperialism, a legacy in contending with the effects of
U.S. imperialism, and the integrally related experience of varying degrees of
discrimination in the United States (Gutierrez "Introduction" 10). However, even
Gutierrez's list of characteristics silences many additional possibilities of "Latinidad,"
erasing other actors in the historical and cultural scene such as speakers of Portuguese,
for example, or non-Catholics.
In analyzing substantive commonalities among distinct Latino groups, De Genova
and Ramos-Zayas draw attention primarily to the final three features on Gutierrez' list:
they argue that the basis for such commonalities must be situated in an examination of the
conjoined historicity of peoples throughout Latin America in relation to the colonial and
imperialist projects ofthe U.S. nation-state. Furthermore, they argue, conversations about
13 Given that many indigenous peoples in Latin America speak Spanish as a second
language and a significant minority of U.S.-born Latinos do not speak Spanish at all, it is
important to distinguish Spanish-language heritage from actual Spanish proficiency as a
shared characteristic of Latinos in the United States (Gutierrez 10).
36
Latinidad must be accompanied by the historical and contemporary racializations of Latin
America and Latinos in the U.S. by the sociopolitical order of white supremacy (21).
Gutierrez adds that "dating almost from the creation of the United States, the
general attitude of government officials and much of the American public toward Latin
America has been, at best, one of ignorance and, at worst, one of disdain, if not outright
animus" ("Introduction" 10). By the middle of the nineteenth century it had become
second nature for both individuals of influence and much of the general public to attribute
Latin American poverty, political instability, and general economic and infrastructural
underdevelopment to what was widely perceived and argued to be the fundamental racial
and cultural inferiority of Latin Americans themselves (Gutierrez "Introduction" 11).
Racial discrimination, it would seem, has always been part of the experience of being
Latino in the U.S. Gutierrez here gestures at the notion that a shared experience of
discrimination constitutes a unifying characteristic of all people whom the term "Latino"
purports to describe.
Thus, while some scholars caution against umbrella ethnonyms such as
"Hispanic" or "Latino" because of the tendency of such labels to erase cultural histories
and variety among this diverse population, others propose that people of Latin American
origin or descent living in the United States do, in fact, share a number of historical and
cultural ties that can be designated within a single term. Juan Gonzalez, on the other
hand, sidesteps the terminology debate in his historical analysis of Latinos in the United
States. Of the discussion surrounding the terms "Latino" and "Hispanic," Gonzalez
writes, "Neither is totally accurate but both are acceptable" (xix). He opts, instead, to use
37
them interchangeably within his analysis, claiming that these changing preferences for
ethnic designators reflect nothing more than "phases" through which this population is
passing in selecting self-identifiers. However, the debate over ethnic label use deserves
more consideration than Gonzalez suggests. Changes in terminology reflect more than
simply a passage through phases, since certain labels carry with them a negative value
due to their historical use as discriminatory terms. Perhaps this is why minority groups
periodically opt for new self-identifiers.
According to the United States Office of Management and Budget, today
"Hispanic" is commonly used in the eastern portion ofthe United States, whereas
"Latino" is commonly used in the western portion. Because most individuals in the
United States engaging with these terms are likely neither Latino Studies scholars nor
census data experts, a brief examination of a dictionary definition of these terms provides
a window into the everyday use and understanding of these ethnonyms. The American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language claims that of the two terms, "Hispanic" has
the broader reference, potentially encompassing all Spanish-speaking peoples in both
hemispheres and emphasizing the common denominator of language among communities
that sometimes have little else in common. By comparison, "Latino" refers more
exclusively to persons or communities of Latin American origin or descent. Of the two
terms, only "Hispanic" can be used in referring to Spain and its history and culture.
However, the distinction between the two ethnonyms "is of little significance when
referring to residents of the United States, most of whom are of Latin American origin
and can theoretically be called by either word" ("Hispanic"). Hence, the American
38
Heritage Dictionary's perspective is suggestive of a blurred distinction between the two
terms, arguably reflecting an everyday perspective on the debate.
The literary and political movements of the 1960s and 1970s among Mexican
Americans established the term "Chicano" as an expression of ethnic pride, and it is
commonly used today to describe native-born U.S. citizens of Mexican ancestry. Though
the term's meanings are highly debatable, Chicano bears strong political associations and
is deployed by many as a positive self-identifying social construction. However, the
American Heritage Dictionary warns that "[s]ince these politics are not necessarily
espoused by all Mexican Americans, and since usage and acceptance of this word can
vary from one region to another, an outsider who is unfamiliar with his or her audience
may do well to use Mexican American instead." Here, the dictionary indirectly suggests
this label for use by the non-Mexican, advising that the term be avoided due to its
politically-charged associations ("Chicano").
This section has outlined a number of issues regarding the politics of identity
surrounding populations of Spanish-speaking Latin American origin or descent living in
the United States today. Taken together, these perspectives point toward a Latino
experience that is at once racial, cultural and linguistic. As noted previously, while not all
members of such populations are necessarily Spanish speakers, they do at the very least
share to varying degrees a Spanish-language heritage. Furthermore, the Spanish language
itself is closely linked to the identities ofthis population, and in many cases its use has
become symbolic ofthe population as a whole. Therefore, discourse surrounding
39
Latinidad and the sociopolitical status of Latinos by necessity informs discussions
centering around the social positioning of the Spanish language in the United States.
The Emergence of Latino Literary and Cultural Studies
Regardless of which term one uses to describe people of Latin American origin or
descent living in the U.S., changes in the demographic structure of the pan-Latino
population and how this grouping is conceptualized have propelled a period of intense re-
examination ofD.S. Latino identity, not only by Latinos themselves but also by the
nation as a whole. An important site for the dynamics of this re-examination process is
the multitude of cultural expressions emerging out of Latino communities. As William
Flores and Rina Benmayor propose in their glossing of Renato Rosaldo's concept of
"Latino cultural citizenship," these specifically Latino cultural forms of expression not
only keep identity and heritage alive, but also significantly enrich the cultural whole of
the country (2). Cultural citizenship, according to Flores and Benmayor, names a range of
social practices which, taken together, "claim and establish a distinct social space for
Latinos in the United States" (l).
One result of the growing Latino population discussed previously and the
subsequent emergence of U.S. Latino expressive cultures is the integration of Latino and
area studies into the American university system over the past decade. Universities are
creating a space for this dynamic field, be it in existing departments of Spanish, Romance
Languages, English, Ethnic Studies, or in newly created institutional frameworks
(Aparicio, "Latino Cultural Studies" 3). However, because of U.S. Latino literature's
tendency to engage in the mixing of Spanish and English within single narratives, a
40
bilingual language phenomenon referred to as code-switching, this literature's
relationship to Spanish or Romance Languages departments is often brought into
question. 14 This is also the case within interdisciplinary programs such as Women's
Studies or American Culture (Cashman "Language Choice" 146). Holly Cashman writes,
"This exclusion serves to silence the voice of U.S. Latina writers in academia for the sake
of maintaining the standard language ideology" ("Language Choice" 146). This standard
language ideology, defined by Rosina Lippi~Green as " ... a bias toward an abstracted,
idealized, homogenous spoken language which is imposed and maintained by dominant
bloc institutions and which names as its model the written language, but which is draWfl
primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class" (64), negates a permanent,
legitimate space for narratives which engage in code-switching. U.S. Latino literature,
therefore, does not have a regular home in academia but rather straddles several possible
departments and disciplines, belonging partially in multiple spaces, but wholly nowhere.
The Academy's resistance to this hybridized discipline reflects the institution's
inscription and reinforcement of cultural biases.
According to Frances Aparicio, this lack of total belonging has to do with the
prevailing perception in many universities and departments that one need not specialize
in Latino studies in order to teach them ("Latino Cultural Studies" 7). She states, "This
phenomenon is the result of class prejudice against cultural productions whose subjects
and agents are working class and who are considered racially inferior to thinkers of
14 While Latino literature was at one time also rejected from English departments, this is
no longer the case; rather, Latino literature has recently become a hotly-pursued area of
specialization within the field of English literature.
41
Western culture" ("Latino Cultural Studies" 8). Because of the widespread belief that
specialization is not required to teach U.S. Latino literatures, and because these literatures
are usually characterized by concepts of code switching, bilingualism, and a complex
cultural labeling system, they are treated differently when approached critically through
the disciplinary lenses of departments of Spanish, Romance Languages, Comparative
Literature, and English or Ethnic Studies. A Spanish or Romance Languages Department
approach might consider Latino texts as representing a subversion or modification of
standard Spanish literary discourse, while English or Ethnic Studies might approach the
texts through the lens of English monolingualism and view the Spanish language entries
as emblematic of cultural and linguistic "otherness." A Comparative Literature approach
might focus the study of Latino literatures around discussions of translation between
languages and articulations of hybrid identity.
Regardless of the critical lens through which U.S. Latino literatures are
approached, many of the texts under examination engage to varying degrees in
articulating an experience of dwelling between worlds, of living within two distinct
cultures and languages at once. Many bilingual Latino writers create texts that not only
alternate between English and Spanish but also articulate a bicultural identity, one that
encompasses the cultures linked with each code or language. Thus, a state of "in-
betweenness" pervades not only Latino literatures but also the study of them; the
interdisciplinary "in-betweenness" of Latino Studies reflects the cultural and linguistic
"in-betweenness" of the Latino experience in the United States. Just as Latinos are both
desired and debased by U.S. society, which simultaneously needs and dehumanizes them,
42
the Academy takes on bilingual texts as a subject of study but has yet to invent
appropriate institutional structures that correspond to their hybridity.
The Latino literary articulation of living between worlds is achieved
predominantly through the ethnic memoir, or what Frances Aparicio refers to as the
autoethnography ("Expressive Cultures" 357) - so called because it explores how the
individual is continuously formed and informed by the history and political economy of
local communities. Many ofthese texts give voice to the Latino sense of alienation and
marginalization created as a result of residing in an uncomfortable, in-between space,
both linguistically and culturally, within the United States or in the areas where the
United States borders Mexico. This in-between space, one characterized by a sense of
cultural displacement, is both literal and metaphorical, one that simultaneously leaves
U.S. Latinos bereft of a sense of total physical and social belonging while at the same
time allowing Latinos the freedom to move unimpeded from one fixed culture and
language to another.
The U.S. Latino autoethnography engages in a project of restoring erased pasts
and expressing a hybrid present. Whether they present themselves as autobiographical or
semi-autobiographical, or whether they are simply interpreted as such, many of these
autoethnographic texts reflect an impulse to create narratives that join disparate
fragments of culture and history tom asunder as a result of the centering of U.S. Anglo
language and culture and the marginalization of U.S. Latino language and culture. They
do so by describing individual human experiences that offer personal testimony as a
means ofreclaiming cultural histories excluded from the official narratives ofthe nation's
,---------- ~---
43
history mentioned previously. Furthermore, by mixing both English and Spanish within
single texts, U.S. Latino narratives begin to challenge the linguistic and cultural
hierarchies so firmly set in place within the United States.
Most U.S. Latino authors, whether they choose to write predominantly in English
or Spanish, intimately know both the Anglo and the Latino cultural contexts and both
languages. It is therefore not astonishing that their narrators often mediate between the
two, adopt or subvert culturally conditioned stereotypes, and translate linguistic and
cultural differences for their intended readership (Rudin xi). Latino writers such as
Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Junot Diaz, Helena Viramontes, Julia Alvarez, Gloria
Anzaldua, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Esmeralda Santiago, Nicholasa Mohr, Giannina Braschi
and Susana Chavez-Silverman, all engage to varying degrees in a project of adoption or
subversion of their readers' expectations via cultural and/or linguistic translations. The
bilingual and bicultural elements in all ofthese authors' texts constitute one of the most
salient and revealing markers of this process of translation. These and other writers will
be analyzed further in chapter IV, Code Switching, and chapter V, The "Minor" in U.S.
Latino Narrative.
Conclusion
Many argue that the Spanish-language will significantly shape the linguistic
landscape of America in the twenty-first century, as evidenced by the sizeable Spanish-
speaking communities located throughout the country (Carter). In this chapter, I have
attempted to examine what it means to be a Spanish speaker in the United States today,
how that identity is linked to the past, and the ways in which it is represented in
44
narratives that capture the racial, cultural, and linguistic "in-betweenness" of being
classified as Latino in the United States today.
In briefly re-examining the history of the Spanish language in the United States
and analyzing Latino immigration history, I critically scrutinize the ways by which
widely accepted histories detailing the origins of the nation often exclude or alter events
and facts to support ideological interests. As a result of such omissions, most notably for
our purposes the dearth of accurate information related to the Spanish language presence
in the country, many myths persist surrounding the past and present positioning of the
Spanish language and its speakers in the United States.
Reconstructing the past strongly informs human identity. Memory - both
individual and collective - serves as a tool for retaining information and recording past
experiences, usually for present purposes. Furthermore, memories give people a sense of
where they have come from and who they are, and can guide their decisions about the
future. Therefore, the omission or misrepresentation of the presence of the Spanish
language and its speakers, as well as of Latino immigration history, profoundly affects
the identity associated with people of Latin American origin or descent living in the
United States. As Locke noted, the pictures drawn in our minds are made in fading colors
that vanish and disappear if not sometimes refreshed. Hence, the deletion of Latino
history from the national story means the negation of roots, of presence, and of agency
for those omitted.
The identity of Spanish speakers in the U.S. has been shaped by labels meant to
describe ethnicity but which implicitly - if indirectly - denote an inferior race as part of
45
the sociopolitical order of white supremacy. The postpositivist realist theory of identity
argues that the racial component that goes along with being named "Latino" or
"Hispanic" in the United States is not something to transcend or subvert, but something
that needs to be engaged with and attended to. Realists about identity contend that an
ability to take effective steps toward progressive social change for Latinos is predicated
on an acknowledgement of, and a familiarity with, past and present structures of
inequality. According to this model, many U.S. Latino writers actively engage with and
attend to their bilingual and bicultural identities by creating texts which mirror this
experience and require readers to dwell in the same in-between space inhabited by these
writers and, by extension, many Latinos in the United States.
46
CHAPTER III
LANGUAGE AND POWER
"There is something deeply inequitable and unacceptable about the practice of excluding
the few from the privileges of the many on the basis not of what they have to say, but of
how they say it." -Rosina Lippi-Green
Introduction
The primary focus of this project is to look at how readers read and receive
contemporary U.S. Latino-authored narrative that engages in textual code switching, or
the alternation between English and Spanish on the page. In examining these texts and
their effects on readers, this project also looks at what could be at stake in terms of the
national perception of the Latino population - its history, identity, power, and language.
Because these code switching texts provide hard evidence of the bilingualism present in
Latino communities, their reception by readers of varying linguistic backgrounds in the
United States becomes representative of the shifting perceptions held by the nation
regarding the monolingual ideology in this country.
This chapter focuses specifically on how and why bilingualism - particularly
English-Spanish - has a long tradition of being heavily resisted in the United States. The
following sections allow us to examine this history: discussions of the ways in which
bilingualism, as a bi-product oflanguage contact situations, has become emblematic of
language change; an examination of the abstract ideal that is a standard language and the
ideology surrounding English monolingualism in the United States; analyses of the ways
47
in which bilingualism itself poses a threat to the idea of a unified nation; a discussion
about the centering of national power around monolingualism and its link to anti-
immigration ideologies; and an examination of the negativity about bilingualism - and
Spanish - that many bilinguals themselves have internalized as a result.
Language Change: A Resisted Inevitability
Many are reluctant to acknowledge that variation constitutes an inherent property
of language, which has never existed in a static, pure form, and thus cannot be corrupted
or degenerate. Rosina Lippi-Green suggests that beliefs about the ways language should
be used are handed down and defended in much the same way that religious beliefs are
passed on and treasured (xv). As a human biological function, language always and
inevitably evolves, develops, and changes in normal, functional ways; indeed, the
inevitability of language change is one of the linguistic facts of life. And yet for centuries
people have resisted and disputed the simple truth that all living languages change; that
the lexicon, sound structures, tone, rhythm, the way sentences are put together, the social
markings of variants, and the meanings assigned to words are not fixed but rather shift
over time without exception (Lippi-Green 10).
Why is language change so passionately opposed? To answer the question, we
first examine where in the social hierarchy language change usually takes place. In the
typical sequence of language change, it is the lower and not the ilpper classes that initiate
change. Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes note that the laymen's view seems to
be the opposite, that the upper classes originate change and the lower classes follow
48
suit. While a model of change revealing the elite leading the masses might be intuitively
satisfying, it turns out to be highly erroneous. In reality, the lower social classes have
initiated far more language change than they have been credited for (Wolfram and
Schilling-Estes 163).15
Wolfram and Schilling-Estes note that while change is certainly natural and
inevitable, some social groups may differentiate themselves by resisting changes
occurring in other social groups. Because the lower classes usually adopt these changes
initially, the upper classes usually resist them. Thus, note Wolfram and Schilling-Estes, a
salient principle of sociolinguistic stratification constitutes the inhibition of natural
linguistic changes by high-status groups. By resisting the evolutions that take place in
lower-status groups, the elite social classes effectively maintain and even heighten the
social stratification of linguistic differences. The heart of the matter is that members of
socially privileged groups fear being mistaken for members of underprivileged groups as
a result of their language use. Consequently, high status groups frequently attempt to
suppress natural changes taking place in lower-status groups to keep their privileged
sociolinguistic position intact. In U.S. society, therefore, the social differentiation of
language is typified by upper class resistance to proposed changes initiated by the lower
classes, rather than the introduction of change by the upper classes and subsequent
15 It is important to note that linguistic forms do not inherently have high or low status;
the perceived status of a given lexical item, verb form, or pronunciation is assigned by
different social groups, i.e. is socially constructed. Moreover, as Lippi-Green points out,
beliefs about the ways language should be used are handed down and defended in much
the same way that religious beliefs are passed on and treasured (xv).
49
reproduction of these changes by the lower classes (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 163-
164).
The class distinction alone cannot fully explain resistance to language change,
however. The link between language and power that leads to resistance of linguistic
change often transcends social status distinctions alone, and includes factors such as age,
status, gender, and geographic region (Holmes 200). Janet Holmes notes that typically
linguistic changes infiltrate groups from the speech of people on the margins between
social or regional groups. Linguistic changes are spread by these "middle people" -
described by Holmes as "linguistic stockbrokers or entrepreneurs" - who have contacts in
more than one group (200).
Using Holmes' concept of linguistic entrepreneurs as agents of language change -
change that is inevitable but often resisted by socially powerful groups - I aim in this
chapter to bring the discussion of language and power into the context of the United
States by examining the hierarchical relationships between an idealized standard English
used by a monolingual speech community, and the many linguistic varieties of bilingual,
non-standard languages in the nation. My discussion centers primarily around English-
Spanish bilingualism and its sociopolitical positioning in U.S. society. I discuss the ways
in which monolingual speakers of English in the U.S have corne to unconsciously enjoy
the privilege of assuming that an imagined monolingual, uniform English-speaking
society is the norm, and that any variation from this standard, such as bilingualism,
represents not only a bastardization of standard language but also an essential threat to
the unity of the nation. Nevertheless, I argue for the possibility that bilingual members of
50
two linguistic and social groups with contacts in both the English-speaking and the
Spanish-speaking worlds are in fact Holmes' linguistic entrepreneurs, effectively
wielding the power to act as agents of linguistic change on a national scale. As such,
English-Spanish bilinguals constitute one possible vector through which a new linguistic
reality can emerge in the United States.
Standard Language: Myth and Ideology
Given the unavoidability of language change, a standardized language can only be
understood as an abstraction, for the very process of language standardization claims to
accomplish the linguistically impossible: to fix language in time and space, to nail it
down and describe it as a single, unvarying tool of communication, one that can be both
limited and controlled. A standard language constitutes not a living language but an ideal
one, continuously constructed and reconstructed with great care to serve specific
purposes.
Standard U.S. English, then, is a constructed ideal language and not a real
language spoken by real people, except in very controlled, scripted events (e.g. a news
broadcast). As Lippi-Green notes, the way the standard is conceived and defined
highlights both people's assumptions as well as their misunderstandings about language
in general (53). In the following paragraphs, I will outline several aspects of standard
English mythology that have bearing on issues of language use in the United States.
Many definitions of standard U.S. English incorrectly assume that the written and
spoken language are equivalent, holding spelling and pronunciation as equal measures of
51
confonnity to the nonn. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary offers the following
definition:
Standard English: the English that with respect to spelling, grammar,
pronunciation, and vocabulary is substantially unifonn though not devoid of
regional differences, that is well established by usage in the formal and infonnal
speech and writing of the educated, and that is widely recognized as acceptable
wherever English is spoken and understood. ("Standard English")
As Lippi-Green points out, this definition leaves no room for social differences, but
rather detennines that standard English is the language of the educated only. What is
meant by "educated" is not explained, however. Nor is the language spoken by those who
are not educated, whoever they may be (Lippi-Green 54).
Most other dictionary definitions of standard English, such as the ones found in
the Random House Dictionary, the Chambers Dictionary, and the American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, contain similar presumptions about educated
speakers as the only users of the standard language. The Guide to Pronunciation in the
Preface of the 11 th edition of Merriam-Webster even goes so far as to name types of
occupations held by people deemed educated and hence seen as representative of correct
pronunciation: politicians, professors, curators, artists, musicians, doctors, engineers,
preachers, activists, and journalists ("Guide to Pronunciation" 33a). In order to pin down
the pronunciation of such people, the editors listen to talk shows, medical shows,
interviews, news, commentary, and the weather (Nemy). Clearly, then, the dictionary
definition of what constitutes an educated person must be extremely narrow, since in
52
spite of the editors' claim to include all variants that are used by said educated speakers,
an entry with three or more possible pronunciations is in fact quite rare (Lippi-Green 55).
Hence, as Lippi-Green argues, the designation of standard English cannot be
representative in any real way of the speech it purports to describe. What proportion, she
asks, of even the educated population has regular access to the broadcast media? Very
few of the people who hold the professions listed above discuss their views on the
budget, on foreign affairs, or on local government in a forum which is broadcast to a
wider audience. Moreover, those not classified as educated, who by the dictionary
definition must constitute the greatest number of native speakers of English, are even less
represented (Lippi-Green 55).
The task of describing standard English, then, appears to be an impossibility. If
there is no way to write a dictionary which truly describes variation (in pronunciation,
syntax, and so on), then perhaps it becomes necessary to select one social group to serve
as a model. However, notes Lippi-Green, there is nothing at all objective about electing
this model. The process of selection constitutes nothing other than the ordering of social
groups as a means of deciding who holds the authority on how language should best be
used, and who does not (Lippi-Green 55). A choice that cannot help but support-
intentionally or otherwise - the ideological interests of those making it.
Within the standard English myth, the elevation of the so-called educated social
group with regard to determining correct usage reveals a perceived superiority of the
written language. The built-in supposition is that people with more education are by
default more exposed to written texts and literary traditions, and it is presumed that they
53
probably write better than those with less access to education. However, the definitions of
standard English described above fail to make clear how someone who writes better
necessarily has a more genuine and authoritative pronunciation. The equation of the
ability to write well with the ability to pronounce words "correctly" is presented as a
given. Hence, the social domain of standard English becomes more than just the language
of the educated; it is the language of those who have achieved a high level of expertise in
the written language (Lippi-Green 56).
Thus far, two definitive characteristics have been established as part of the
standard U.S. English language myth: namely, that its speakers must be educated, and
that they also must be good writers. A third dimension in the social domain of the myth
constitutes the geographic location of the speakers. Dennis Preston conducted a number
of studies which investigate non-linguists' beliefs about the localizations of standard
language in the United States. The results showed that respondents believed the most
correct English was used in five areas ofthe U.S.: North Central, Mid-Atlantic (excluding
New York City), New England, Colorado, and the West Coast. They most positively
identified Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin as the areas where standard English was
best represented, and the South as the area where it was least prevalent. The Midwest,
according to the perceptions of those participating in this study, is the home of standard
U.S. English (Preston 66).
Lippi-Green draws attention to yet another perceived aspect of the standard
English myth; namely, that speakers of this variety of English have no regional accent.
This belief arises out of the desire for the standard language to be neutral, because
54
neutrality implies a greater range of communication. Yet linguistically-speaking, there is
no such thing as non-accent, since all languages contain a set of prosodic and segmental
features l6 distributed over geographic and social spaces; rather, non-accent is a
collectively-held ideal which brings with it a series of social (such as educated) and
regional (such as Midwestern) associations (Lippi-Green 41). Therefore, the perception
that speakers of English "with an accent" are using a sub-standard variety implies that
such speakers are not conforming to the determined ideal accent (thought of as neutral or
accentless).
The term "mainstream" functions in a similar way to the term "standard" in the
myth of standard u.s. English. Implicit to this myth about speakers of standard U.s.
English is a perception about those who speak so-called non-standard or non-mainstream
varieties. Lippi-Green offers a helpful description of perceptions about those who
conform to the standard and those who do not (referred to below as "mainstream" and
"non-mainstream," respectively):
Mainstream US English speakers function in communities and institutions which
rely on formal education systems to prepare children for participation in the
community. Nationally, these speakers are perceived as living primarily in the
Midwest, far west, and some parts of the east and/or as upper middle class or
upper class, as literate, school-oriented, and as aspiring to upward mobility
through success in formal institutions. They look beyond the primary networks of
family and community for sociolinguistic models and value orientations.
16 Prosodic features include intonation, stress, and tempo, and segmental features include
the sounds of vowels and consonants in a phonological structure.
55
Non-mainstream US English speakers function in communities and institutions
which rely less on fonnal education systems to prepare children for participation
in the community. Nationally, these speakers are perceived as living primarily in
the far south and inner urban centers, and/or as working class or lower class, as
less interested in literacy or school, and as aspiring to local rather than
supranational success in fonnal institutions. They tend to stay within networks of
family and community for sociolinguistic models and value orientations. (61)
It goes without saying that these definitions reflect the social constructions - rather than
the real lives - of speakers of different varieties of English in the United States. As such,
the above descriptions reveal how language is perceived and used as an indicator of the
speaker's social status and subsequent rights and privileges within a society.
As mentioned earlier, the myth about standard U.S. English persists because it is
carefully propagated by individuals acting for larger social groups aiming to control and
limit language variation. These larger social groups, composed ofmainstream U.S.
English speakers, attempt to isolate their own variety of U.S. English (so-called standard
U.S. English) from the many other varieties so that theirs persists in finding favor across
geographic and social distinctions. As Lippi-Green points out, these speakers are not
coincidentally members of primarily white, middle- and upper-class, and Midwestern
American communities (62).
When language becomes a tool for the emblematic marking of social allegiance,
as discussed above, it becomes clear that when speakers of stigmatized varieties are asked
to reject their own way of speaking, it is not the language itself but the social allegiance
56
made clear by its use which is the fundamental problem. Language - unlike race,
religion, or gender - is perceived as a deniable or suppressible social marker, and
therefore speakers of marginalized varieties are regularly required to change their
language in order to model it after the more prestigious variety, or the abstraction referred
to as standard U.S. English. Within this framework, then, Lippi-Green defines standard
Language ideology as "a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogenous spoken
language which is imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions and which
names as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken
language of the upper middle class" (64).
Thus far, this examination of the myth of standard u.S. English has not
specifically included discussions of monolingualism or bilingualism, though one might
safely presume that any bias toward standard U.S. English would by default refer to its
exclusive monolingual use, because as Janet Holmes notes, speakers of monolingual
English typically operate under the deeply ingrained impression that everyone else
speaks, or should speak, as they do (195). Indeed, in the context of immigration flows to
the United States, English has become emblematic of the successfully assimilated
newcomer; hence, it is promoted as the one and only possible language of a unified
nation (Lippi-Green 217). However, as discussed in the subsequent section, most
immigrant populations in the U.S. typically undergo a three-generation language-loss
cycle, in which groups shift from monolingual use of their home country's language to
monolingual use of English. As we will see, the second generation of this three-
generation cycle is the group that typically operates bilingually, possessing some degree
57
of fluency in both the native language of their parents as well as English. Therefore, as
Lippi-Green points out, the public debates surrounding immigrant populations' language
use have less to do with whether these groups should be using English or their native
country's tongue; rather, they have more to do with which form of "accented" English the
bilingual populations will eventually speak (217).
Language Contact, Bilingualism, and a Nation Threatened
The bilingual facility typically developed by second-generation immigrant
families is a byproduct of the language contact situation in the United States, through
which two or more languages interact. When speakers of different varieties come into
extended contact with each other, their languages typically influence each other over
time. Language contact can occur at language borders - which occasionally correspond
with national borders - between adstratum17 languages, or as the result of migration or
immigration. When speakers of different languages come together, the resulting linguistic
relationships are determined in large part by the economic and political power of the
speakers of each variety (Eble).
In the colonial era of the United States, English was established as the de facto
national language, largely replacing colonial French and Spanish and the languages of
Native Americans (Eble). However, large numbers of non-English speaking immigrants
arrived in the U.S. in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, making the United
States a country in which languages continued to come into contact with one another
(Eble). As discussed in the previous chapter, Spanish in particular has played a prominent
17 An adstratum is a language that coexists geographically with another and is equal in
prestige to the other.
58
role in the language contact history of the nation. Not only has the language been spoken
in the present-day United States since before the founding of the nation, but also the
number of Spanish speakers residing in the country has steadily increased over time.
Today nearly 34 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish, making it the second most
common language in the country after English ("Selected"). Clearly, language contact is
characteristic oflife in the United States, a nation in which English comes into contact
with multiple varieties of Spanish on a daily basis.
Contact linguists have noted two truths about languages in contact: they
inevitably lead to bilingualism (Appel and Muysken 1), as mentioned above, and they are
characterized by constant and rapid change (Appel and Muysken 5). Bilingualism, then,
appears to be a rung in the ladder leading to language change. As such, bilingualism
becomes symbolic of a new linguistic horizon - one that, as mentioned at the beginning
of the chapter, many resist.
Appel and Muysken note that most linguists distinguish between two types of
bilingualism: societal and individual. In general, societal bilingualism occurs when all
members of a given society use two languages, and individual bilingualism occurs when
individual people use several languages although the society may not (Apple and
Muysken 2). Li Wei concurs, noting that the term "bilingual" can describe either a person
with the possession of two languages, or groups of people around the world with varying
degrees of proficiency in two, three, four or even more languages. Bilingual or
multilingual speakers, adds Li Wei, use the languages at their disposal for different
purposes in different contexts, and they typically do not always possess the same level or
59
type of proficiency in each language (6). For instance, a child raised in the United States
in a Spanish-speaking family might use Spanish at home or during community activities
while using English at school or in public interactions such as going to the grocery store
or the post office. This bilingual child might posses a higher level of oral proficiency than
written proficiency in Spanish because the language is used primarily in conversations at
home or in the community but not in school. Meanwhile, the child's written skills in
English are likely to be stronger because of the formal schooling typically received
exclusively in that language. Hence, in this example each language is used by the
bilingual in different contexts and with different levels of proficiency.
Bilingualism is an essential step in the process of language shift, or the
progressive process whereby a speech community shifts from speaking one language to
speaking another. Calvin Veltman noted that Spanish-speaking immigrants in the U.S.
move through a language shift process that typically spans three generations, as noted
earlier. The first generation generally continues to speak Spanish, although most also
speak English on a regular basis. Their children generally speak English, although they
continue to speak Spanish as a second language. Their grandchildren do not speak
Spanish on any regular basis, if at all (Veltman i). Hence, the second generation is the
bilingual group, bridging the preferred language and culture of their parents (or their
heritage language) with the preferred language and culture of their country. Therefore,
within three generations, a language shift typically occurs from Spanish to English.
Clearly, then, Spanish-speaking immigrants, like other waves of immigrants before them,
acquire English and eventually abandon their mother tongue (Valdes 29).
60
Given this reality about the typical language shift in Spanish-speaking immigrants
to the United States and the role played by the bilingual second generation, how could
bilingualism possibly pose a threat to monolingual English speakers? First, as noted
earlier, bilingualism in and of itself is symbolic of language change, a linguistic reality
that is ardently resisted by many, particularly from higher status groups such as white,
Anglo, monolingual English speakers the U.S. Second, it is impossible to separate the
perceived threat posed by Spanish-English bilinguals from the perceived threat posed by
immigrants from Spanish-speaking nations in general. These threats are the result of a
misguided paranoia that bilinguals and immigrants will corrupt the monolingual purity
and white racial identity of the nation. As discussed in chapter II, Spanish itself has come
to symbolize the entire population of Latin American origin or descent, regardless of
whether or to what degree its members actually speak it. Veltman describes the
persistence of a national myth that Latino immigrants do not - or will not - speak
English, a myth that has driven an ever-widening wedge between Latino and non-Latino
citizens and residents: "The perpetuation of the myth spawns misconceptions that send a
message of rejection to Hispanics: 'We don't trust you - we don't like you - we are
threatened by you - we don't think you can fit in - you are too different - and there seem
to be far too many ofyou '" (Veltman ii). Ana Zentella concurs, noting that a popular
tactic of the English Only movement has been to portray Latinos as Spanish-speakers
who do not want to learn English (10). In the perception of the nation, an ability to speak
English is equated with an ability to assimilate successfully to U.S. mainstream culture.
Therefore, the myth about Latinos' unwillingness to learn English explains why
61
bilingualism - better yet, the use of Spanish at all - is perceived as a clear threat to the
unity of the nation.
The tendency to lump together English-Spanish bilinguals with Spanish
monolinguals and to regard them as a single body of speakers arises due to the fact that
from an English monolingual perspective, all members of the U.S. Latino community are
subsumed into one group by their use of Spanish. The subtleties of language variety
within the Spanish-speaking world are erased. Guadalupe Valdes points out that U.S.
Latino communities often include individuals who are newly arrived and monolingual in
Spanish, as well as those who have lived long enough in the U.S. to no longer speak or
understand the Spanish language. She also notes, however, that the greatest number of
Latinos in the U.S. are bilingual and can function to some degree in both English and
Spanish (29). Confusion about these issues and the English language proficiency of U.S.
Latino populations results in misconceptions about the differences between bilinguals and
Spanish monolinguals, leading to their combination into one group of language speakers.
The perceived threat to national unity posed by the presence of bilinguals or
Spanish monolinguals is based largely on concepts of the importance of a single language
as a necessary component of nationhood. Language is one of the features that a nation
uses to define itself. It figures prominently, for example, in the familiar model of a nation
as a body of people who share some combination of a common history, culture, language
or ethnic origin, and who typically inhabit a particular country or territory (Hobsbawm
"Introduction" 5). Indeed, the ethos of 'one state, one nation, one language' that arose out
62
of the Jacobin model after the European Enlightenmentl8 characterizes how many in the
United States conceive of a nation today (Ryn 384). Benedict Anderson's discussion of
"imagined communities" suggests that the original formation of national identities was
rooted in the understanding of a common language shared by members of a nation.
Anderson defines a nation as an imagined political community - "imagined" because in
spite of the fact that every citizen will never know every other citizen, all members
possess an image of their shared fellowship and union (6). An image, Anderson explains,
cultivated by the print media which enables people to "come to visualize in a general way
the existence of thousands and thousands like themselves" (77). Thus, in order to have
access to the language of the media which permits this imaginary fellowship to exist, and
to subsequently gain membership to the nation, individuals must be literate in the same
language as all fellow members of the nation. According to this formulation, then, the
existence of peripheral languages not used by all members is perceived as a potential
danger to the wellbeing of the unified nation.
Eric Hobsbawm notes that the relatively recent focus in the U.S. and elsewhere on
national language policies has conveniently replaced attempts to sort out the
complications of political and civil rights issues ("Perils" 556). Discussions about
18 Following in the footsteps of the German Enlightenment-era philosopher Johann
Gottfried Herder's notion of one-language one-nation, the Jacobin project, dating from
the French Revolution of 1789-94, held as a key objective for France the building of a
new republic of equality and fraternity around a single, unifying language (Ferguson 74).
Regional languages were viewed as a potential threat to the integrity of the nation and to
the ideal of one state, one nation, one language. Linguistic homogenization soon became
an objective of European nation-state policies (Ferguson 95), a value which was carried
to the New World and which is still integral to the ideology of the U.S. nation today (Ryn
384).
63
language, he suggests, have become the easy alternative to explaining the more complex
underlying matters. Hobsbawm quotes Miroslav Hroch, a Czech historian: "Where an old
regime disintegrates, where old social relations have become unstable, amid the rise of
general insecurity, belonging to a common language and culture may become the only
certainty in society, the only value beyond ambiguity and doubt" (qtd. in "Perils" 556).
Hobsbawm suggests that in the West, forms of disorientation and insecurity have built up
during the past half century when the world and human life changed more rapidly and
profoundly than ever before in human history. He gestures toward widespread social
metamorphoses such as the general shift from religious to secular societies, sharp drops
in birthrate, population displacements from rural to urban settings, and transformations of
generation and gender relationships. Given these cataclysmic social changes, notes
Hobsbawm, it is not surprising that people turn to group identity, of which national and
linguistic identity is one form ("Perils" 556).
Bilingual SocietylMonolingual State
Fraga et al. point out that while bilingual societies constitute most of the world's
population, the majority of nation states, such as the U.S., are monolingual in an official
sense (11). A nation state selects one language from among the many spoken by its
residents to be employed by government institutions in all interactions with the citizemy.
However, as noted by Fraga et aI, few societies within nations are either monolingual or
monoethnic - certainly the United States would not be among the few (11). Hobsbawm
supports this fact, noting that on a global scale, there are probably not more than a dozen
ethnically and linguistically homogeneous states among the world's approximately 170
64
political entities. Indeed, argues Hobsbawm, the territorial distribution of the human race
predates the idea of ethnic-linguistic nation-states, and hence does not correspond to it.
Development in the modem world economy constantly undermines ethnic-linguistic
homogeneity because it generates vast population movements ("Perils" 555).
Certainly, vast population movements have from the beginning shaped the ethnic-
linguistic terrain of the United States, a "melting pot" nation that has fused millions of
second- and third-generation immigrant families into monolingual English-speaking
Americans. However, as Heinz Kloss notes, millions ofunmelted or partially melted have
also survived (xviii). The Census Bureau supports this claim, finding that in 2000, 82%
of the nation reported using English at home while 18% of the population spoke a
language other than English. Of those 18%, over half reported they also spoke English
"very well." And two-thirds of those who reported speaking a language other than
English (monolingually or otherwise) named Spanish as their preferred language. The
United States, then, is a country in which nearly one fifth of the population uses a
language other than English, and about one tenth uses Spanish (United States Census
Bureau). 19
Polyethnic and multilingual populations, then, are a reality in the United States as
they are in most nation states around the globe. However, the very existence of these
populations runs contrary to the ideologies about nationhood and citizenship discussed in
19 The data contained in the Census report cited here were obtained on the sample of
households who responded to the Census 2000 long form. Nationally, approximately one
out of every six housing units was included in this sample. As a result, the sample
estimates may differ somewhat from the 100 percent figures that would have been
obtained if all housing units, people within the housing units, and people living in group
quarters, had been enumerated (United States Census Bureau).
65
the previous section. Within the United States, as well as other nation states,
monolinguals in the national language might be encouraged to learn second languages, as
Europeans do English, but few nations celebrate the use of multiple national languages.
Holly Cashman points out that the view in U.S. society that non-English language use
threatens the wellbeing of the nation yields a double-standard about those who use
Spanish: the Anglo who speaks Spanish as a second language becomes worthy of
commendation, while the Latino who speaks Spanish is condemned for being slow or
stubborn ("Language Choice" 139). Frances Aparicio refers to this phenomenon as
differential bilingualism, indicating that native bilinguals who use both languages are
seen as deficient, while native monolinguals adorning their speech with non-English
terms are seen as educated (Aparicio "Whose Spanish" 10). At best, then, bilingualism in
native bilinguals is taken for granted and tolerated; at worst, it is viewed as a condition
detrimental to the common good (Fraga et al. 12).
Fraga et al suggest that the majority of Americans today accept English
monolingualism as an ideal, most likely because the United States is considered a nation
of immigrants. Except for a brief study of foreign language in school, bilingualism is
actively discouraged. The de facto national language of the U.S. is English, and the
exclusive use of this language is considered fundamental to the nation's social cohesion
as discussed earlier (Fraga et al. 12). Interestingly, however, it has not always been so.
Hobsbawm argues that United States nationalism is by origin entirely nonlinguistic,
noting that it is only because of mass Latino immigration that today demands are made
for the first time that English should be the ofjiciallanguage of the United States, a
r-----------~--
66
country which constitutionally has no official language (Hobsbawm 556). Thus, the
perceived threat to national unity posed specifically by U.S. Latino Spanish speakers is
very much responsible for the movement to establish English as the official language in
the United States. Hence, the hidden agenda behind the English-only movement is not
just pro-English or anti-non-English; it is specifically anti-Spanish.
In spite of the fact that the English Only movement first gathered strength in the
1980s, the attitude which led to its formation has long been a part of the national ideology
in the United States. Indeed, a nation of immigrants such as the U.S. is one in which a
multitude of nationalities have come into contact since its inception, inevitably leading to
anxieties about cultural differences. As Deborah Cameron notes, whenever culture is at
issue, language is also likely to be at stake. If anxieties about cultural differences and
fragmentation are typically paralleled by anxieties about multilingualism as a threat to
unity, then the possession of a so-called common language such as English is felt to be
one of the most salient markers of a common culture. Better yet, English is thought to
have the power to bring such a culture into existence. Hence, the absence of a common
language is felt to encourage resistance among alienated minority groups using their own
language to mobilize political rebellion (Cameron 160).
Fears about minority language use are reflected in remarks made by leaders
throughout the history of the nation. For example, in 1753 Benjamin Franklin famously
wrote of German-speaking immigrants to the United States, " ... they will soon outnumber
us, that all the advantages we have will not, in My Opinion, be able to preserve our
language, and even our government will become precarious" (qtd. in Crawford Language
67
Loyalties 19). A century and a halflater, in 1914, President Theodore Roosevelt publicly
stated, "We have room for but one language in this country, and that is the English
language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of
American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house" (qtd. in
Hagedorn 554). A clear link is constructed here between speaking English and being
American. As Lippi-Green suggests, the linguistic anxieties expressed in the above
commentaries are reminiscent of current-day fears focused on Latino populations and the
threat they are perceived as posing to the linguistic homogeneity seen as integral to
successful nationhood (218).
The goal, then, of the English Only movement, which arose in response to this
perceived threat posed by immigrant populations and the minority languages they speak,
remains to institutionalize the use of English in official government operations through
the establishment of English as the only official language in the nation. The modern-day
English-only movement dates from 1983, when former senator S.L Hayakawa of
California and Dr. John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist, environmentalist, and
population control activist, founded U.S. English, a political advocacy group favoring the
adoption of English as the official language of the United States. Since its inception, U.S.
English has proved remarkably successful. Within four years of its founding, the group
claimed 400,000 dues-paying members and an annual budget of $5 million. Voters have
since passed several English-only measures, and numerous legislatures have followed
suit. To date, thirty states have adopted laws designating English as their official
language (Crawford "Anatomy" 22).
68
James Crawford proposes that what lies behind the motivation of the English-only
leadership is a covert racist agenda: resistance of racial and cultural diversity in the
United States. As evidence of this, Crawford points to the close connections between
language restrictionists and immigration restrictionists, noting that U.S. English and the
Federation for American Immigration Reform have combined resources revealing their
shared ideological affinities: the two organizations have shared a suite of offices, a
general council, a direct-mail wizard, a political-action-committee director, a writer-
publicist, rich contributors, and Tanton himself as founder and chairman. Moreover, the
ideological link between the two organizations became clear when a memo was leaked to
the news media in 1986 in which Tanton warned ofa Latino political takeover of the
United States through immigration and high birthrates (Crawford "Anatomy" 23).
Crawford also notes that U.S. English and similar groups have continuously
disavowed the English-only label, partly as a public relations ploy but also as a result of
their ideological beliefs about bilingualism; namely, that individual bilingualism is
acceptable but that societal bilingualism divides the nation into warring groups
("Anatomy" 27-28). Indeed, groups like U.S. English claim to support the use of minority
languages in private contexts such as the home or church, but discourage it in public ones
such as schools. As Crawford observes, restrictionists claim that by offering bilingual
assistance, the government would be sending a message that civic life is acceptable in
languages other than English. Thus, concludes Crawford, the restrictionists "denounce as
'official bilingualism' the tiniest concession to diversity" ("Anatomy" 28).
69
Bilingualism from a Bilingual Perspective
Thus far, this chapter has examined the standard language ideology in the United
States in order to analyze the ways in which monolingual English enjoys widespread
support while bilingualism, particularly within immigrant communities, is actively
discouraged. Yet the value system privileging monolingual English use leaves its mark
not only in the way bilingualism has historically been regarded by monolinguals in the
U.S., but also in the way it is regarded by bilinguals themselves. According to many
sociolinguistic studies, multiple language use is a practice that many bilinguals
themselves condemn (Holmes 45). In reference to this phenomenon, Lippi-Green notes
that speakers of peripheralized languages, or participants in stigmatized linguistic
practices such as the use of two languages, sometimes accept external negative scales of
value to their own detriment (175).
Linguists sometimes use the term linguistic insecurity to describe how speakers of
marginalized varieties subordinate and devalue their own language in accordance with
the stigmatization generated from outside their community. Sociolinguist William Labov
was the first to use this term in his analysis of social variation in New York City in 1966.
Labov used the term as an explanation of his discovery that the speaker of a
peripheralized variety "does not hear the actual sound which he produces, but the norm
which he imposes" (455). Labov put forward the notion of linguistic insecurity as an
explanation for hypercorrection, which he described as the errors speakers make when
they attempt to target norms which are not native to their own variety, such as "Whom
70
did you say was calling?" (cf. "standard" Who) or "He is looking for you and I" (cf.
"standard" .. .you and me) (Labov 475).
Lippi-Green notes that in addition to the term linguistic insecurity, scholars have
also used the terms linguistic self-hatred or covert prestige to observe that stigmatized
language communities have different scales of value when it comes to the evaluation and
selection oflanguage variants (175). These speakers are often caught, she notes, between
internal community values and external ones. Hence, Lippi~Green concludes that external
negative scales of value are both accepted and resisted by speakers of peripheralized
varieties, and that language in this case serves as a telling gauge of how speakers think
about themselves as members of groups (175).
While neither of these observations by Labov and Lippi-Green were made
specifically about bilingualism, it is easy to see how the stigmatized use of two languages
in the United States could result in a state of linguistic insecurity for bilinguals. A 2005
study conducted by David Luna and Laura Peracchio provided insight into this issue as it
relates to bilingualism. The study examined the sociolinguistic effects of ads targeting
English-Spanish bilingual consumers, and in so doing provided insight into how
bilinguals themselves perceive and respond to the two languages at their disposal. All of
the ads included in the study contained textual code switching. Luna and Peracchio found
that code switching in written slogans resulted in the activation of associations relevant to
the language the ad switched to, and that these particular associations influenced the
consumers' evaluation of the product. For example, if the language the slogan switched
to possessed positive associations, bilingual consumers had a positive reaction to the
71
product. If the language had negative associations, then consumers likewise reacted
negatively to the product. The study concluded that slogans switching from English to
Spanish received a negative response by bilinguals, while those switching from Spanish
to English received a positive one (Luna and Peracchio 44). The researchers found that
ultimately, bilinguals tended to associate English with more positive features than
Spanish, as a result of the negative attitudes of the majority group (English speakers)
toward the group without power and prestige (Spanish speakers). The researchers
determined that these negative attitudes had been activated by a language-related
inferiority complex resulting from bilinguals' association of Spanish with discrimination
and a sense of social inferiority (44). Luna and Peracchio concluded that these negative
attitudes were adopted in part or in whole by the minority group, and were amplified to
such an extent that members of the minority group held "even more negative attitudes
toward their own group than the attitudes held by the majority group" (45).
This study serves as one type of proof that bilinguals can internalize negative
values imposed upon the languages they use. However, as noted above, they do not
always do so, but rather are caught between the negative judgments imposed from outside
their community, and the positive ones encouraged from within it. This tension is
illustrated by the findings of Almeida Jacqueline Toribio's 2002 study aimed at
evaluating bilingual U.S. Latinos' perception of code switching, or the bilingual speech
habit of alternating between English and Spanish within a single conversation. Toribio
observed that in spite of the low prestige associated with code switching, covert norms
within Latino communities valued the duality communicated by the switches and their
72
signaling of social identity. However, Toribio also found that other Latinos successfully
eschewed code switching as a result of their acceptance and internalization of the stigma
attached to the behavior. Rather than shoulder the stereotype associated with bilinguals,
these speakers renounced code switching altogether. Hence, overall Toribio observed that
while for some, the dominant social stigma informed their assessment of code switching
as indicative of deficiency, still others valued and affirmed code switching for granting
them affiliation with two disparate linguistic and cultural worlds (115). Code switching,
and the social motivations and interactional implications for its use, is discussed further
in the following chapter.
Glenn Martinez provides a framework for the contradictory forces of stigma and
affirmation through an examination of the dichotomy between what he terms language
panic and language pride. Martinez defines language panic as the discrimination against
Spanish in the context of social restrictionist movements such as those discussed earlier
in this chapter (Martinez 11), while language pride constitutes the resistance by the
ethnolinguistic minority group members to their own marginalization (Martinez 13). In
this context, U.S. Latino Spanish-English bilinguals live within a tension created by these
vying forces, both of which affect their perception of their own bilingualism.
Conclusion
In examining the standard language ideology in the United States, this chapter has
analyzed the ways in which monolingual English benefits from broad support while
bilingualism, particularly within Spanish-speaking immigrant communities, is vigorously
opposed. In so doing, these discussions have also underscored how the principles
,--------- ----
!
73
privileging English monolingualism impact not only the way bilingualism has historically
been regarded by monolinguals in the U.S., but also the way it is regarded by bilinguals
themselves, who both internalize and reject negative values about bilingualism. These
analyses constitute one piece of the larger discussions of this project as a whole, in which
textual bilingualism as exemplified in U.S. Latino code switching narrative impacts
readers of varying linguistic backgrounds. The following chapter takes a closer look at
code switching itself and examines how this bilingual language phenomenon is deployed
as a resource by U.S. Latino writers.
74
CHAPTER IV
CODE SWITCHING
Introduction
As has been established, the overarching goal of this project is to examine reader
reception of bilingual U.S. Latino narratives. Specifically, this project aims to analyze
how readers of varying linguistic backgrounds read and respond to texts written in both
English and Spanish together. Furthermore, out of these analyses arises the question of
what could be at stake nationally when a country idealizing English monolingualism at
every level of society contains in reality a multitude of bilingual speakers with growing
agency and power - such as U.S. Latinos - and how these bilingual texts and their
reception by readers reflects the changing linguistic realities of the United States today.
The previous two chapters highlight the roles of history, immigration, identity,
nationhood, and standard language ideology in the discussion of bilingual texts and their
significance. This chapter takes a close look at the bilingual communicative practice
called code switching, consisting of the alternation between two languages within
discourse. Code switching provides a useful framework for talking about the language
alternation that appears in the U.S. Latino narratives discussed throughout this project,
because it serves as a key marker of social identities, relations, and contexts. Specifically,
this chapter looks at: how code switching has been regarded in the linguistic and non-
linguistic communities; the linguistic patterns and constraints of code switching; the
social implications and interactional implications of code switching; theoretical debates
75
in code switching research; the difference between oral and textual code switching; and
finally, code switching's deployment as a resource by Latino authors.
From Hodge Podge to Language
Por eso cada, you know it's nothing to be proud of, porque yo no estoy proud of
it, as a matter of fact I hate it, pero viene viernes y sabado yo estoy... tu me ves
hacia mi sola with a, aqui solita, a veces que Frankie me deja, you know a stick or
something, y yo aqui solita, quizas Judy no sabe [e] yo estoy aqui, viendo
television, but I rather, y cuando yo estoy con gente yo me ... borracha porque me
siento mas, happy, mas free, you know, pero si yo estoy con mucha gente [e] yo
no estoy, you know, high, more or less, I couldn't get along with anybody. (qtd. in
Labov "System" 457)
While this passage constitutes intelligible language for Spanish-English
bilinguals, for monolinguals it remains mostly incomprehensible. Transcribed in 1971 by
William Labov, this speech sample comes from a Puerto Rican woman living in New
York and demonstrates a common bilingual speech phenomenon referred to in linguistics
as code switching, or the rapid alternation of two or more languages by bilinguals in the
same conversation. Labov, an early pioneer in the field of sociolinguistics, viewed the
above passage as an example of idiosyncratic behavior (Gumperz 70) and used it to
illustrate what he and other linguists at the time viewed as a deficient knowledge of
language, a grammarless mixture of two codes (Milroy and Muysken 9).
While bilingual conversation like the one transcribed above is nothing new, it has
only in the past thirty-five years or so become the subject oflinguistic research
76
(Cashman, "Language Choice" 132). This approach was based on the assumption that the
normal, unmarked case was the monolingual speaker from a uniform speech community
(Milroy and Muysken 2), consistent with the emerging model of cognitive linguistics led
by Noam Chomsky, who defined the scope of reference for the study of language as the
"ideal speaker-listener, in a completely-homogeneous speech community" (Chomsky 3).
More recently, linguists have come to understand that code switching is not a
dysfunctional language practice, and that, like all verbal interaction, it is both meaning-
based and meaning-driven (Cashman, "Conversation" 275). Bilingual speakers around
the globe possess a complete grammar composed of two or more languages rather than
just one. Moreover, as noted in chapter III, the widespread phenomenon of bilingualism
is an essential component of an increasingly visible and audible multilingual modem
world, a global reality that invites a re-examination of monolingualism as normative. In
the last almost half a century, large-scale social changes such as modernization and
globalization, language revivals, and migration from poor countries to the rich, rural to
urban areas, have led to increased contact between languages and cultures and hence, to
bilingualism (Milroy and Muysken 1). Code switching, then, constitutes yet another type
of language variation in speech communities around the world.
While research on code switching has altered linguists' original view of the
behavior as indicative of communicative deficiency, the predominant public perception in
the U.S. of this bilingual speech phenomenon has not necessarily followed suit. As
mentioned in chapter III, the three-generation language loss cycle typical of immigrants
to the United States generally yields a second-generation whose bilingualism represents a
77
threat for many to the wellbeing of the nation. This threat is linked specifically to those of
Latin American origin or descent, primarily due to their association with the proliferation
of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States whose growing presence bring into
question the monolithic notion of common language as essential to successful
nationhood. Hence, code switching, as emblematic of bilingualism, continues to be
viewed by many as a dangerous, audible manifestation that English has already been
infiltrated by Spanish.
Ana Celia Zentella points out that the children of Latino immigrants - the
Spanish-English bilingual second generation - are systematically accused of corrupting
Spanish and English ("Chiquitafication" 9). Pejorative references to "Spanglish" or
"TexMex" evoke notions of a linguistic mish-mash, a deficient code that is blamed for
bilingual students' school failure. The following views expressed by a teacher of Puerto
Rican students in Massachusetts are shared by many across the country:
These poor kids come to the country speaking a hodge podge. They are all mixed
up and don't know any language well. As a result, they can't even think clearly.
That's why they don't learn. It's our job to teach them language - to make up for
their deficiency. And, since their parents don't really know any language either,
why should we waste time on Spanish? It is "good" English which has to be the
focus. (qtd. in Walsh 106)
The deficit notion outlined above derives from a widespread belief that speakers'
alternation between languages is detrimental, and that cognitive and linguistic confusion
are the result (Walsh 105). Hence, the disproportionate school failure of Latinos has been
78
attributed to a lack of standard language development in bilinguals. As revealed in the
above citation, the linguistic and sociocultural environment of the home, as well as
parents' own language abilities, are blamed for the perceived communicative
inadequacies and subsequent poor academic performance of bilingual children in the U.S.
(Walsh 105).
Against this backdrop of national hostility toward bilingualism and the ensuing
widespread perception of code switching as a communicative deficiency, this chapter
begins with a review of the facts about language alternation; namely, that switching
between English and Spanish within single utterances does not constitute "bad Spanish"
or "bad English." Rather, code switching requires good proficiency in both languages and
reveals a robust grammar system comprised of two varieties. Furthermore, much like
rhythm, intonation, stress, or pitch, code switching serves as one of many possible
communicative tools available to speakers to signal meaning. As such, language
alternation bears significant social and interactional implications, most of which revolve
around Spanish-English bilingual speakers' joint membership in both the Spanish-
speaking and English-speaking worlds. Finally, this chapter examines how textual
language alternations differ from spontaneous, verbal code switching, and the ways in
which published Latino-authored narratives deploy language switches as a resource by
articulating the cultures and realities linked with each language.
The Linguistic ABC's of Code Switching
Contrary to the opinion pronounced by the educator cited above, code switching
presupposes rich linguistic knowledge, not devoid of grammar but rather composed of the
79
grammars of multiple languages (Poplack, "Code switching" 1). Furthermore, the
alternation of varieties within discourse constitutes a normal, natural product of bilingual
language use. Like monolingual speakers, bilinguals who code switch make use of a full
range of functions and structural complexities. This section discusses some of the facts
about language alternation, the grammatical constraints that govern switches, and the
proficiency required by speakers in order to engage in code switching.
Code switching involves alternations in language that occur between the turns of
different speakers, between utterances within a single tum, and sometimes even within a
single utterance (Milroy and Muysken 7). The term inter-sentential refers to switches
between sentences such as, "Y luego me dijo, 'I'll be there in a minute'" (And then he
told me, I'll be there in a minute). Intra-sentential refers to switches that occur within the
sentence such as, "Monica tiene los movie tickets" (Monica has the movie tickets). Three
other terms, tag switching, emblematic switching, and extra-sentential switching, all refer
to switching between an utterance and the tag or interjection attached to it. For example,
"El coche esta aqui, right?" (The car is here, right?)
Since language alternation first became the subject of linguistic research, linguists
have tried to determine the precise points at which switches occur in utterances (Holmes
43). As Shana Poplack notes, intra-sentential code switching, initially dismissed as
random and deviant, is now known to be grammatically constrained ("Code Switching"
1). Poplack discusses two constraints on intra-sentential code switching. The equivalence
constraint states that the word order immediately before and immediately after a
switching point should exist in the two languages to make it possible for a switch to take
80
place (Poplack, "Sometimes" 228). The two languages involved can then be interchanged
freely, as shown in Table 1. Here, the code switch occurs with the word pa 'que, which is
preceded and followed in both the English and Spanish versions with an equivalent
surface structure, or word order.
Table 1
Equivalence Constraint
English I told him that so that he would bring it fast
Spanish (Yo) Ie dye eso pa'que (ef) la trajera ligero
Code-switch I told him that pa 'que - la trajera ligero
Source: Poplack, Shana. "Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en espanol:
toward a typology of code-switching." 1980. Preface Shana Poplack. The Bilingualism
Reader. Li Wei, ed. London: Routledge, 2000.228. Print.
A second intra-sentential constraint mentioned by Poplack, called the free-
morpheme constraint, states that a switch can occur after any discourse constituent
(meaning a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical
structure) provided that constituent is not a bound morpheme (Poplack, "Sometimes"
227).20 In general, according to this constraint, a free morpheme and a bound morpheme
can be mixed from one language to another, as illustrated in Table 2. Here, the free
morpheme eat moves from the English word eating to the Spanish word comiendo where
20 A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has meaning. For example, the word
unbreakable has three morphemes: the prefix un-, a bound morpheme which cannot
occur in isolation; break, a free morpheme which can occur in isolation; and the suffix -
able, another bound morpheme
81
it supplants the Spanish stern and attaches to the Spanish suffix -iendo. The resulting
code switched word is eatiendo.
Table 2
Free-Morpheme Constraint
word stem/free morpheme suffix
English eating eat -ing
Spanish comiendo com -iendo
Code-switch: eat-iendo (English free morpheme + Spanish suffix)
Source: Poplack, Shana. "Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y terrnino en espanol:
toward a typology of code-switching." 1980. Preface Shana Poplack. The Bilingualism
Reader. Li Wei, ed. London: Routledge, 2000. 227. Print.
In addition to the two constraints mentioned above, another suggestion about the
rules governing code switching is that there exists a matrix language frame which
imposes structural constraints on code switched utterances (Holmes 44). According to
this constraint, when two or more language varieties are joined within a single bilingual
constituent, the languages do not participate equally. One of the languages, called the
matrix language, is the source for the abstract grammatical structure. The other language,
called the embedded language, can contribute only limited material such as content
morphemes (Myers-Scotton, "Matrix" 24). In the following example sentence, the
content word (the nounfriends) is English, while the abstract grammatical structure of the
sentence is entirely Spanish: "Me gustan tus friends porque son muy arnables." Hence,
the matrix language in this example is Spanish while the embedded language is English.
82
In response to the above observations about possible constraints governing code
switching, some linguists argue that it is unlikely that there are universal and absolute
rules of this kind. They also criticize the extreme complexity of some of the constraints,
pointing to evidence indicating a large number of exceptions and contradictions. Pieter
Muysken proposes that much of the confusion appears to arise from the fact that several
distinct processes are at work: The process of insertion ofmaterial from one language
into a structure from the other language (which corresponds with the matrix language
frame constraint mentioned above), the alternation between structures from languages,
and the congruent lexicalization of material from different lexical sets into a shared
grammatical structure. These three processes, argues Muysken, are constrained by
different structural conditions and operate differently in different bilingual settings. This
accounts for much of the disorientation surrounding the discussions of grammatical
constrains on code switching (Muysken 3).
Clearly, as evidenced by the research discussed above, the widespread perception
among non-linguists in the U.S. that code switching represents a deficient knowledge of
language is erroneous. Research on language alternation has proven that code switching
constitutes a complex and grammatically constrained language in and of itself, contrary
to the popular perception that the switches are random and deviant. Bilinguals who code
switch possess proficiency in the separate languages they blend, engage in alternations at
precise moments according to grammatical prescriptions, and thereby contribute full
meaning in the context of bilingual conversation.
83
Social Motivations and Interactional Implications of Code Switching
While many linguists studying code switching have researched the patterns and
constraints of language alternations as discussed above, others have placed greater
emphasis on social, stylistic and contextual influences, claiming that the points at which
bilinguals switch are likely to vary according to factors such as which codes are involved,
the functions of the particular switch, and the level of proficiency in each code. For
example, only very proficient bilinguals might engage in intra-sentential switches while
less proficient speakers might employ inter-sentential or emblematic switches (Holmes
44).
In seeking to understand some of the social, stylistic and contextual factors
governing code switching, researchers over the past decades have worked within two
primary approaches to the examination of bilingual conversation. Both the symbolic
approach and the sequential approach pursue an explanation of the social motivations
and interactional implications of language choice in code switching (Cashman,
"Conversation" 276). The symbolic approach claims that different languages carry
different symbolic meanings, while the sequential approach argues that it is the sequential
positioning and subsequent contrast of languages within a conversation that creates
meaning. Both approaches grew out of the pioneering work of John Gumperz, whose
observations of bilingual conversation in the 1970s and 80s led researchers to look at
code switching as an indicator of speakers' social impulses and as a tool to produce
meaning in interaction (Cashman, "Conversation" 278).
84
Holly Cashman highlights three key concepts from Gumperz that are critical to
the discussion of the symbolic and sequential approaches ("Conversation" 276). The first
of these concepts, the we code vs. they code, proposes the existence of an in-group code
(we code) and an out-group code (they code) within situations of diglossia 21 According
to Gumperz, the we/they distinction explains code switches that occur due to situational
changes in setting, such as home, school, or work; activity type, such as public speaking,
formal negotiations, or verbal games; and participants, such as friends, family members,
strangers, government officials, and so on (Gumperz 60). Gumperz named this kind of
switching situational switching. The second important concept from Gumperz,
situational switching vs. metaphorical switching, contrasts situational switching with
switching that occurs when there is no change in setting, activity, or participants. Rather,
metaphorical switching is intended to convey social meaning or to reference social
categories and groups (Cashman, "Conversation" 277). The third concept from Gumperz
is contextualization cues, which refers to the signaling function performed by a number
oflinguistic features available to interlocutors such as prosody, syntactic structure,
lexical item, language variety, register, or style (Gumperz 131).22 In order for speakers to
21 In linguistics, diglossia is a situation in a given society in which there are two (often
closely-related) languages, one of high prestige, which is generally used by the
government and in formal texts, and one of low prestige, which is usually the spoken
vernacular tongue.
22 In linguistics, prosody refers to rhythm, intonation, stress, and related attributes in
speech, syntactic structure refers to grammatical structure, lexical item refers to a single
word or words that are grouped in a language's lexicon, language variety refers to a
language form that differs from others systematically and coherently, register is a subset
of linguistic forms (phonetics, vocabulary, syntax, etc) used for a particular purpose or
social setting, and style refers to variation in the language use of an individual.
85
share interpretations of these cues' meanings in interaction, they must share an awareness
of the signaling function the cues have (Cashman, "Conversation" 278). According to this
formulation, a switch in code is just one of many contextualization cues available to
speakers.
As mentioned previously, these three concepts from Gumperz are relevant to
understanding both the symbolic and the sequential approaches to researching bilingual
conversation. The symbolic approach argues that different languages available to
bilinguals carry with them different symbolic meanings. Within the framework of this
approach, as Cashman states, "conversational behavior is seen as a window into social
structure because speakers are seen to reflect social structure in their conversational
interaction" ("Conversation" 278). Conversational behavior, according to the symbolic
approach, acts as a mirror to underlying, pre-existing social frameworks such as race,
ethnicity, socio-economic status, education, gender, and so on.
An important symbolic approach relevant to contemporary research on code
switching is the Markedness Model, developed by Carol Myers-Scotton in 1993. The
Markedness Model relies upon notions of what is expected and normative among
speakers, and claims that speakers manipulate their language choices as a means of either
conforming to or resisting this expectation. Unmarked language choices constitute the
expected choices, while marked choices are the unexpected. According to the
Markedness Model, language users are rational, and choose a language that indicates
86
their rights and obligations23 relative to others in the conversational setting (Myers-
Scotton, "Markedness Model" 75). In terms of code switching, the Markedness Model
claims bilinguals employ switches either as unmarked choices (if, for example, the group
with which they are interacting is also engaging in code switching and therefore code
switching is the expected choice), as marked choices (to differentiate from the expected
choices of the group which may be conversing in just one code), or as exploratory
choices (when there is no expected choice and therefore the speaker's switch indicates
personal preference) (Cashman, "Conversation" 279).
Unlike the symbolic approach to bilingual conversation, the sequential approach
does not assume a pre-existing relationship between language variety and social meaning
(Cashman, "Conversation" 284). Rather, the switch itself, and the contrast it creates, is
critical to the flow ofthe conversation. Within this approach, social context is not central,
but relevant only as speakers use it in ongoing interaction. More important is the
sequential context, which refers to the context provided by previous turns of talk within a
conversation. For example, if at any given moment in a bilingual Spanish-English
conversation one participant happens to be using Spanish, then Spanish becomes part of
the context that affects the next speaker's tum in the conversation. The communicative
effect of the next speaker's choice in language, whether Spanish or English, is influenced
by the previous speaker's tum. Thus, rather than acting out underlying social roles as
23 In linguistics, rights and obligations is a theoretical construct for referring to what
participants can expect in any given interaction type in their community. For example, in
a church in a given speech community, it may be expected that people greet others by
nodding slightly toward those they wish to acknowledge. The terms rights and
obligations do not refer to actual "rights" in any legal or moral sense (Myers-Scotton,
"Rational actor models" 80).
87
suggested by the symbolic approach, participants in the conversation proactively create
social meaning through the process of interacting.
The theory of conversational analysis (CA), originally developed in the 1960s by
sociolinguists examining primarily monolingual data, constitutes the primary sequential
approach to bilingual conversation. The main tenet of the CA approach is the assumption
that each speaker's tum creates a context for the tum that follows. Therefore, this turn-
taking context is co-constructed by participants (Cashman, "Conversation" 285). In 1984,
Peter Auer brought the CA approach into the arena of bilingual conversation by building
on Gumperz' concept of contextualization cues and claiming that code-switching might
be used by bilinguals as a signal to orient participants to changes in interaction
(Cashman, "Conversation" 286). Specifically, Auer identified two types of code-
switching: discourse-related code switching, which juxtaposes different languages in one
conversation as an organizing device (Auer 12), and participant-related code switching,
which utilizes this juxtaposition to communicate the speaker's language preference to
other members of the conversation (Auer 46). Both discourse- and participant-related
code switching may influence a speaker's language choices.
Though they differ in their arguments, both the symbolic and sequential
approaches to bilingual conversation seek to understand the social motivations for
language choice and code switching. A third approach, referred to as the identity-in-
interaction approach, attempts to integrate the concerns of both the symbolic and
sequential approaches by including both the pre-existing as well as the emergent aspects
of social identity (Cashman, "Conversation" 293). In other words, identity-in-interaction
88
incorporates the symbolic approach's concern with social categories such as race,
ethnicity, occupation, and gender, into the sequential approach's concern with locally and
interactionally constructed identities created during conversation. Within this approach,
Cashman writes, "identity is seen as both who people are and what they do in interaction,
and code-switching and language choice in interaction are seen as resources for both
indexing social identities and constructing them" ("Conversation" 293). Joseph
Gafaranga supports this view by calling for a "demythologized" conceptualization of
language alternation via the integration of both the conversational and social structures
into one approach (283). According to the identity-in-interaction approach, then, code
switching is one among several tools speakers can use to both delineate and transgress
group boundaries.
Theoretical Debates in Code Switching Research
Both the symbolic and the sequential approaches to bilingual conversation have
undergone critiques that have created theoretical debates in code switching research.
Specifically, both the Markedness Model and the conversation analysis approaches have
invited detailed criticisms in several areas. In examining the Markedness Model, linguists
such as Li Wei, Joseph Gafaranga, and Johannes J0rgensen, among others, have
identified four main issues of contention. First, as Li Wei argues, only in stable, diglossic
situations can speakers identify an unmarked language choice ("Why and How" 173).
Speakers often participate in new conversation experiences that they cannot compare to
past experiences which would set up clear guidelines of what is expected or unexpected.
89
Furthermore, as Li Wei explains, heterogeneous speech communities may hold differing
associations between languages and identities ("Why and How" 159)
Johannes J0rgensen points out a second criticism ofthe Markedness Model by
indicating that not all code switching instances reflect a macro-level social meaning
(256). Sometimes code switching indicates social identity, but not always. As Cashman
notes, while the Markedness Model's explanation of code switching as an unmarked
choice does allow for code switching that is not meant to convey special communicative
intent, it falls short of identifying precisely what the function of that unmarked choice is
("Conversation" 282). In other words, the Markedness Model's overwhelming focus on
social meaning leads to shortsightedness with regard to possible interactional meanings
of code switching (Li Wei, "Why and How" 170).
A third issue identified in critiques of the Markedness Model comes from Mysers-
Scotton herself, who writes, "the model presumes that much of what 'happens' is below
the surface: speakers' intentions surface as code choices" (Bolonyai and Myers-Scotton
15). But, she continues, how those intentions are interpreted is not empirically verified.
Thus, without evidence indicating speakers' intentions, as Cashman points out, analysts
risk imposing their own meaning, a particularly perilous practice when researchers are
"out-group members with little knowledge about the sociopolitical and linguistic history
of a given community" (Cashman, "Conversation" 282).
A final criticism of the Markedness Model arises out of the model's focus on the
social meaning that is pre-existing or "brought along" by speakers into the interaction
(Cashman, "Conversation" 282). The overarching attention given to this "brought along"
90
aspect of social identity results in a devaluing of the identity that speakers create or
"bring about" through interaction (Li Wei, "Why and How" 170). Such a view of
interaction suggests that it is merely a reproduction of underlying social meanings, and
that it has no creative potential.
In addition to the points mentioned above, Li Wei offers a further critique of the
Markedness Model as it is recast explicitly as a rational choice model ("How can you
tell?" 377). A rational choice model assumes that individual social acts are governed by
rationality, and that these acts are chosen as a result of a transparent deliberation process.
Li Wei argues that social actors' rationality should not be taken for granted, and that
rational deliberation is in fact not a transparent process ("How can you tell?" 377).
Therefore, he calls for a more detailed, interaction-oriented analysis to support the
conclusions of the rational choice model ("How can you tell?" 388).
While the above list of Markedness Model critiques is by no means exhaustive, it
includes some of the main shortcomings discussed by linguists in relation to the symbolic
approach to bilingual conversation. The chief thrust of these critiques is that the symbolic
approach focuses overwhelmingly on the pre-existing social contexts of conversation, to
the detriment of the social meaning created by interlocutors in the moment of interacting
with each other.
Not surprisingly, the sequential approach receives objections from the opposite
direction; criticisms of the approach argue that trivial details of interaction are given
inadvertent attention by researchers, while the larger, underlying social contexts are
summarily ignored. Bolonyai and Myers-Scotton argue that the conversation analysis
91
approach ignores who people are socially, demographically, and ethnically (5). Margaret
Wetherell notes that the CA approach lacks a social theory and cannot, therefore, connect
to a larger socio-political context. As such, this approach is merely a technical analysis of
spoken discourse (Wetherell 394).
Other linguists have criticized the CA approach's assumption of a transparent
methodology. As noted by Jan Blommaert, CA fails to acknowledge that its processes of
converting conversational discourse into data by necessity involves ideologically
motivated decisions on the part of the analyst (18). In a similar vein, Alessandro Duranti
delivers three points of contention with the CA approach: he claims the approach
excludes non-verbal means of communication, operates according to a diminished
concept of what constitutes speech, and fails to consider participants' interpretations of
their own interaction (266).
Specifically within the realm of bilingual conversation, critics argue against the
CA approach for neglecting the social meaning of code switching as well as speakers'
motivations. Carol Myers-Scotton notes that CA does not provide the analyst with a way
of examining marked choices, or of even allowing those choices to exist for bilingual
speakers ("Theoretical" 36). The chief concern Myers-Scotton brings to her critique is
that she claims the CA approach views speakers' opportunities in the moment of
interacting as the sole determiners of their choice in language, thereby falsely assuming
that speakers' motivations are constant and unchanging (Cashman, "Conversation" 290).
92
Textual Code Switching
The code switching under examination thus far in this chapter has consisted of
spontaneous verbal discourse only. As largely unplanned speech events, the switches that
occur verbally, while suggestive of speakers' motivations and social identities, are for the
most part subconscious choices of expression. Bilinguals switch codes rapidly,
effortlessly, usually without realizing they have done so. Many speakers who alternate
languages are not conscious of having engaged in code switching (Holmes 45).
Furthermore, as noted in chapter III, some bilingual interlocutors regard the language
mixing process they utilize as a "bad habit" and vow to "try harder" to converse in just
one code. These ingrained negative judgments about code switching arise out of the so-
called standard language ideology in the U.S., which defines monolingualism as
normative. As mentioned earlier, this value system initially led evaluators to view code
switching as evidence for internal mental confusion or the inability to separate two
languages sufficiently (Lipski "Spanish-English" 191).
Unlike verbal code switching, textual code switching, while still a process of
bilingual language alternation, consciously aims at achieving a specific effect. As a result
of the writing and publishing processes, notes John Lipski, which by necessity are ones of
craft and revision, writers who engage in published textual code switching do so in a
calculated and premeditated fashion and less as a reflection of internal, subconscious
mechanisms of bilingual expression ("Spanish-English" 192). As a result, concludes
Lipski, while bilingual writers usually come from bilingual backgrounds and
communities, the literary code switches they engage in do not necessarily represent the
93
same code switches that would spontaneously occur in their speech communities
("Spanish-English" 192). This does not indicate, however, that spontaneity is wholly
absent from the process of writing code switching narratives. As Hispanic linguistics
scholar and bilingual writer Laura Callahan explains, "What I noticed when I switched
from one language to the other is that I would do so at certain syntactic junctures, not at
others, and I didn't have to think: about where. I just wrote" (Spanish/English 1). Hence,
while the processes of textual and verbal code switching are not entirely parallel, a study
of the former still informs an understanding of the latter. Lipski explains that "an analysis
of written code switching may be of great value in tracing psychological variables that
corne into play and promises to provide a broader perspective on the affective values of
language mixing" ("Spanish-English" 191).
To date, much of linguistic research on code switching has focused on speech
rather than writing. The emphasis on oral discourse has not been motivated by any
particular theoretical principle, but rather reflects what Marcia Buell describes as the
overwhelming historical tendency of sociolinguists and ethnographers of communication
to focus on verbal communication (98). However, as Buell notes, even though research
has examined speech more than writing, code switching across languages constitutes a
salient feature of written text, and the motivations for such shifts are complex and need
investigation (98).
As established in the previous section, code switching is a key marker of social
identities, relations, and contexts. Writers who engage in code switching may do so to
reflect their perceptions of readers' expectations, and to consciously make use of the
94
tension created by either meeting or failing to meet those expectations. Hence, the written
switches are mediated by the writer's own understanding oflanguage use, of the context,
of social relations, and of aspects of identity the writer wishes to highlight (Buell 100).
As such, textual code switching functions within the Markedness Model described
previously, in that writers make use of reader expectations for literary effect. Authors
may employ unmarked or ordinary forms when they believe they are sharing the same set
ofrights and obligations with the reader, or, if the writer perceives a need for a new set of
rights and obligations, he or she may consequently change to a more marked form (Buell
100).
However, because perceptions of rights and obligations may not match between
the writer and his or her imagined reader, the writer must constantly negotiate with the
perceived reader to establish parameters for communication. Activating a code that is
different from the one readers expect - intentionally or otherwise - can result in a
negative reception of the text or in communicative breakdowns. Yet from a
sociolinguistic perspective, notes Buell, misunderstandings of this type serve social
functions, marking and constructing relations of affinity and distance, and of inclusion
and exclusion across social groups (101). Hence, writers who utilize a language that is
different from the one readers expect (for example, as a result of inserting Spanish in a
text read by monolingual English readers) may do so consciously, precisely to achieve a
specific distancing effect between the writer and the perceived reader.
95
Code Switching as a Resource in U.S. Latino Narrative
Distancing constitutes just one of a wide variety of targeted effects accomplished
by textual code switching in U.S. Latino narratives. Indeed, what is distance for one
reader may be proximity to another; code switching narratives may simultaneously push
away some readers (monolinguals) while bringing closer others (bilinguals). In addition
to the space constructed between writer and reader, U.S. Latino texts engaging in code
switching have at their disposal a number of literary effects. As Gary Keller notes,
bilingual writers are able to depict characters, explore themes, express ideologies or
messages, and fashion rhetorical devices as a result of their capacity to alternate between
English and Spanish within their narratives (171). However, contrary to what Keller
suggests, more is at stake than literary effect; U.S. Latino writers have deployed code
switching as social, political and communicative devices, in addition to aesthetic literary
functions. In light of the mainstream language ideology in the United States that values
the monolingual application of English above all other languages (Cashman, "Language
Choice" 139), the very use of Spanish at all constitutes an oppositional act. Hence, rather
than creating code switching narratives purely for stylistic purposes, many U.S. Latino
writers engage in a purposeful and powerful inscription of a subordinated language -
Spanish - in writing in order to question its subordination by the standard language
ideology discussed in chapter III (Cashman, "Language Choice" 135). Chapter V
examines this issue more closely by analyzing how bilingual narratives possess the
capacity to function as linguistically revolutionary texts.
96
A common thread tying together U.S. Latino code switching narratives is the
articulation of the cultures and realities linked with each language appearing in the text.
The amount of Spanish used, as well as how it appears and for what purposes, varies
widely; however, in the majority of cases the use of Spanish is generally limited to lexical
borrowing as a means of expressing ideas or concepts that do not exist in English, such as
names of foods, plants, or music (Cashman, "Language Choice" 141). Ernst Rudin
discovered that many Latino narratives that engage in code switching, even though they
are often read and presented as politically revolutionary texts, are in fact reluctant to be
subversive in terms of language. Many of these narratives, concludes Rudin, reveal code
switching at the level of loanwords, cliches, or etymological pairs,24 all easily accessible
for the monolingual English reader (228). Not surprisingly, many of the most successful
published U.S. Latino writers are ones who employ this type of code switching in their
narratives. (A detailed discussion of the role of the publishing industry in shaping texts
available to readers appears in chapter VI).
Julia Alvarez's In the Time ofthe Butterflies (1994), for example, is a narrative
with very little code switching. The Spanish language entries that do appear in this novel
about the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic are theoretically easy to understand
either because they are names of people, loanwords clearly explained by the context, or
24 According to Rudin, a loanword is a Spanish expression used in English that has
preserved its spelling, such as adobe, canyon, sombrero, chile, etc. A cliche is a
frequently-used expression such as buenos dias, hasta la vista, Dios mio, etc. An
etymological pair is a set of words from two different languages that have the same root
and are therefore understandable without translation. Examples in Spanish include
aeroplano, companero, comunista, perd6n, etc. (Rudin 116-121).
97
well-known exclamatory expressions such as Ay caray or Dios mio. The following
description of Trujillo at a reception held in his honor illustrates several examples:
Surrounded by those men - you know, Maldonado and Figueroa and
Lomares, and that Pena fellow. They're all saying, 'Ay, Jefe, you've done
so much good for our province.' 'Ay, Jefe, you've raised strong morale
after sanctions.' 'Ay, Jefe, '" Tio Pepe crooned to imitate the cronies. El
Jefe keeps nodding at this pile of horse shit, and finally he says, looking
right at me - I'm standing at my post by the Salcedo farmers, filling up on
those delicious pastelitos Florin makes - and he says, 'Well, boys, I've
really only got two problems left. If I could only find the man to resolve
them.' (281)
By incorporating Spanish in this easily-accessible way, Alvarez exoticizes the otherness
of the Dominican culture she describes, thereby directing her narration toward the Anglo
reader. In so doing, the non-Spanish-speaker is skillfully guided toward an understanding
of the Spanish words by contextual cues, all of which help the monolingual to discern
that Ay is an exclamatory expression and pastelitos is food. As such, Alvarez's narrative
is addressed to the English monolingual, and creates a safe place for that reader to enter
into a feeling of foreign linguistic territory without requiring the reader to do any work in
obtaining meaning from Spanish. Hence, while Alvarez does imbue her text with a
"foreign" feel by inserting an occasional Spanish language entry, on one level In the Time
ofthe Butterflies appears to engage in less of an affront to the standard language ideology
than other Latino texts discussed here. Nevertheless, as argued in chapter III, any
98
appearance of Spanish whatsoever, no matter how well glossed, constitutes an affront to
many monolingual English speakers. Therefore, by simply bringing Spanish onto the
page, this text challenges the acceptance of monolingualism as normative.
Another function code switching serves in some Latino narratives reflects the
symbolic approach to spontaneous verbal bilingual conversation. Namely, shift in code
mirrors a sharp division of domains signaled by the use of English and Spanish (Keller
173). In the following citation taken from Barrio Boy (1972), Ernesto Galarza uses
Spanish loanwords within the predominantly English text not because the lexicon is hard
to translate or does not exist in English, but rather to signal a representation of the
Chicano world via the Spanish language:
Crowded as it was, the colonia found a place for these chicanos, the name
by which we called an unskilled worker born in Mexico and just arrived in
the United States. The chicanos were fond of identifying themselves by
saying they had just arrived from el macizo, by which they mean the solid
Mexican homeland, the good native earth. Although they spoke of el
macizo like homesick persons, they didn't go back. They remained, as
they said ofthemselves, pura raza. [... ] Like us, they had come straight to
the barrio where they could order a meal, buy a pair of overalls, and look
for work in Spanish. (197)
With this sprinkling of Spanish loanwords, like Alvarez, Galarza infuses his narrative
with a sense of "otherness" for the monolingual English reader.
99
Ana Castillo's deployment of code switching in So Far From God (1993) is
similar to Galarza's and consists largely of loanwords from Spanish that could
theoretically be translated fairly easily into English, but which she elects to write in
Spanish nonetheless. Although Castillo, unlike Galarza, does not italicize her Spanish
language entries, the net result of this sort of switching is a heightening of the "otherness"
of the culture being depicted by the Spanish lexical items. In addition to lexical
borrowing, Castillo imbues her English text with a Spanish presence in several ways.
First, she plays with the spelling of English words so that they appear to be Spanish, as in
her regular use of the word traila instead of trailor. Second, she consistently employs
double negatives in English, thereby infusing the English with a presence of translation
from Spanish, which allows for double negatives. For instance, "Caridad insisted on
finding her own place without asking no one, so it was no surprise to anyone neither that
she took the first place she found without considering that there was no stall to keep her
mare" (43). Double negatives are also a characteristic of many robust, non-standard
English varieties; consequently, "without asking no one" could also be interpreted simply
as the non-standard English of this bilingual speaker. A third mechanism employed by
Castillo to bring Spanish into her English text consists of word-for-word translations of
Spanish expressions, such as Castillo's choice to translate the Spanish expression dar a
luz as to give light even though it actually means to give birth. For example, she writes,
"It is true, however, that by the time he came to see Loca, whom he had not seen since
the day her mother gave light to her, his eyes were not what they used to be." This choice
in phrasing clearly targets a bilingual reader, though the monolingual English-speaking
100
reader might be able to infer the meaning from context (certainly not without some work
and thought).
Although some have argued that the majority of published U.S. Latino writers
engage in mainly non-subversive code switching practices such as those mentioned
above, there are a number of exceptions. Among them, Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands:
La Frontera stands as the classic example of textual code switching that is more radical
and hence less comprehensible to monolinguals. Anzaldua regularly uses inter-sentential,
intra-sentential, and tag-switches in her text, in addition to occasionally shifting entirely
into un-translated Spanish for entire paragraphs, pages, and occasionally whole poems
inserted in the text. In the following passage, she makes liberal use of Spanish-English
code switching with no gloss and no in-text translation:
I have come back. Tanto dolor me costa el alejamiento. I shade my eyes
and look up. The bone beak of a hawk slowly circling over me, checking
me out as potential carrion. In its wake a little bird flickering its wings,
swimming sporadically like a fish. In the distance the expressway and the
slough of traffic like an irritated sow. The sudden pull in my gut, la tierra,
los aguaceros. My land, el viento soplando la arena, ellagartijo debajo
de un nopalito. Me acuerdo como era antes. Una region desertica de vasta
llanuras, costeras de baja altura, de escasa lluvia, de chaparrales
formados por mesquites y huizaches. If I look real hard I can almost see
the Spanish fathers who were called "the cavalry of Christ" enter this
valley riding their burros, see the clash of cultures commence. (111)
101
This passage illustrates Anzaldua's use of textual code switching as a tool to break down
barriers set up by the standard language ideology by reflecting the situation of language
contact between Spanish and English in the United States and in her life (Cashman,
"Language Choice" 143).
These code switched texts are just a few examples of a vast and growing body of
narratives engaged in Spanish-English code switching authored by U.S. Latinos. While it
is not always possible, or prudent, to impose intention upon a writer's personal choice in
deploying language alternation within a text, the use of textual code switching suggests at
least a degree of premeditation on the part of the author (or publisher, as discussed in
chapter VI), certainly more so than the practice of spontaneous verbal code switching.
Hence, a writer's decision to engage in textual code switching, and a publisher's decision
to publish it, reveal a project of targeted effect on the reader, both monolingual and
bilingual. The writers discussed above engage, to varying degrees, in a project of
inscribing Spanish into English, thereby working at confronting the standard language
ideology.
This chapter has taken a closer look at the rapid alternation between two
languages within single communicative events between speakers proficient in multiple
languages. Specifically, this examination has highlighted the disparity between the
linguistic community's perceptions of code switching and those of the wider public in the
U.S. While research has proven to linguists that code switching constitutes both meaning-
based and meaning-driven communication, mainstream perceptions of the phenomenon
persist in regarding language alternation as deviant and deficient - a judgment linked
102
specifically to uninformed perceptions of people of Latin American origin or descent
living in the United States whose presence constitutes a threat for many to the wellbeing
of the nation. Furthermore, regardless of the fact that the linguistic community has come
to view code switching as meaningful communication, this bilingual speech phenomenon
continues to be for many monolinguals in this country an elusive process, one either
shunned completely or exoticized and "othered" by a variety of factors stemming from a
monolingually-oriented presumption of language alternation as unusual, a puzzle to
solve. As Suzanne Romaine ironically notes in the first line of her book entitled
Bilingualism (1995), "It would certainly be odd to encounter a book with the title
Monolingualism" (1).
When code switching extends beyond the realm of oral discourse and into the
arena of published narratives written by Spanish-English bilingual Latinos, readers (both
monolingual and bilingual) are presented with texts that illustrate with their language
alternations the cultural "in-betweenness" lived by many Latino bilinguals in the United
States. In particular, many of these narratives, while written with varying quantities and
qualities of Spanish language entries, articulate a bicultural reality linked with the
languages ofthe texts themselves. Therefore, U.S. Latino code switching narratives
effectively describe the realities lived by the authors and their speech communities;
namely, the realities ofthe English-speaking world and the Spanish-speaking world as
they are joined together in the life of the bilingual writer.
103
CHAPTER V
THE "MINOR" IN U.S. LATINO LITERATURE
"Ultimately it will be minor literature that will push the limits of the English language,
transform it, and emich it, and not the John Updikes and Jonathan Franzens of American
letters."
-Rolando Perez
What Is Minor Literature?
In their 1975 classic of critical thought entitled Kafka: Pour une Litterature
Mineure, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari propose the concept of "minor literature" as a
tool for interpreting the work of Franz Kafka, a Czech author who wrote in German. The
text, translated into English and published in the U.S. as Kafka: Toward a Minor
Literature in 1986, asserts that minor literature constitutes the use of a major language
that subverts it from within. Writing as a Jew in Prague, contend De1euze and Guattari,
Kafka made German "take flight on a line of escape" and joyfully became a stranger
within it (Kafka 26). His work therefore serves as a model for understanding all critical
language that must operate within the confines of the dominant language and culture.
Although the minor literature framework as originally established by Deleuze and
Guattari denies the power of bilingualism in favor of one language (Thousand Plateaus
118), Monique Balbuena's counter-argument makes a strong case for the capacity of
multilingual texts to "challenge and re-inscribe" major languages (Balbuena 5). In this
chapter, I deploy Balbuena's critique to argue that the capacity shared by many Latino
104
writers to interrogate linguistic and cultural hierarchies via bilingual and bicultural
narrative situates u.s. Latino literature within the minor literary framework established
by Deleuze and Guattari. Moreover, examining Latino narrative through the minor
literature lens provides insight into these texts' revolutionary potential- both
linguistically and culturally.
Deleuze and Guattari delineate three essential criteria a work of literature must
meet in order to be recognized as minor. First, the work must have a "high coefficient of
deterritorialization," or it must be written in the major language from a marginalized or
minoritarian position (Kafka 16). Second, a minor literature must be political in nature.
They write, "Minor literature is different [from major literature]; its cramped space forces
each individual intrigue to connect immediately to politics. The individual concern thus
becomes all the more necessary, indispensable, magnified, because a whole other story is
vibrating within it" (Kafka 17). The third characteristic of minor literature, according to
the French philosophers, is that it articulates a collective experience. " .. .if the writer is in
the margins or completely outside his or her fragile community, this situation allows the
writer all the more the possibility to express another possible community and to forge the
means for another consciousness and another sensibility" (Kafka 17). The voice of the
minor author, then, becomes representative of his or her entire minor or marginalized
community. Having met these criteria, a minor work, according to Deleuze and Guattari,
becomes a revolutionary one.
Several key concepts within the minor literature framework require close
examination. First, the terms "minor" and "minority" in this context, while occasionally
105
used interchangeably, in fact denote different concepts. A minor language in this case
signifies a language spoken by a sector of a given population that does not hold dominant
sociopolitical power.25 For example, in situations of diglossia, the language with lower
prestige value26 would be characterized as minor, while the higher prestige language
would be referred to as major, or dominant. To be minor, then, suggests to be subjected to
social and political domination, or to be a member of a subordinated group. However, for
Deleuze and Guattari, the "minor" does not refer to minority groups as described in
ordinary language.27 Minority groups are defined by identities in relation to dominant
groups. By contrast, minor refers to identities that depart from dominant identities and
invent new forms of collective life, consciousness, and affectivity (Thousand Plateaus
105-106). Deleuze and Guattari use Kafka as their example. Kafka was not formally
involved with Jewish religious life in Prague, nor did he belong to the dominant German
and Austro-Hungarian power structure. Consequently, his writing aims to forge a new
identity, a new people, a new sense of social and cultural belonging (Kafka 17).
An additional key concept for Deleuze and Guattari is the notion of a
"revolutionary" text. Only a work that has met the above three criteria required for
classification as "minor" may be revolutionary, according to their argument. "There is
nothing that is major or revolutionary except the minor. To hate all languages of masters"
25 A group holding "dominant sociopolitical power" is one which enjoys a privileged
social position, a status which results in that groups' language and culture becoming
normative within the larger society.
26 The term "prestige value" refers to the level of social influence or reputation arising
from success, achievement or rank in society.
27 "Ordinary" here describes non-specialized, everyday language.
106
(Kafka 26). A minor literature, they state, is not one that comes from a minor language,
but instead one "which a minority constructs within a major language" (Kafka 16).
Therefore, Deleuze and Guattari conclude, it is not a question of there being two kinds of
languages, "but two possible treatments of the same language" (Thousand Plateaus 102).
The minor treatment ofthe major language, they claim, is what constitutes the
revolutionary act. For by writing in the major language from a minor perspective, a minor
literature effectively weakens the major language and culture by appropriating its
structures, attaching it to the minor experience, and actively creating new forms of
expression within it.
As noted above, Monique Balbuena critiques Deleuze and Guattari's
conceptualization of minor literature by challenging their requirement that only texts
written in the major language have the capacity to be revolutionary. Balbuena writes, "I
argue that minor literatures can emerge from multilingual contexts and social conditions,
and that minor languages have the capacity to challenge and re-inscribe dominant
languages" (5). She asserts that Deleuze and Guattari fail to consider minor languages'
contribution to the composition of major languages, as well as minor languages' power to
"revitalize" major languages (5). Balbuena's argument builds upon Chana Kronfeld's
earlier critique of Deleuze and Guattari, in which Kronfeld argues that their restriction of
the minor to the language of the major prevents any non-major linguistic practice from
serving as an alternative model. Furthermore, notes Kronfeld, in the process of setting up
the "truly minor" in this way, the historically, culturally, and linguistically diverse
formations of minor writing become invisible (6). Taken together, these criticisms assert
107
that De1euze and Guattari's essentialist claim that minor literature must be written in the
major language in order to be revolutionary in fact continues to privilege dominant power
structures by negating the revolutionary potential of texts written in minor or multiple
languages.
U.S. Latino Literature as Minor
The minor literature framework constructed by De1euze and Guattari serves as a
valuable tool for interpreting U.S. Latino narrative. Indeed, this diverse body of literature,
taken as a whole, amply meets the required three essential criteria outlined by De1euze
and Guattari that a work of literature must possess in order to be recognized as minor. As
described earlier, their first requirement states that the work must have a "high coefficient
of deterritoria1ization," or it must be written in the major language from a marginalized or
minoritarian position (Kafka 16). In the context of Latino narrative, most published
writers - themselves either English-Spanish bilingual or monolingual English speakers
with a Spanish language heritage - author texts predominantly in English, their home
society's major language, but from the peripheralized social space occupied by Latinos in
the U.S. As Cuban-born Rolando Perez notes, in reflecting upon his scholarly writing in
English, "I remain an outsider, using a language which is simultaneously mine and not
mine" (90) - "mine" because Perez speaks and writes in English as a native language,
"not mine" because as a Latino, Perez's identity is inextricably linked with Spanish, the
lOS
language presumed to be the true mother tongue of all Latinos regardless of actual
linguistic competence in Spanish.28
Here the critiques outlined above by Balbuena and Kronfeld bear particular
relevance, since many U.S. Latino texts, although written predominantly in English,
contain Spanish-language entries to varying degrees as discussed in the previous chapter.
Certainly, most narratives made available and rendered successful by the publishing
industry in the United States today are mostly - to completely - comprehensible to
monolingual English readers; yet many texts also contain expressive subtleties linked
specifically to the Spanish language which are inaccessible to non-Spanish speakers. For
instance, as discussed in detail below, writer Junot Diaz liberally sprinkles his
predominantly English narrative with Dominican Spanish phrases which, while perhaps
vaguely comprehensible to the non-Spanish speaker, remain fully accessible only to the
bilingual reader well-versed in Dominican Spanish.29 Therefore, Deleuze and Guattari's
requirement that narratives be composed only in the "major" language falls short of
completely describing the full linguistic impact of U.S. Latino narrative, since many
Latino texts are written in multiple languages and not just English.
The second criteria for minor literature described by Deleuze and Guattari is that
the work must be political in nature (Kafka 17). As Perez points out, many Latino writers
see the linguistic struggle as inseparable from other social struggles, placing Latino
28 See chapter II for a discussion of the ways in which the Spanish language, regardless of
whether or to what degree it is spoken by U.S. Latinos, has become emblematic of Latino
identity.
29 It is important to note that Diaz does not just use Spanish; he uses a very specific
Dominican slang that is also incomprehensible to many native Spanish speakers.
109
literature within the history of ethnic liberation movements (95). Cherrie Moraga notes:
"The generation of Chicano literature being read today sprang forth from a grassroots
social and political movement of the sixties and seventies .... It responded to a stated
mandate: art is political" (57). Frances Aparicio concurs, adding that the interaction
between English and Spanish in Latino literature stands as a protest against the uprooting
of historical, personal, and ethnic identity: "These words are not only unique in their
cultural denotations, but more importantly, they function as 'conjuros' as ways of
bringing back an original, primordial reality ... from which these [writers] have been
uprooted in a political and cultural way" ("La Vida" 149). Perez names this textual
interaction between English and Spanish - referred to throughout this project as "code
switching" and discussed in depth in chapter IV - as a "linguistic mestizaje," noting that
it serves as both a weapon in the struggle against marginalization as well as a
confrontation with the major language (96).
The third characteristic of minor literature, according to the French philosophers,
is its ability to articulate a collective experience (Kafka 17). As noted previously, the
voice of the minor author then becomes representative of his or her entire minor or
marginalized community. Abdul JanMohamed and David Lloyd elaborate on this third
criterion by adding that the collective nature of minority discourse derives from the fact
that minority individuals are always treated and forced to experience themselves
generically (9-10). "Coerced into a negative, generic, subject position, the oppressed
individual responds by transforming that position into a positive, collective one .... The
minority's attempt to negate the prior hegemonic negation of itself is one of its most
110
fundamental forms of affirmation" (JanMohamed and Lloyd 10). Within the u.s. Latino
context, then, the experience writers are able to voice for their home communities is the
political and personal struggle with intercultural/interlingual identity (Perez 102). Hence
many Latino writers do indeed transform the "negative, generic, subject position" they
are forced to occupy into a positive and collective one, thereby affirming the experiences
of oppression shared by their communities.
In accordance with Balbuena's critique, then, U.s. Latino narratives engaging in
expressions of bicultural and bilingual selves serve as counter-examples that effectively
expand Deleuze and Guattari's formulation of the minor to include multilingual texts.
The Latinos who write from a marginal position do so within a bilingual framework in
opposition to English, their territorial or dominant language. As a result of these authors'
deliberate uses of textual code-switching to articulate biculturalism, this body of literature
collectively expresses a U.S. Latino linguistic reality that questions the supremacy of
English, of monolingualism, and of cultures linked to the Anglo-Saxon tradition in the
United States. This challenge is discussed in successive sections of this chapter.
The Latino Writer's Linguistic Micro-Hamlet
The choice to write in Spanish or English is one that, regardless of whether or not
linguistic ability would permit either language as a viable option, many Latino writers
confront at the moment of putting pen to paper. Rolando Perez describes this choice as
the outcome of a question posed by a "linguistic micro-Hamlet" who deliberates
uncomfortably within the mind of the writer about whether to write in English or to write
111
in Spanish, which for many Latino writers literally means ser 0 no ser (Perez 91).30 "And
whether 'tis nobler to write in one or the other, or even in both, can only provoke anxiety
in a writer tom between his/her mother tongue or the 'adopted' language, for ultimately,
the question oflanguage choice has a lot more to do with self-concept and one's affective
relations to a language than with linguistic competence" (Perez 91). Perez here implies
that Latino writers have emotional ties to Spanish that persist regardless of linguistic
proficiency, suggesting that the pull to write in Spanish is related to a sense of core
identity for these authors. 31
Much of this anxiety comes from general misunderstandings about bilingualism
and about who is bilingua1. As discussed in chapter III, in spite of the mainstream
conception in the United States that all Latinos are Spanish-speakers, many,.particularly
those who belong to third generation or later immigrant families, are in fact monolingual
English speakers. The language acquisition pattern of all immigrant families to the
United States typically follows a three-generation language shift cycle, whereby the first
generation is monolingual in the home country's tongue, the second generation is
bilingual in English and the home country's language, and the third generation is
monolingual in English. Immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries are no exception to
this rule, the result of which is that many Latinos in the U.S., while they may have
Spanish-speakers in their families, and while the Spanish language is an intrinsic part of
30 Ser is the Spanish verb "to be" and here I interpret this use, borrowed from Perez, to
indicate that for many Latino writers, the choice to write in English or Spanish influences
whether or not their writing will actually be published and read in the U.S. market.
31 Ironically, Perez here invokes in this metaphor a quintessentially Anglo figure-
Hamlet - thereby demonstrating how deeply internalized the dominant can become.
112
their identity, are most comfortable communicating in English. Yet since Spanish lies at
the heart of the Latino writer's identity regardless of proficiency, choosing to write in
English for many writers represents the worst kind of betrayal (Perez 91). As Cuban
American writer and scholar Gustavo Perez Firmat explains, "I have always felt a
mixture of regret and remorse that I have not done more of my writing, and my living, in
Spanish. Sometimes I have even thought that every single one of my English sentences -
including this one - hides the absence of the Spanish sentence that I wasn't willing or
able to write" (2).
Taking this "absence of Spanish" into account, Firmat calls for a new conception
of bilingualism: the true bilingual, according to Firmat, is not someone who possesses
native competence in two languages, but someone who is equally attached to, or tom
between, competing tongues (4). These attachments to languages are what Firmat calls
"tongue ties," which he states have little to do with competence and are affective rather
than cognitive in nature. "Tongue ties do not presuppose mastery of a language. Just as it
is possible never to have met one's parents, it is possible to be ignorant of one's mother
tongue. 32 The maternal denotes attachment, not skill; affinity, not fluency; familialness,
not familiarity" (4). Firmat's conception of bilingualism as an emotional, identity-
oriented attachment to multiple languages rather than actual linguistic competence in
those languages provides insight into the struggle many Latino writers face when their
inner linguistic micro-Hamlet requires them to choose English or Spanish.
32 Firmat uses the term "mother tongue" here to mean heritage language rather than actual
native language.
113
Many Latino writers have shared their experiences with the language choice
question. Dominican-born writer Junot Diaz, for example, when asked in an interview if
he would ever write a novel in Spanish, answered that since he learned to read and write
in English, in the end English would probably be his life's language, adding, "[P]eople
kind of forget that for most young people, the language that they're saddled with wasn't a
choice. I came over [from the Dominican Republic] so young that speaking English
wasn't a choice, it was a basic form of reality on the ground" ("LAist"). Here Diaz speaks
to the mistaken assumption held by many readers that Latino writers have a choice to
make about language, when in reality the language choice was already made for them by
parents, society, or other social factors. Like Diaz, Puerto Rican writer Judith Ortiz Cofer
notes that for her, English is the language of her formal education and therefore the
language in which she writes. Spanish, in contrast, constitutes the affective linguistic
substratum - the language of her heart - that makes English resonate in her poetry (Perez
92). In an interview she stated,
I went to the escuela publica for about six months... so how can I write well in
Spanish when Spanish is my second language? When I say it is my second
language, it means that English is the language of my schooling. However, my
language was Spanish; I spoke only in Spanish with my mother; I dream in
Spanish .... But I cannot write in Spanish because much of the grammar is alien to
me. (Acosta-Belen 90)
Ortiz Cofer here suggests that writing - as opposed to speaking - requires a set of
proficiency skills different from those possessed by writers such as herself, who may
114
regard Spanish as their language of identity and who may have been raised speaking
Spanish to their parents, but who never learned how to use it formally in school as they
did English.
Firmat underscores Ortiz Cofer's relationship with Spanish and English by
reporting that U.S. Latino writers habitually pledge allegiance to a mother tongue that, for
the most part, they no longer possess: "Swearing loyalty to Spanish in English, they bear
false witness, for even when the words have become unintelligible, even when the
attempts at Spanish are riddled with solecisms, the emotional bonds remain unbroken"
(4). In previous chapters I have analyzed the explicit link made by many - both Latinos
and non-Latinos - between the Spanish language and Latino identity, a link constructed
regardless of actual linguistic proficiency. Spanish, whether used or not, is part of being
Latino - the language itself is emblematic of Latino history, immigration, and presence in
the United States. Therefore it is not surprising that Latino writers would embrace
Spanish as a hallmark of their identity and feel a sense of responsibility to it, whether
their texts appear in English, Spanish, or both languages. However, as Perez notes, the
bond to Spanish is not without struggle. What many Latino authors have in common is
not only a political but also a personal struggle with their cultural and linguistic identity
(Perez 102). Indeed, as Firmat puts it, "there is no bilingualism without pain" (6).
These discussions about U.S. Latinos' varying levels of proficiency in Spanish
explain only part of why most of the published and successful narratives on the market
are written predominantly in English. The publishing industry itself plays a significant
role in ensuring that English-dominant texts are the ones available to mainstream readers,
115
a reality analyzed in detail in chapter VI. Spanish, however, is far from absent from these
narratives. Its presence varies from writer to writer, yet Spanish makes itself known even
in narratives with very few actual Spanish language entries. As noted above, writers like
Ortiz Cofer use an English that resonates with a Spanish rhythm, an effect referred to as
"tropicalization" by Frances Aparicio ("Sub-Versive" 796) and discussed later in this
chapter. Likewise, Julio Ortega notes that Junot Diaz writes in an English that one reads
as though it were Spanish: " ... [L]a lengua espafiola [es] tambien capaz de ocupar el
ingles. Escritores cubano-americanos, mexicano-americanos, puertorriquefios y
dominicanos de Nueva York narran en un ingles enunciado desde el espafiol" (14).33 The
following sections will look at the ways in which Spanish vibrates within the English
narrated by several u.S. Latino writers.
Weird English
As described earlier, within the context ofD.S. Latino literatures, Deleuze and
Guattari's formulation of the minor creates the space for these texts to revolutionize the
language and culture of hegemony in the U.S.; namely, English and cultures linked to the
Anglo-Saxon tradition. The hegemonic language and culture of the United States is
unquestionably one that, as discussed in chapters II and III, persists in valorizing certain
races and languages over others. Specifically, so-called "whiteness" and monolingual
"unaccented" English use significantly improve individual odds for success in the United
States (Espino and Franz 612). Possessing "non-white" skin and using "non-standard"
33 "Spanish is also capable of occupying English. Cuban-American, Mexican-American,
Puerto Rican and Dominican writers from New York narrate in an English that is
enunciated from Spanish." (translation mine)
116
English - or not using English at all- are guarantors of discrimination in the United
States today (Lippi-Green 63). As a minor literature, U.S. Latino narrative faces the
possibility of, as Balbuena writes, challenging and re-inscribing monolingual English in
the hegemony that is the United States (5). These narratives do so by incorporating the
presence of the Spanish language and the marginalized experience of U.S. Latinos into
the major language text, thereby subverting English from within.
This phenomenon is not restricted to Spanish alone. Evelyn Ch'ien notes that the
blending of English with non-English languages in literature is a growing trend in the
United States today (3). With increasing frequency, she writes, narratives reveal barely
intelligible and sometimes unrecognizable English created by combining one or more
languages with English. Chi'en names this process the "weirding of English" and notes
that this blending is not restricted to the current moment but has been an ongoing
phenomenon throughout history. After all, she continues, English, like other languages, is
a hybrid consisting of influences from Latin, French, and German. The difference, she
claims, between the past and the present is that recently the phenomenon of hybridity has
entered the print literary culture. Hence, authors are performing the act of weirding
English on a political level. "[T]hey are daring to transcribe their communities and thus
build identities .... Vernaculars used by weird-English authors have existed for decades,
but the act of transcribing establishes the community-speak in a permanent way" (Ch'ien
4).
As discussed in chapter III, when this "community-speak" consists of the
bilingual linguistic practice of blending English and Spanish in U.S. Latino communities,
117
many monolingual English speakers feel threatened. Juan Gonzalez notes that nothing
seems to inflame advocates of the nation's Anglo-Saxon traditions so much as the issue
of language (xiii). Since culture is inevitably expressed through its language, he
continues, the growth of "foreign" (non-English) language use in the U.S. implies the
growth of "foreign" (non-Eurocentric) cultures as well. Thus, because the number of
Spanish-speakers in the United States has grown significantly in recent years, Latinos-
whose identities are closely linked with the Spanish language - have likewise
increasingly been seen by mainstream, non-Latino Americans as the "vanguard of a
linguistic threat" (xiii).34
Many Latino writers, then, hold within their grasp a tool to effect linguistic
change, and to question the valorization of monolingual English use in the United States.
The implement available to these writers is the placement of Spanish in their otherwise
English texts, and the Latino identity its presence signifies.35 Chapter IV describes how
U.S. Latino texts that code switch between English and Spanish work at confronting
monolingual language ideologies in the U.S. by inscribing Spanish into English on the
page. However, as noted earlier, Spanish makes its presence known in varying ways, not
all of them featuring its explicit appearance. Lourdes Torres groups writers' strategies for
34 The identification of Latino or Latin America with the Spanish language alone
constitutes a significant erasure of indigenous languages, which also figure into the
identity of this population.
35 It is important to note that not all U.S. Latinos who publish necessarily work to
revolutionize the English language. Nor should they have to. As Perez explains, "I wrote
these and subsequent books out of my own personal and intellectual interests. I never set
out to write a 'Latino' book, or worried about whether I was crossing some prohibited
cultural border by not writing in Spanish" (100).
118
inclusion of Spanish into English texts in three categories based on the accessibility of
their Spanish by the reader. These categories, which I refer to as "Spanish Made Easy,"
"Favoring the Bilingual," and "Radically Bilingual," are introduced below and discussed
in depth in the following three sections.
The most common strategy used by Latino prose writers, Torres explains, reveals
what she describes as an "easily accessed, transparent, or cushioned Spanish" (79). This
technique consists of including Spanish words whose meaning is obvious from the
context, such as recognizable cultural signifiers like food (salsa, tortilla), locations
(playa, casa), or familiar common nouns (compadre, amigo). Such lexical items, Torres
notes, may serve to Latinize the text but are easily understood by readers with little or no
knowledge of Spanish (78). Another way of "cushioning" the Spanish for a monolingual
reader, she explains, consists of the use of Spanish accompanied by an English language
translation.
A second strategy of including Spanish presents the reader with un-glossed, un-
translated Spanish language entries which are intended to gratify the bilingual reader.
Techniques that fit into this category, according to Torres, include the use of un-italicized
Spanish with no translation such that Spanish is not marked as foreign in any way. A
second option for gratifying the bilingual reader consists of writers' positioning of
Spanish as indirectly, or covertly, present in the English text. Sandra Cisneros makes use
of this technique in the unusual-sounding English names of several of her characters in
Caramelo, such as the characters she names "Aunty Light Skin." To the bilingual, this
name is recognizable as the Spanish "Tfa Giiera," but to the English monolingual the
119
name sounds strange (Torres 78). Writers who make use of this second strategy prioritize
the bilingual reader and may, as Torres puts it, cause instances of discomfort or
annoyance to the monolingual reader (78). This speculated response suggested by Torres
is tested in chapter VII, in which reader discomfort and annoyance is empirically
measured.
The third and most infrequent strategy employed by Latino writers for
incorporating Spanish into their texts consist of creating texts which are what Torres
describes as "radically bilingual" (86), such that they can be accessed successfully only
by readers proficient in both English and Spanish. These texts reveal longer Spanish-
language entries that are wholly un-explained and completely inaccessible to the
monolingual English reader. Hence, as demonstrated by Torres, there exists a range of
narrative techniques by which Spanish reveals itself in English-dominant U.S. Latino
literature. The following three sections discuss all three strategies introduced here.
Spanish Made Easy
While scholars such as Alfred Arteaga argue that any appearance of Spanish in
English texts undermines monolingualism in the U.S. by undercutting claims of
prevalence, centrality, and superiority and confirming the condition ofheteroglossia (14),
others, such as Ernst Rudin, Laura Callahan, and Lourdes Torres agree that the majority
of the Spanish in published Latino prose fiction is easily understood by a monolingual
English speaker and is written with the monolingual reader in mind (Rudin 229, Callahan
"Metalinguistic" 418, Torres 79). Torres explains that in fact, bilingual knowledge is
unnecessary in understanding most of recent Latino fiction because of redundancy and
120
explication of the Spanish text for the monolingual English reader. She writes that this
focus on monolingual readers "can make such texts plodding for a bilingual audience"
(79). Torres further suggests that the appearance of Spanish alongside the English on the
page marks these narratives as distinctly "Latino" in a direct manner, and hence could be
challenging monolingualism at least at a surface level (79).
Juan Gonzalez names this type of narrative technique "the safari approach,"
meaning the gearing of a text written by a Latino author toward an Anglo audience, with
the writer as "guide and interpreter to the natives" (xvii). In essence, according to these
critiques, such texts explicitly reveal Spanish explained to the non-Spanish speaker. In
some of these types of narratives, only a few Spanish words occur and most of them are
translated for the reader. Torres suggests that writers may desire to mark the text as
Latino at the linguistic level but may not wish to alienate monolingual English readers
(79), who, after all, represent the largest readership for any published writer in the United
States today.
In an interview with Carmen Dolores Hernandez, Judith Ortiz Cofer commented
that she avoids code switching in her narratives and writes in Spanish sparingly for the
purpose of illustrating the linguistic reality in which her characters dwell. She remarks:
What I do is to use Spanish to flavor my language, but I don't switch. The context
of the sentence identifies and defines the words, so my language is different from
that; it's not code-switching. It is using Spanish as a formula to remind people
that what they're reading or hearing comes from the minds and the thoughts of
121
Spanish-speaking people. I want my readers to remember that. (qtd. in Hernandez
101)
In Ortiz Cofer's narratives, Spanish is usually either directly translated into English, or a
word that appears in English is translated in Spanish and appears italicized immediately
following the English language term. Torres provides examples of these two techniques,
including "Asi as fa vida, hijas: That is the way life is" ("Nada" 58) and "She felt a sense
of destiny, ef destino, a powerful force taking over her life" ("Coraz6n's Cafe" 97).
Esmeralda Santiago's When 1 Was Puerto Rican reveals a similar strategy by
italicizing Spanish terms and then explaining them in English:
At home we listened to aguinafdos, songs about the birth of Jesus and the joys of
spending Christmas surrounded by family and friends. We sang about the
Christmas traditions of Puerto Rico, about the parrandas, in which people went
from house to house singing, eating, drinking, and celebrating, about pig roasts
and ron caflita, homemade rum, which was plentiful during the holidays. (40)
Here Santiago appears to adhere to the Gonzalez "safari approach" by offering an
ethnographic description of Puerto Rican cultural traditions for the uninformed
monolingual reader. In an interview with Bridget Kevane, Santiago commented on her
use of Spanish, remarking, "I pay a lot of attention to the weight of words. Any word
that's in Spanish in my English texts is not there by accident, or because I couldn't figure
out how to translate it, but rather because it has a resonance in Spanish that it doesn't
have in English" (qtd. in Kevane and Heredia 135).
122
In a similar vein, Nicholasa Mohr explained her use of Spanish in her stories:
I use it sparingly because I feel that the reader might not be getting the point. I am
concerned for my readers, so I manage to make my intent clear. With poets it's
different. They can read their work aloud and have close contact with their public.
When I do use words in Spanish, I follow them up in English in a way that is
clear. (qtd. in Hernandez 93)
Mohr suggests that she writes with a monolingual English-speaking audience in mind, or
at least that she strives for the accessibility of her text by these readers. In her narratives,
Spanish tends not to be translated if the meaning is obvious, or if the terms are cushioned
by the context. For example, in "A Matter of Pride" she writes: "Midday was the time
when folks went home, showered, ate an abundant almuerzo and then took a long siesta"
(11). Almuerzo is not translated because the text lends cues as to its meaning with words
like "midday" and "ate." Siesta is not translated because it is a term used and understood
widely by English speakers in the U.S. Spanish terms are italicized and thus marked as
foreign to the English-speaking reader (Torres 80).
As noted in the previous chapter, Julia Alvarez's use of Spanish in In the Time of
the Butterflies also generally falls within the category of "Spanish-made-easy" for the
monolingual English reader. Her italicized and translated or intertextually-explained
Spanish language entries in this work reveal a text that is on the whole familiarized for
the monolingual reader. The familiarization techniques cited in the above examples,
Torres notes, could have subversive value in their introduction of Spanish to monolingual
readers in an unintimidating manner (81). An ideal result of such a reader's encounter
123
with any of the above texts would be that this reader would learn that the Spanish
language is an intrinsic part of Latino existence and also of the multilingual reality of the
United States. Furthermore, physically placing Spanish on the page next to English yields
a public site where Spanish and English share textual space. Additionally, this type of
easily-accessible Spanish could have the effect of encouraging second and third-
generation Latinos who are not Spanish-speakers to become reacquainted with their
heritage language (Torres 81).
However, a different view of the language employed in these narratives suggests
that the texts in fact reinforce monolingual linguistic complacency by making Spanish
easy for the English monolingual. "[C]ushioning Spanish in this way may allow the
reader to sense that s/he is entering the linguistic world of bilingual Latino/as without
having to make any effort" (Torres 81). While the appearance of so-called "foreign"
terms in a text does serve to underscore the cross-cultural nature of the narrative,
continues Torres, these terms can also be used in ways that support mainstream culture
rather than empower a minority culture (82). Specifically, translation (direct or indirect)
tends to negate the text's difference and renders "the other" familiar. Ashcroft, Griffiths
and Tifflin argue that not translating foreign words is a political act, because glossing
gives the translated words and the receptor language more prestige (64). As Torres notes,
the Spanish in the preceding examples is presented but then "virtually cancelled and
familiarized for the monolingual through translation" (82). Likewise, the appearance of a
glossary at the end of the book even further ensures that the monolingual English reader
will not have to sweat it out in unfamiliar linguistic territory. Hence, while these texts
124
may successfully subvert mainstream culture on levels other than the linguistic, they give
primacy to their monolingual readers in terms of language (Rudin 229).
One might also argue that texts which are linguistically fully accessible to
monolingual readers may in fact possess increased power to subvert mainstream culture
since they easily reach the very audiences writers may wish to transmute. This
transformation could occur by simply raising consciousness about the Latino experience
while simultaneously putting Spanish itself on the page with English. Ultimately,
however, whether texts in this category actually do undermine the prevalence of
monolingualism in the literary world depends upon whom you ask. As discussed above,
arguments falling on both sides of the debate are easy to construct. I view such texts as
working in both directions simultaneously: they at once weaken the valorization of
monolingual English use via the appearance of Spanish in the text, while also favoring
the English monolingual reader by cushioning Spanish so as to make it easily accessible.
Without direct evidence of the experience of readers encountering these texts, however,
these debates cannot be anything other than purely hypothetical. To that end, chapter VII
examines the reader experience of code switching texts in great detail.
Favoring the Bilingual
In contrast to the above-mentioned narratives, some Latino texts, while published
by mainstream presses, frequently favor the bilingual, bicultural reader over the
monolingual. In fact, monolingual readers of these narratives may be blocked from full
access to the text due to their linguistic limitations. While they may often decipher
meaning from the context, monolingual readers often have to resort to outside sources
125
such as dictionaries to obtain meaning. Furthermore, occasionally no reference text will
help, and the monolingual will have to settle for partial comprehension. Torres outlines
several strategies used by Latino authors to make texts more engaging for a bilingual
readership (83).
The use of untranslated, un-glossed Spanish within the English text constitutes
one strategy employed by some writers. Junot Diaz, for example, describes in an
interview his own uncompromising stance with regard to the appearance of Spanish in his
work:
For me allowing the Spanish to exist in my text without the benefit of italics or
quotations marks a very important political move. Spanish is not a minority
language. Not in this hemisphere, not in the United States, not in the world inside
my head. So why treat it like one? Why "other" it? Why de-normalize it? By
keeping Spanish as normative in a predominantly English text, I wanted to remind
readers of the mutability of languages. And to mark how steadily English is
transforming Spanish and Spanish is transforming English. (qtd. in Ch'ien 204)
Diaz does not italicize or otherwise tag as foreign the Spanish in most of his fiction. The
Spanish that appears in his texts consists primarily of single lexical items, usually cultural
terms or slang from Dominican Spanish. For example, in "Otra Vida, Otra Vez" Diaz
writes, "He had a housekeeping guiso then, mostly in Piscataway" (188). In Drown, the
reader encounters passages such as, "My mother tells me Beto' s home, waits for me to
say something.... He's a pato now but last year we were friends" (91). In these examples,
the terms "guiso" (gig) and "pato" (pejorative term for a homosexual man) are not readily
126
found in most dictionaries because these lexical items and the meanings employed by
Diaz are specific to informal, Caribbean Spanish only.
At other moments in Diaz's fiction, the author switches to Spanish for longer
passages, such as in The Brief Wondrous Life ofOscar Wao. In describing how Belicia,
the protagonist's mother, developed a brash attitude as a teenager while living in the
Dominican Republic with her adoptive mother, La Inca, Diaz writes,
Those of you who have stood at the corner of 142nd and Broadway can
guess what it was she spoke: the blunt, irreverent cant of the pueblo that
gives all dominicanos cultos nightmares on their 400-thread-count sheets
and that La Inca had assumed perished along with Beli's first life in Outer
Azua, but here it was so alive, it was like it had never left: Dye, parigliayo,
y que paso con esa esposa tuya? Gordo, no me digas que tu todavia tienes
hambre? (l08)
Within this single passage, Diaz mixes not only English and Spanish, but also brings
together the Dominican Republic and New York City within the mouth of Belicia as she
speaks what La Inca presumably judges to be low-class Spanish. And by expressly
including his Latino bilingual readers, those who have heard similar words on the streets
ofNew York, Diaz effectively excludes and even alienates a monolingual English reader
from fully comprehending the passage.
Like Diaz, Sandra Cisneros makes textual code~switching choices that potentially
marginalize the monolingual English reader while privileging the bilingual. However,
Caramelo, an English-dominant novel about a Mexican family living in Chicago and
127
their annual expedition south to visit their extended family in Mexico City, is not as
replete with un-translated Spanish passages as The Brief Wondrous Lift ofOscar Wao.
Lala Reyes, the narrator, is the youngest and only girl in the family of seven, and it is
through her eyes, both as a child and a frustrated teenager, that the reader sees her family
and their past. The text is characterized in many instances by the occurrence of Spanish
terms followed by their English translations, while in other cases, some expressions go
un-translated because their meanings can be inferred by the non-Spanish-speaker from
the context (Jimenez Carra 37).
As scholars such as Ellen McCracken, Sonia Saldivar-Hull, and Lourdes Torres
have noted, Sandra Cisneros' narrative style succeeds in both engaging the monolingual
and rewarding the bilingual by incorporating Spanish throughout her texts (Torres 84). In
Caramelo, she italicizes Spanish words but usually does not mark obvious translations
from Spanish that probably remain unintelligible to the monolingual reader but amusing
to the bilingual. In commenting on the Spanish language entries in her texts, Cisneros
states that she will not make translation concessions for the Anglo reader, adding, "The
reader(s] who (are] going to like my stories the best and catch all the subtexts and
subtleties, that even my editor can't catch, are Chicanas. (... ] But I'm also very conscious
when I'm writing about opening doors for people who don't know the culture" (qtd. in
Jussawalla and Dasenbrock 290).
However, in spite of those moments that may remain unintelligible to the
monolingual reader and amusing to the bilingual, Nieves Jimenez Carra's analysis of
Cisneros' code switching in Caramelo resulted in her conclusion that the author's
128
strategies for incorporating Spanish into her text reveal an underlying focus on the Anglo
reader (Jimenez Carra 56). The Spanish language entries in Cisneros' text, according to
Jimenez Carra, tend to be inter-textually translated into English, understandable via
context, or similar enough to their English equivalents as to be understood by
monolinguals. For example, as an introduction to Lala's grandfather, Narciso, the
narrator provides a clever in-text translation of the Spanish terms as follows: "It was the
cultural opinion of the times that men ought to be jeos, juertes, y jormales. Narciso Reyes
was strong and proper, but, no, he wasn't ugly" (Cisneros 103). And when Spanish words
go un-translated, Cisneros provides enough of a context to cue in the monolingual reader:
" ...Remember how she used to sing when she was just a baby? iQue maravilla! She was
just the same as Shirley Temple .... Still in diapers but there she was singing her heart out,
remember?" (Cisneros 58) Here, the two sentences following the exclamation in Spanish
leave no doubt in the mind of the monolingual reader that the phrase is a positive
expression about the singing talent of the child.
In spite of Jimenez Carra's conclusions, however, Frances Aparicio argues that on a
linguistic level, Cisneros engages in subversive language use by employing what
Aparicio terms "tropicalized English" which she describes as "a transformation and
rewriting of Anglo signifiers from the Latino cultural viewpoint" ("Sub-Versive
Signifiers" 796). In accordance with Aparicio's formulations, Cisneros herself explains
that the incorporation of Spanish in her work allows her to create new expressions in
English, to say things that have not been said before. For instance, Cisneros often literally
translates Mexican Spanish expressions or refrains into English, such as: "God squeezes,
129
but He doesn't choke" (119) which succeeds in producing an effect of "foreignness" to
the monolingual English reader. Of these Spanish-influenced expressions, Cisneros says,
"All of a sudden something happens to the English, something really new is happening, a
new spice is added to the English language" (qtd. in Jussawalla and Dasenbrock 288).
This "new spice" or, as Aparicio terms it, "tropicalizing gesture," destabilizes discursive
hegemonies tied to Anglo relations with Latinos in the United States (Aparicio, "Sub-
Versive Signifiers 796) by opening a universe of new, distinct, and very non-Anglo
sensitivities and ways of thinking (Jimenez Carra 45).
Like Cisneros, Helena Maria Viramontes favors the bilingual reader of her novel
Under the Feet ofJesus, except that Viramontes does so by leaving untranslated phrases
or entire sentences in Spanish. Viramontes employs this strategy most frequently in
dialogue, and as a result these portions of the text are only accessible to the bilingual.
While her use of un-glossed Spanish in this way treats the bilingual to an "insider"
experience of the text, the bilingual might also assume the text would be inaccessible to,
and consequently rejected by, the monolingual. Chapter VII discusses how the bilingual
preoccupation with the monolingual experience often weighs heavily in the bilingual
reader's own reception of the text.
When asked about her use of inaccessible Spanish in her texts, Viramontes
suggested that monolinguals' frustration at being excluded linguistically has to do with
more than just language:
A few years ago a southwestern writer, Cormac McCarthy, wrote All the Pretty
Horses. IfI remember correctly, there were whole paragraphs in Spanish. Not one
130
reviewer questioned it, not one reader said, 'I wish there was a glossary.' But if a
Spanish-surnamed writer uses Spanish, it becomes an issue. Readers feel
purposely excluded, like, why are you keeping this from me? Well, I'm sorry.
How could I not give integrity to the characters? (qtd. in Kevane and Heredia
150)
Here Viramontes gestures at the double-standard held by mainstream readers'
requirement that Latino writers make their Spanish accessible, while non-Latino writers
remain free from this responsibility. Perez, too, explains that the way in which readers
receive texts has very much to do with authors' surnames (and the racialization they
imply) and the assumptions that go along with them. Latinos' Spanish names, he notes,
are thought by many to be sufficient proof of the fact that Latinos are bilingual and
bicultural and hence must by default possess not only the ability to write in Spanish if
they so choose, but also the responsibility to adequately gloss that Spanish for their
English readers. Following this logic, not glossing would be a purposely exclusionary,
and therefore unacceptable, course of action on the part of a Latino writer. More on
monolingual readers' reception of bilingual texts appears in chapter VII.
The following example from Torres illustrates Viramontes' use ofuntranslated
Spanish in bilingual puns inaccessible to monolingual readers:
There is a girl over there, Alejo whispered.
-It's the sun, 'mano. Fried your sesos.
Alejo could barely make her out before the twilight turned her into a silhouette.
She hadn't even looked around.
131
-Pronto, 'mano. Estoy pensando en garrapatas, no garrana1gas. (39)
While "mano" and "sesos" may possibly be guessed by the monolingual reader from the
context to mean "brother" and "brains," the final reference remains inaccessible. The last
line contains a pun which translates as follows: "I am thinking about ticks (since they are
climbing trees and stealing peaches at night) rather than skirt-chasing." The meaning
cannot be guessed even with the aid of a good bilingual dictionary since "garranalgas"
(butt grabber) is a pun based on "garrapata" (tick). This passage might very well frustrate
the monolingual reader due to these inaccessible references (Torres 84).
Esmeralda Santiago's America's Dream, in contrast to When I was Puerto Rican
mentioned in the previous section, contains un-italicized Spanish terms and no glossary
for the English monolingual reader. Some Spanish terms are cushioned, yet America's
Dream gratifies the bilingual with moments of insight and understanding unavailable to
readers who do not know Spanish. An example of this reveals itself in the name "Correa"
chosen for one of the main characters, a cruel and dominating man. The noun "correa" in
Spanish signifies "belt" or "dog leash" in English and describes the violent character
well. Santiago also chooses place names that bear special meaning to the bilingual reader,
such as the first line of one chapter: "It's uphill from Esperanza to Destino" (16). The
bilingual reader, unlike the monolingual, understands that the main character has just left
hope behind and is about to embark on a difficult journey. Here Santiago plays with
bilingual puns and rewards the bilingual, bicultural reader (Torres 86).
132
Radically Bilingual
Academic presses, rather than mainstream ones, have over the years published
Latino prose works that employ sustained code switching that can only be read by a
bilingual audience. Linguistic experimentation in Latino prose texts published in the U.S.
is not a new phenomenon; starting in the 1970s, writers such as Tomas Rivera and
Roberto Fernandez produced linguistically diverse texts that challenged both Spanish and
English monolingual expectations. In 1971, Rivera wrote ...y no se 10 trag61a tierra in
the colloquial Spanish dialect typical of Mexican migrant workers in the Southwest in the
1940s and 1950s. Readers of any linguistic background who are unfamiliar with this
dialect would find the text a challenge to comprehend. Likewise, Fernandez's La vida es
un especial $. 75, published in 1981, captures the experience of working-class Cubans
living in Miami. The novel is written predominantly in Spanish but utilizes a wide array
of linguistic options used by bilingual speakers, which yields the text inaccessible to
monolingual speakers of either language. Several decades later, in a text innovatively
expressing the Chicano experience in Anglo culture, Gloria Anzaldua's 1987
Borderlands/La frontera posed a similar linguistic challenge to readers. This text features
long passages of un-translated Spanish inaccessible to the English monolingual. Because
these narratives mentioned above and other similar texts have been locally distributed by
small presses, they address concerns that are suppressed by the state and present
linguistic realities that are not represented in mainstream presses (Torres 86-87).
As Torres notes, the memoirs of Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, Rosario
Morales and Aurora Levins Morales established a trajectory in the 1980s and 1990s of
133
autobiographical writing that bilingually narrates the borderland experiences of the
authors (87). Two more recent authors, Giannina Braschi and Susana Chavez-Silverman,
take the bilingual performance aspect to a new level. Braschi's Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) and
Chavez-Silverman's Killer Cronicas (2004) present texts which are constantly moving in
between cultural and linguistic spaces in a narrative style that cannot be translated into
either Spanish or English without losing the essence of the intercultural message (Torres
90).
Yo-Yo Boing! contains bilingual poetry, monologues, and dialogues placed between
two Spanish language chapters. As such, the text innovates not only in terms of language
but also in terms of genre, challenging its reader with hybridity on multiple levels. As
explained in the introduction, the text is intended to be read as a performance piece.
Within the narrative, Braschi explicitly expresses her views on bilingualism:
If I respected languages like you do, I wouldn't write at all. EI muro de Berlin fue
derribado. Why can't I do the same. Desde la torre de Babel, las lenguas han sido
siempre una forma de divorciarnos del resto de la humanidad. Poetry must fmd
ways of breaking distance. I am not reducing my audience. On the contrary, I anl
going to have a bigger audience with the common market - in Europe - in America.
And besides, all languages are dialects that are made to break new grounds. I feel
like Dante and Petrarca, and Boccaccio and I even feel like Garcilaso forging a new
lenguaje. Saludo al nuevo siglo, el siglo del nuevo lenguaje de America y Ie digo
adios ala retorica separatista y a los atavismos. (142)
----------------~---
134
By claiming that all languages are dialects that are made to break new grounds, Braschi
gestures at the linguistic truth that languages naturally evolve, and suggests that her
particular task as a bilingual poet is to forge a "new language," one which, as revealed in
this passage, reflects the hybrid mixing of codes arising out of the author's own
bilingualism. She argues that writing in the vernacular of the people will actually expand
and not decrease her readership, suggesting that it is only a matter of time before
bilingual communication is accepted on a wider scale. Since Braschi is a well-known
Puerto Rican poet, her first prose work, Yo-Yo Boing!, contributes to the task of making
bilingual prose writing acceptable and legitimate (Torres 88).
Like Braschi, Chavez-Silverman experiments with language mixing in what
Torres calls her "Spanglish" memoir, Killer Cronicas. This narrative uses language to
capture the writer's bicultural reality and her transnational in-betweenness. Killer
Cronicas constitutes a series of completely bilingual letters written to family and friends
during travel to Argentina. Almost every sentence throughout the work contains both
English and Spanish. Some linguists have argued that this text would be a good example
of sustained intra-sentential code switching, which, as discussed in the previous chapter,
requires a high level of proficiency in both languages. Torres notes that there are very
few instances within the text in which the writing violates the proposed rules of oral code
switching, namely the equivalence constraint and the free morpheme constraint first
outlined by Shana Poplack in the 1980s and discussed in the previous chapter (Torres
94). For example, in the beginning of the narrative the author writes:
135
These cr6nicas began as letters: cartas a amigos extrafiados, love letters to cities,
smells, people, voice and geographies I missed. 0, por otra parte, comenzaron
como cartas a un lugar, or to a situation that I was experiencing intensely, casi con
demasiada intensidad and yet pleasurably as well, a sabiendas de que la viviencia
acabaria demasiado pronto. (xxxi)
Chavez-Silverman has stated that she hopes her book will inspire others to write
bilingual texts, not only in the US but also internationally, as there are many places where
one's identity is expressed in more than one language (Torres 90). Both Braschi and
Chavez-Silverman insist that bilingual writing is very much a part of the US literary
experience. Torres suggests that texts such as the ones discussed in this section do not
necessarily completely exclude monolingual audiences (90). Debra Castillo adds that
monolingual audiences from either Spanish or English are invited to experience these
narratives and undergo a sense of partial exclusion. For exclusion, notes Castillo, is very
much the point, creating a different and valid response (170).
The monolingual English-speaking reader's required experience of
marginalization in relation to these radically bilingual texts places these narratives within
the minor literature framework discussed earlier. For by metaphorically displacing these
readers into the periphery, these authors work toward challenging the dominance of
English by giving prevalence to their bilingual readers. However, because these texts
tend to be published by academic presses rather than mainstream ones -likely due to
their inaccessibility by monolingual English readers - these texts may ultimately be less
likely to affect real change since their inaccessibility by default restricts their readership
136
to bilinguals. Consequently, the very readers who most need to be reached - namely,
English monolinguals - are at risk of being cancelled out entirely.
Conclusion
This chapter has framed u.s. Latino narrative within Deleuze and Guattari's
concept of minor literature by showing how these texts work to subvert the major,
dominant language and culture from within. I have argued that the capacity shared by
many Latino writers to interrogate linguistic and cultural hierarchies via bilingual and
bicultural narrative situates U.S. Latino literature as a whole within the minor literary
framework. By destabilizing the central positioning of the English-speaking monolingual
reader, these narratives challenge traditional Anglo-American discourses of knowledge
and force the monolingual into a space of limited access to the text. Only the bilingual,
traditionally at the margins, has the capacity to completely enter into the linguistic and
cultural worlds created by these Latino writers.
As discussed earlier, a critical component of minor literature consists of its
revolutionary potential. According to the framework, narratives written in a major
language from a minor perspective have the ability to weaken dominant linguistic and
cultural power structures as a result of their accessibility to mainstream readers who
possess sociopolitical authority. Within the context of the United States, this signifies that
texts written from the Latino perspective but read widely by English monolinguals
possess the capacity to revolutionize the linguistic and cultural hierarchy in the U.S. by
simultaneously inviting mainstream readers to participate and excluding them from fully
comprehending the texts.
------------------- ---------
137
Many types of Latino narratives achieve this effect; however, I propose that none
does so quite as effectively as the texts falling into the second category discussed above
by favoring the bilingual reader. Writers such as Junot Diaz, Sandra Cisneros, Helena
Viramontes, and Esmeralda Santiago successfully author narratives published by
mainstream presses, thereby ensuring a wide, mainstream readership. At the same time,
these texts employ narrative strategies that effectively exclude English monolingual
readers from full access to the prose. English monolinguals may not understand
everything they encounter from these writers, but they appear to be both buying and
reading their texts nonetheless. Hence, writers such as those mentioned above achieve
what could be the start of a linguistic and cultural revolution in the U.S., by publicly and
politically naming Spanish - and the cultures of those attached to it - as normative.
138
CHAPTER VI
THE MARKETIJ'JG AND PUBLISHlliG OF LATlliIDAD
The Myth of the "Authentic" Text
Readers and literary critics alike often construct an implicit link between literature
and culture, whereby literary texts become windows into, or examples of, the "otherness"
of the culture they are read as representing. Within this construct, narratives are taken as
an articulation of social reality, a living (and hence authentic) example of culture. Writers
are perceived as carrying out the task of speaking for entire communities of people, of
narrating the collective experience of a group to which they are presumed to belong. This
is particularly true for minority writers, who are perceived as dwelling within and relating
experiences from realities unfamiliar to their non-minority readership (JanMohamed and
Lloyd 10). The texts created by such authors, then, are uncritically accepted by many as
authoritative specimens of cultural production that accurately replicate the writer's reality
for the reader. Thus far, the arguments presented in the preceding chapters may have
likewise taken for granted the notion that Latino narratives available to readers in the
United States today authentically reflect the experiences that their writers live. However,
a prominent factor in the relationship between the experience of Latinos and the
narratives available to the reading public remains as yet unexamined within the current
analysis: namely, the publishing and marketing industry's role in determining not only
which types of texts get published, but also how those texts are composed.
139
The reading of literary texts as windows into reality stems in part from the
theoretical model created by the literary realism movement of the nineteenth century,
during which time literature came to be regarded by the public as a faithful representation
of social reality. John Lye notes that Marxist theorist Georg Lukacs, for example, held
that through the methodology of realism, literature reflects a social reality whose
phenomena serve as a model for the work of art. Lye suggests that the realist writer,
according to the model, gives a complete and correct account of observed social reality,
and thus is able to uncover the driving forces of history and the principles governing
social change. Literary works in the realist model, then, serve the function of representing
deep-seated social truths as well as reflecting large-scale human development.
The acceptance of literary texts as authentic examples of social realities likewise
reveals itself as an uncritically examined truth from a social sciences perspective. The
field of language pedagogy, for example, approaches certain literary texts as authentic
specimens of linguistic and cultural realities named as part of the so-called target
language and culture they represent. The language teacher's use of realia - a term used to
describe real-life materials that spring directly from the target culture rather than via
textbooks - is often touted as the most effective way to enable learners to encounter the
new language and culture authentically (Larsen-Freeman 29). As Vicki Galloway notes,
authentic texts - which she defines as texts written by members of a language and culture
group for members of that same group - provide opportunities for learners to engage in
their own process of discovery in the target culture "through the language of the culture
communicating with its own" (98). Galloway'S remarks reflect a widely held
140
presumption in the field of language pedagogy that authentic texts by default not only
arise unabridged from the writer, but also are written primarily for other members of the
writer's own community rather than for a wider readership.
In contrast to the beliefs outlined above, a tenet of translation theory rests upon the
belief that language can never authentically communicate meaning, but that all texts are
interpreted by readers, who infuse them with a personal meaning of their own (Bamstone
23, Graham 18). Similarly, reader reception theory claims that the audience does not
simply passively accept text, but that readers interpret the meanings of the text based on
their individual cultural backgrounds and life experiences. According to this framework,
one could argue that regardless of whether or not literature provides a window into
reality, readers can never truly know the world a writer sets out to describe but rather
must always construct meaning based on their own interpretations of the text (Hall 5).
Hence, reads can never access the author's experience, since the reception and
significance of any literary work depends entirely upon the negotiation between writers
and readers, who may interpret words in varying manners.
Regardless of the manner by which readers construct meaning, the process by
which writers author, edit, and finally publish their narratives certainly shapes the texts
available to any reading public. A writer may set out to create a text which authentically
reflects his or her personal, cultural reality, but through the processes of revision and the
pressures of the marketplace, any original text becomes vulnerable to significant
alterations as a result of the restrictions and requirements placed by publishers upon
writers who hope to publish. Ultimately, authors published by mainstream presses must
141
create texts that readers will buy and read; they cannot write for their own gratification
alone, no less to educate the reader in a manner deemed undesirable or unmarketable by a
publisher. Hence, the industry, by default, becomes the authoritative source for and
determiner of what readers buy and read as well as what writers write and publish.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, many readers today have retained an uncritical
acceptance of the verisimilitude of narratives, fictional or otherwise, particularly when
texts treat subject matter with which readers are largely unfamiliar. Therefore,
mainstream readers assume a posture of passive acceptance rather than one of critical
examination (Hamilton 279, Paul 47). Consequently, the publishing industry clearly plays
a prominent - if invisible - role in the creation of a body of narratives available to a
reading public, who essentially allows the industry to control its perception of social
reality. Within the context of Latino narratives available to readers in the United States
today, then, mainstream presses shape not only which texts will be published, but also
how those texts are actually written. This issue is developed in the following sections.
The Machinations of the Publishing Industry
The publishing industry, rather than infused with a pernicious intent to control
readers' perceptions of social reality, is simply susceptible to the goals of economic
achievement like any other business in the capitalist market. Like any arts-oriented
industry, book publishers must bridge the gap between representing artistic expression
and fulfilling commercial success. As Patrick Forsyth notes, a publishing house will only
survive and prosper if it is financially profitable. Simply put, this means a press must
produce more in sales revenue than it expends in costs (however worthwhile such
142
expenditure may be), and that profit must be generated to allow it to develop and grow
further. Any other intention, warns Forsyth, leads not only to less success, but very
possibly to complete failure (xiii). Hence, the drive to succeed financially requires the
business to confonn to marketing strategies designed to increase book sales.
Success, then, depends on the market - described by Forsyth as demanding,
unpredictable, dynamic and fickle. Even the best titles, he notes, cannot be left to sell
themselves; hence, marketing has become a vital part of the publishing business's
survival as well as its means to future profit and growth. Without good marketing,
Forsyth argues, the skilled efforts of writers, agents, and editors may be wasted if a book
fails to sell (xiv). John Maxwell Hamilton agrees, noting that marketing plays an
overwhelming role in book sales, and that while previously, editors could be satisfied to
break even with a promising first-time author, now they feel pressure to make money
right away (63). Hence, while the publishing industry may be conceptually linked with
artistic production and higher aesthetic endeavors, the bottom line for book publishers -
especially mainstream presses - is turning a profit.
As any good business student knows, the whole essence of every aspect of
marketing - the concept, the planning through to all the research, communications, and
the application of every technique - must focus on the customer. The customer is king, as
the saying goes, and customers are ultimately the pipers who call the tune. As Forsyth
warns, "Knowledge of, and respect for, the customer - whether that is defined as the
bookshop or other professional buyer, or the ultimate book-buyer reader - is essential"
(150). He continues that while some customers, such as major trade buyers, are powerful,
143
all (including readers) are fickle and their behavior is difficult to predict. Success, he
claims, goes to those who keep the closest eye on consumers (150).
Therefore, keeping a close eye on book-purchasers so as to attempt to predict their
buying behavior increases the chances of publishers' financial survival. When asked in an
interview what editors look for in both authors and submissions, Jeanette Perez of
HarperCollins Publishers noted that while editors value a well-written book, the text also
has to have a hook that is easy to pitch (Perez). Perez continued, "Much of my job as an
editor is selling the book in-house to our publicity, marketing, and sales teams. If I can
present the book to them concisely and give them a hook they can use when they are
selling the book to accounts, the book has that much better of a chance in the
marketplace" (Perez). As an editor, Perez is a link in the long chain of decision-makers
that begins with the aspiring writer and ends with the accounts team at a publishing
house. Any writer hoping to publish through a mainstream press must first have an agent,
whose job it is to know the editors and their interests as well as which editor would be
best suited for which book (Perez). The editor, in turn, must sell the book to the
marketing and sales team, who must then sell it to the accounts team for the publishing
company. As noted earlier, the bottom line and driving force behind every decision made
regarding a book is the book-buyer. Therefore, attempts to predict the customer's choices
shapes every decision made about a book as the manuscript moves from team to team in
preparation for the market.
144
What People Read
Knowing what people read, then, is paramount to a book's success. Yet predicting
what book consumers will buy constitutes a tricky task indeed, even for the most skilled
analysts. As New York Times reporter Motoko Rich found, there is no empirical answer to
what turns someone into a book lover who keeps coming back for more, or even whether
people will continue to be drawn to the literary landscape. She writes, "The gestation of a
true, committed reader is in some ways a magical process, shaped in part by external
forces but also by a spark within the imagination." Furthermore, notes Rich, despite the
proliferation of book groups and literary blogs, reading is ultimately a private act. Sara
Nelson, editor in chief of the trade magazine Publishers Weekly, supports this idea of the
mystery of literary taste: "Why people read what they read is a great unknown and
personal thing" (qtd. in Rich). Ultimately, as Junot Diaz points out, it is impossible to
explain what draws people to reading: "I feel like it's a mystery what makes us
vulnerable to certain practices and not to others" (qtd. in Rich).
Daniel Goldin, general manager of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops in
Milwaukee, suggests that in many cases, what turns people into readers is the right book
at the right time. "It can be like a drug in a positive way. If you get the book that makes
the person fall in love with reading, they want another one" (qtd. in Rich). However,
Goldin does not propose precisely what sort of book that would be. Rich hypothesizes
that one quality which transforms a book into trigger for continuous reading could be a
main character with whom the reader identifies. For example, Sherman Alexie, a
Spokane Indian and author of The Absolutely True Diary ofa Part-Time Indian which
145
won the National Book Award for young people's literature in 2007, noted upon
accepting his award that he had been greatly influenced by one book as a child. The text,
a well-known title for children called The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, depicts an
indigenous character with which Alexie identified. "It was the first time I looked at a
book and saw a brown, black, beige character - a character who resembled me
physically and resembled me spiritually, in all his gorgeous loneliness and splendid
isolation" (qtd. in Rich). Identification with characters, then, is a possible key component
of texts to which readers are drawn.
Another impulse that draws people to read, suggests Rich, is a wish to embrace the
"other" made accessible via literature. In an interview, Azar Nafisi, author of the 2003
memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran about a book group she led in Iran, noted, "It's that
excitement of trying to discover that unknown world" (qtd. in Rich). Readers may feel
that texts depicting realities vastly different from their own provide them with the chance
to open their eyes to experiences they might otherwise not be able to access; this, Nafisi
suggests, draws people to reading. A reader of Rich's article concurs with this proposal,
remarking: "Simply put, I read to expand and enhance my perception of reality" (Kenny).
Furthermore, adds another reader, "Reading allows me to cross time and space and enter
another's perspective; it multiplies my experience" (Morrison). Books that depict
"otherness" for readers, then, appear to stand a greater chance of succeeding in the
marketplace.
A third type of book people buy and read, according to Rich, constitutes a text
perceived by consumers as easy to read. In an interview, Alan Bennett, author of the 2007
146
novella The Uncommon Reader, named The Pursuit ofLove, a 1945 popular novel by
Nancy Mitford, as the first adult novel he read for pleasure. Bennett noted that the book
served as a stepping off point into more heavyweight literature, adding, "There are all
sorts of entrances that you can get into reading by reading what might at first seem trash"
(qtd. in Rich). Notes one reader, "Reading takes me away from the problems of the
ordinary world, into a world that where [sic] if problems exist, they have solutions and
endings. All romantic stories have happy endings .... murders are always solved"
(Hilton). While such things as happy endings and solved murders may be hallmarks of
so-called "trashy" literature, they appear nonetheless to be easy, pleasurable elements for
many readers to encounter.
Other books, unlike those described by the characteristics mentioned above, are
chosen by readers simply because they have become what Rich calls a "phenomena,"
meaning they are widely known and read based on popular reputation alone. Examples
would include J.K. Rawling's Harry Potter series, Dan Brown's 2006 best selling novel
The Da Vinci Code, or, to a slightly lesser extent, most books recommended for Oprah
Winfrey'S book club (Rich). However, readers who opt for purchase of "hot" books such
as the ones mentioned here more often wait for the next popular title to appear rather than
remain faithful to authors of previously popular titles. In fact, notes Rich, even after
Oprah Winfrey recommends a title, sales of other books by the same author do not
necessarily match those of the book that bears her imprimatur. Jonathan Galassi,
publisher at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, agrees. "What I find with readers today is they
don't go off on their own to another book. They wait for the next recommendation" (qtd.
147
in Rich). Hence, readers of popular books, it would seem, are easily influenced and
guided by celebrity endorsements.
Therefore, although what people buy and read would appear to remain largely
abstruse, publishers and analysts do propose several types of narratives consumers seem
to prefer. Namely, as outlined above, readers appear to favor books that depict characters
with whom they can identify, that describe realities foreign to their own, that are easy and
pleasurable to read, and that are endorsed by celebrities or have become a phenomenon.
Certainly, in pursuit of predicting the tastes and preferences of the all-important yet
elusive and fickle book buyer, mainstream presses expend considerable energies and
funds analyzing precisely what people will buy and read. Their fiscal survival depends
upon the successful prediction of readers' choices. Likewise, the most successful books
will be narratives conforming to publishers' predictions about customers' choices.
Yet it is impossible to discuss attempts to predict the actions of culture consumers
such as book buyers without duly noting the eminent importance of best-seller lists. As
Laura Miller points out, these rankings serve extremely vital functions for members of
the book industry, who use them as powerful marketing tools to sell more books (286).
Among the many rankings now printed, The New York Times best-seller list is widely
considered the preeminent gauge of what Americans are reading. Yet, as Miller notes, its
methodology is highly problematic, and many in the industry assume there are
irregularities on the part of sources who report to the Times; conversely, members of the
public have little understanding of what the lists actually represent (287).
148
Miller suggests that best-seller lists such as the one compiled by the Times, rather
than passively recording the doings of the book world, are in fact actively participating in
it (289). The real power of the best-seller list, according to Miller, lies not in its ability to
reflect accurately which books are the country's top sellers, but rather to actually sell
books (295). Indeed, the marketing power of being a New York Times best-seller is
unquestionably tremendous. Currently, notes Miller, once a book makes the Times list,
the achievement is trumpeted in all further promotional material and the book is sought
by readers who habitually read best-sellers. The book is also given special treatment by
retailers. Publishers likewise make the best-selling status of a book its most notable
feature. Hence, the power of the list lies in its ability to determine what books are likely
to be bought, and the rankings become self-fulfilling prophecies rather than reflections of
reality (Miller 294).
Despite the Times' claim to be ever more empirical in its compilation of best-
sellers, Miller notes, the methodology employed in building the rankings, as noted above,
casts doubt on the accuracy of the report (293). Furthermore, the lists can be easily
manipulated by enterprising authors or publishers who discover which stores in given
areas are Times-reporting and use this information to cause large buys to be made from
them. Miller provides an example concerning author Jacqueline Susann, who, determined
to get Valley ofthe Dolls on the list, tried to butler up Times-reporting booksellers and
bought large quantities of her own book (294). In another case, writer Wayne Dyer,
author of the 1970s best-seller Your Erroneous Zones, also purchased thousands of copies
of his own book (294).
149
Miller concludes that while existing best-seller lists might bear some relation to
actual sales of books, rankings may not always be deserved and there may be other high-
selling titles that do not make it onto the lists. She warns that scholars who want to use
such lists as records of popular tastes need to scrutinize more closely the context in which
they are produced. The authority of the list, writes Miller, is more cultural than scientific,
and indeed the purpose of the list is as much about economics as it is about entertaining
or informing the public. Ultimately, the best-seller list does not provide an account of
Americans' reading patterns as much as the social production of best-sellers (300).
More Than Meets the Eye: The Writer's Perspective
Given the financially driven pressures of the publishing industry to pump out only
the sorts of books that will succeed in the marketplace, it is impossible to assume that any
aspiring writer would be able to author a work wholly unaffected by the demand to
capitulate to publishers' interpretations of reader preferences. To publish a book, as noted
earlier, writers have to write the sort of book that will sell. On the one hand, many
famous, published writers have expressed their ability to focus on the work itself rather
than on the desire to sell; on the other hand, such a stance may be interpreted as a luxury
enjoyed only by already successful writers. Several published, well known, and widely
read authors such as Jooot Diaz, Julia Alvarez, and Sandra Cisneros, have each at one
time or another alluded to a sense of removal from concern about the public's reception
of their books. In discussing whether he felt pressure in writing his novel The Brief
Wondrous Life ofOscar Wao, Diaz stated in an interview, "After this many years youjust
don't give a fuck. It's like I don't care. And I'm writing a book that in its structure
150
reflects the I-don't-careness" (Diaz "Interview"). Likewise, Alvarez noted in an
interview, "Book biz can be distracting. A writer runs the danger of becoming a creature
of publicity.... It's so easy to get sucked into that star world instead of paying attention to
your work. And your work is really bigger than you" (Alvarez 29). Cisneros, too,
mentioned in an interview that getting published should not be the only aim of writing:
"Writing is to get in touch with some intimate part of yourself. Publishing, fame, money,
if you get it at all in your lifetime, is just icing on the cake but not the cake" (Cisneros
"Home" 57).
Other successful, published authors have made similar comments about their ability
to separate themselves from the demands of the industry in order to focus on their writing
rather than their success. Clearly, that these writers have already met with success affords
them the ability to philosophically distance themselves from the need to write for the sole
purpose of publishing. However, as mentioned above, this distanced relationship with the
industry would appear to be a privilege enjoyed by writers who have already published
and can afford to write for the sake of writing. Aspiring authors, however, may have a
different experience; getting a first novel published might easily take precedence over the
experience of writing for writing's sake. Granted, those drawn to the practice of writing
are likely not the type to seeking abundant remuneration. However, authors, like
everyone else, enjoy being able to make a living from their work, and publishing a book
might enable a writer to, simply put, continue writing.
In fact, many published, successful writers who no longer have to worry about the
public reception of their books began their writing careers authoring texts more geared
151
toward meeting the pressures of the industry. As Diaz stated in an interview, for example,
"Contracts, of course, create pressure. Of course, they disrupt your work. Of course, they
entail a danger of destabilizing you to the point where you don't have your own voice
anymore" ("Fiction" 899). He described his early writing self, therefore, as susceptible to
the demands of the reading public. These demands, while perhaps less visible in the work
of established writers such as those references above, certainly run the danger of
revealing themselves as overtly present in many choices made by would-be published
writers, those not fortunate enough to have earned fame and fortune from their work yet.
A simple search online for tips on how to write a novel or how to get published
yields a plethora of gimmicky guides, how-to books, and checklists for the would-be
bestselling author. For example, James Frey's 1987 How to Write a Damn Good Novel
describes itself as a "crash-course" in novel writing and a step-by-step "no nonsense"
guide to dramatic storytelling. Or Daniel Jones' 2001 How to Write a Best-Seller While
Keeping Your Day Job! A Step-By-Step Manual ofSuccess for Writers Who Want to Be
Published But Don't Have the Time, which likewise describes itself as a "practical and
fun" outline for getting your book published. Countless web sites claim to teach you to
write a successful novel easily and instantly, such as the check-list written by Cliff
Pickover entitled "How to Create an Instant Bestselling Novel." Another unintentionally
hilarious list found on the site WikiHow entitled "How to Write a Best Seller" outlines
the process of writing and publishing in six simple steps, the first of which is "Pick any
topic and write." The successive steps emphasize the importance of the title, book cover,
and publisher ... but not the writing itself.
152
Hence, there appears to be a common perception in the United States that writing a
book is not a matter of skill or craft but rather of cracking a formula; the content, topic,
and development, it would seem, are all superfluous to success. What matters is
marketing, networking, and strategizing. From this perspective, book writing is just as
much a business as book publishing. The take-home message from many of the sources
noted above is that shaping narratives to meet the expectations and preferences of readers
is paramount to success in the marketplace - uncritically assumed to be the real goal of
any writer. Moreover, as discussed earlier in the chapter, the public's taste in literature is
susceptible to being determined by publishing companies, which have the power to
accept or reject narratives based on their perceptions of reader preferences.
When the discussion of book publishing enters the realm of minority writers and
literature, the question of which minority narratives end up getting published, and which
do not, begins to revolve around whether or not writers conform to the publishing
industry's determination of readers' perception of the minority group to which the writer
belongs. David Goldweber, a writing instructor in Oakland, proposes that writers who
happen to be members of minority groups are systematically pigeonholed by the
publishing industry into writing only about minority issues. "I think it has become
understood and expected, at least by book editors and English teachers and perhaps by
society as a whole, that minorities write about minorities and that white people write
about everything else" (Goldweber). With very rare exceptions, he continues, discourse
about nonracial issues - such as history, politics, science or nature - comes from a non-
minority writer. Goldweber notes that it is understandable why textbooks would form this
153
way, since many minority writers choose to write about minority issues; indeed,
organizations such as the Black Writers Alliance have been founded expressly for this
purpose. Yet textbook editors and publishers, notes Goldweber, seem to assume this is all
that gets written, and all that anyone wants to read.
Rolando Perez, a Latino and a literary scholar at Hunter College who has written
extensively about non-Latino issues, describes what he terms "the paranoiac's fear" of
literature written by minority writers opting not to focus expressly on minority concerns
(Perez 102). This fear is generated from members of non-minority groups as a result of
their false expectations about minority writers. He describes a comment made by one of
his colleagues when he told her that his work was going to be included in the Norton
Anthology. She asked, "Will that be the regular Norton Anthology or just the Hispanic
one?" Her question indirectly implies that Latino writers such as Perez should be writing
about Latino issues and not about "regular" ones. The limitations of such expectations
about minority writers are abundantly clear; the built-in supposition is that members of
minority groups only have the authority to speak to their own experiences as minorities,
and that "everything else" should be left to non-minority group members. As Goldweber
rhetorically asks of aspiring minority writers, "Are we doing them a favor when we imply
that the only thing they should be writing about is themselves?"
There exists a general expectation about minority writers that they should write
about minority affairs. The publishing industry, as well as the popular media, projects
images of Asian, African American, Latino and Native American people in the United
States which aim to preserve their "otherness" in the perception of the non-minority
154
public. They do so by defining these minority identities in terms of their differences from
non-minority identities, and as Arlene Davila notes, by capitulating to society's demand
for exotic and segregated others (219). She states, "Only the general inability to consider
racial and ethnic and sexual 'minorities' as part of U.S. society sustains marketers'
stubborn insistence on the fiction that the general market, like U.S. society, is white,
heterosexual, and ethnically untainted and feeds the need for ethnic marketing to affirm
'respect' for or appreciation of minority populations" (219). All of these marginal others,
argues Davila, need to be repeatedly reminded that they too are part of the United States
and that their contributions emich the nation because, regardless of their history or
citizenship status, they remain foreign in the perception of the so-called "general public"
by the nature of their race, ethnicity, and culture, and the values and behaviors ascribed to
them by such differences (219).
Latino Literature: The Flavor of the Month?
In examining the formative role played by advertising and commercial culture in
shaping the contours of contemporary Latino identities, Arlene Davila argues that
Latinos' increased popularity in the marketplace is, as suggested above, accompanied by
their growing exotification and invisibility in mainstream consciousness. She scrutinizes
the complex interests that are involved in the public representation of Latinos as a generic
and culturally distinct people, and questions the homogeneity of the different Latino
subnationalities that supposedly comprise the same people and group of consumers.36
Davila also shows that marketing discourse has become a terrain where Latinos debate
36 This topic is discussed fully in Chapter II.
155
their social identities and public standing - or where such things are debated for them.
Davila's observations about the marketing industry's creation of a Latino identity also
hold sway in the publishing industry, which, as argued throughout this chapter, is
overwhelmingly determined by consumer culture in its pursuit of fiscal success.
It is common knowledge in the marketing industry today that Latinos comprise a
large and profitable sector of the market. In a speech delivered at an advertising
presentation by the Spanish TV network Te1emundo, actor Antonio Banderas declared,
"Latinos are hot, and we are not the only ones to think so. Everyone wants to jump on the
bandwagon, and why not? We have the greatest art, music, and literature. It's time we tell
our stories" (qtd. in Davila 1). In urging advertisers to "jump on the bandwagon,"
Banderas articulates a belief permeating the advertising industry: that Latinos are the
hottest new market and that targeting this population promises to be a fruitful endeavor
(Davila 1). As Davila points out, that a famous Spaniard like Antonio Banderas should
become the spokesperson for U.S. Latino culture is symbolic of the loss of distinctions
between the different national-origins subgroups all consolidated into a common
Latino/Hispanic identity that now encompasses anyone from a Spanish or Latin
American background living in the United States (l).
Central to this consolidation, proposes Davila, is Hispanic marketing and
advertising, which has advanced the idea of a common "Hispanic market" by selling and
promoting generalized ideas about Latinos to be readily marketed by corporate America.
She notes that over eighty Hispanic advertising agencies and branches of transnational
advertising conglomerates spread across cities with sizeable Hispanic populations now
156
sell consumer products by shaping and projecting images of and for Latinos (2). Some of
these generalized ideas about Latinos are articulated in a booklet entitled jVfulticultural
Marketing: Selling to a Diverse America by Marlene Rossman. In describing the
Hispanic market, Rossman notes:
Although the $200 billion Hispanic market is not a monolith, several values serve
to unite Hispanics. They include the importance placed on the family and
children, the desire to preserve their ethnicity, an emphasis on aesthetics and
emotions, a devotion to religion and tradition, and a strong interest in their
appearance (48).
As Davila suggests, ethnic consumers are most often presented by marketers as family-
oriented, traditional, and brand-loyal. This, she notes, is unsurprising given that the
family values and morality of minority populations have historically been under scrutiny
by the dominant society, requiring minority consumers to feel the need to prove their
worth and compensate for their tainted image by buying into projected images of good
family values and religiosity (Davila 217).
When the discussion of the marketing and selling of Latino identity enters the arena
of book publishing, these projected images of family values, religion, and tradition
remain largely unchanged. Many of the most successful Latino-authored narratives are
books which capitalize on these same generalized ideas about Latino identity. Esmeralda
Santiago, when asked in an interview to share her thoughts on the current interest in
Latino literature, responded as follows:
157
The interest was always there on the part ofthe readers. The books weren't. Now
the great thing is that these books are available. People frequently tell me, 'I was
looking for books like yours.' They just couldn't find them. I think that publishers
hadn't tapped into the potential. And yes, maybe we're the flavor of the month,
but the only thing we can do is enjoy it while it lasts. We must keep writing, take
advantage of the fact that publishers have finally noticed there is a market for
Latino literature, and keep buying books by Latino authors, so that more and more
of us get published" ("A Puerto Rican" 136).
Santiago suggests that readers have long wanted and expected to encounter Latino
literature, but that those narratives, until recently, were simply not there for them to read.
While she does not specifically define what she means by Latino literature, we might
safely assume she means books written by Latinos about Latino issues. Santiago appears
to be comparing the present moment to a time when Latino literature was not yet a "hot"
item in the publishing industry and hence Latino narratives were not yet available to
readers. Of course, this does not mean that the experiences captured in such narratives did
not exist; it simply means that the publishing industry had not yet determined that such
experiences were marketable, or that Latino literature was worth publishing. In noting
that publishers "hadn't tapped into the potential" Santiago could be in danger of
capitulating to the "Hispanic market" model defined by corporate America and critiqued
by Davila above. Santiago suggests that Latino authors ought to take advantage of the
fact that there is currently a popular market for Latino literature, even though it may not
last. While her argument is logical that Latino authors should make the most of this trend
158
in order to get their narratives published, this suggestion might also run the risk of
encouraging writers to conform to those same marketable, generalized, publication-
worthy, and yet limiting projected images of Latinos that are the cornerstone of the
Hispanic market strategy. Such values, as noted above, may very well yield products that
are marketable and publishable, but are certainly not a full representation of reality.
Language(s) Fit to Print
One significant level on which reality appears to be at extreme odds with its
representation in print centers around language. Bilingualism, as discussed in chapter III,
constitutes a heavily resisted language phenomenon in the United States, a resistance that
is reflected in published narrative. As noted in that chapter, in spite of the fact that
bilingualism - particularly English-Spanish bilingualism - is a broad daily reality in the
United States, the official use oftwo languages by bilinguals is widely regarded as a
threat to the well-being of the nation. This is due to the fact that bilingualism in and of
itself is symbolic of language shift, a reality ardently resisted by many, particularly from
higher status groups such as those in the U.S. characterized as white, Anglo, and
monolingual English-speaking. Furthermore, as argued in chapter III, it is impossible to
separate the threat posed by Spanish-English bilinguals from the threat posed by
immigrants from Spanish-speaking nations in general. As noted in chapter II, Spanish
itself has come to symbolize the entire population of Latin American origin or descent,
regardless of whether or to what degree its members actually speak it.
In the United States today, nearly 34 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish,
making it the second most common language in the country after English ("Selected").
159
Hence, Spanish-English bilingualism is a clear and present reality in a country valuing
English monolingualism. As argued previously, the perceived threat to national unity
posed by the presence of bilinguals or Spanish monolinguals is based largely on concepts
of the importance of a single language as a necessary component of nationhood.
Language is one of the features that a nation uses to define itself. It figures prominently,
for example, in the familiar model of a nation as a body of people who share some
combination of a common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, and who typically
inhabit a particular country or territory (Hobsbawm "Introduction" 5). Benedict
Anderson's discussion of "imagined communities" suggests that the original formation of
national identities was rooted in the understanding of a common language shared by
members of a nation. Anderson defines a nation as an imagined political community -
imagined because in spite of the fact that every citizen will never know every other
citizen, all members possess an image of their shared fellowship and union (6). An
image, Anderson explains, cultivated by the print media which enables people to "come
to visualize in a general way the existence of thousands and thousands like themselves"
(77). Thus, in order to have access to the language of the media which permits this
imaginary fellowship to exist, and to subsequently gain membership to the nation,
individuals must be literate in the same language as all other fellow members of the
nation. According to this formulation, then, the existence of peripheral languages not
used by all members is perceived as a potential danger to the wellbeing of the unified
nation.
160
Hence, given the perceived national threat posed by bilingualism, it is unsurprising
that only the most accessible and well-glossed types of bilingualism would find their way
into published narratives - even those composed by bilinguals. This phenomenon is
discussed in depth in the previous chapter. Many of the most successful, published, and
widely read narratives composed by Latino writers are those written primarily in English
but with Spanish language entries that are easily understood by a monolingual English
speaker and with a monolingual reader in mind (Rudin 229, Callahan "Metalinguistic"
418, Torres 79). As Lourdes Torres notes, the appearance of this "easy" Spanish
alongside the English on the page marks these narratives as distinctly "Latino" in a direct
manner without challenging the comprehension of the English-speaking monolingual
(79). This constitutes the kind of Latino literature that sells, the kind that gets published,
and the kind that is perceived - however incorrectly - as accurately representing the
Latino world in the United States.
(Il)literacy in the United States
This chapter has examined the role of the publishing industry in determining what
sort of literature is made available to readers, what sort of literature is written by authors,
and also how this selection affects the public's awareness of social realities and of
language. In pursuit of fiscal success, the industry tends to choose texts, as discussed
above, that have a niche market and that meet reader expectations. Since sales are the
bottom line, as noted throughout this chapter, mainstream presses are likely to choose
minority-authored books that are less concerned with reflecting truths about how people
really live, think, and feel and more with what people want to read and believe about
161
minorities. Certainly, smaller academic presses publish texts that diverge from this
formula, but very few of these books are known by a wide reader audience and instead
are restricted to a limited readership comprised of specialists.
In closing, one must consider that any discussion about literatures in the United
States, or about their connection to representing cultural realities for readers, remains
incomplete without a close examination of literacy. Literature's ability to affect public
consciousness in any way is of course strictly limited by the fact that not every member
of society is capable of reading anything at all. In fact, a surprisingly large number of
people will never have access to the texts discussed throughout this dissertation based
upon a lack of education, opportunity, and a consequent inability to read. According to
the National Institute for Literacy, more than 20% of adults read at or below a fifth grade
level - far below the level needed to earn a living wage, let alone to read a popular novel.
The National Adult Literacy Survey also found that over 40 million Americans aged 16
and older have significant literacy needs. A 2002 government-commissioned study of
literacy called Adult Literacy in America showed that as many as 23% of adult
Americans were not able to locate information in text, could not make low-level
inferences using printed materials, and were unable to integrate easily identifiable pieces
of information.
Consequently, the question of who exactly is buying, reading, and inferring truths
or gleaning entertainment from Latino narratives - or any narratives at all - cannot
proceed without first acknowledging the harsh reality of declining literacy in the United
States. The book industry is certainly declining as well, a downturn which cannot help
162
but reflect the dropping literacy rate in this country. Hence, whether or not published,
widely read, and Latino-authored narratives are responsibly representing reality to
readers, the fact remains that fewer and fewer people will actually encounter these texts,
or any texts. This truth is humbling, one that cannot be ignored in discussions about
literature's ability, or inability, to articulate social truths.
163
CHAPTER VII
THE EFFECTS OF BILINGUAL LITERATURE ON
(MOSTLY) MONOLINGUAL READERS
"What critics have failed to grasp is that intelligible and meaningful are not completely
over-lapping, synonymous terms. Indeed, the meaningfulness of multicultural works is in
large measure a function of their unintelligibility for part of their audience. Multicultural
literature offers us above all an experience of multiculturalism, in which not everything is
likely to be wholly understood by every reader."
-Reed Way Dasenbrock
Theory Meets Evidence: The Triangulation of Literary Studies with Linguistic
Research
A central aim of this project has been to examine the manner in which readers
receive U.S. Latino narratives that engage in varying degrees of textual code switching
and bicultural belonging. Several hypotheses have come to light through these
discussions, including a proposal that these narratives, as part of a larger body of minor
literatures, playa role in revolutionizing traditional Anglo-American discourses of
knowledge by marginalizing the monolingual and monocultural reader historically
positioned, as Frances Aparicio has argued, as the prototype of cultural literacy in the
United States ("Sub-Versive" 800). According to the hypothesis, this marginalization is
achieved by a textual appropriation and structural weakening of the dominant language
and culture via the creation of a narrative space that privileges code switching to
164
articulate bicultural identities. U.S. Latino texts that alternate between English and
Spanish mirror the misunderstandings and failures of intelligibility in the multicultural
situations they depict, thereby requiring the monolingual and monocultural reader to
experience this unintelligibility first-hand (Dasenbrock 12).
However, the suggestions thus far about these texts and what they do rest largely
upon conjecture. We imagine code switching texts to have a certain effect on
monolingual readers, but we do not know precisely what that effect is. Educated guesses
abound about how narratives are read and received, but until the hypotheses are tested
and the results analyzed, they remain just that: speculation. Only when the effects of
these narratives are measured may we determine to what degree the predicted outcomes
are probable. Therefore, beyond simply naming these literatures as revolutionary in the
above-mentioned ways, the following analysis aims to document and empirically analyze
reader responses collected from online reader reviews of one of the narratives in question.
This process is described in-depth in the successive sections of the current chapter.
As discussed in the Introduction of this dissertation, in order to tackle the question
of how readers receive texts and what actually transpires between the narratives and their
interpreters, this project as a whole has attempted a joining of two academic fields
normally operating independently from one another in the academy: literary studies and
linguistic research. Consequently, both literary studies and linguistics often approach the
central questions of this project from different perspectives. Specifically, the humanist
approach emphasizes the theoretical, while the social sciences approach emphasizes the
empirical. In bringing together these stances, this analysis has attempted to forge a
165
complementary relationship between the two approaches, therein hopefully amplifying
the possibility of both accurately and creatively examining readers' reception of the texts
in question.
Many ofthe previous arguments of this project have addressed the question of
Latino narratives and how they are received by readers from a humanist perspective.
Namely, responses and effects are imagined and speculated, based on close analysis of
relevant contexts such as history, identity and language. The humanist approach to this
question emphasizes the analytic, critical and theoretical element by imagining that these
texts help to revolutionize the hegemonic relationship between the dominant and
subordinate languages and cultures of the United States. However, to add depth to this
theory, the addition of a social sciences approach emphasizing empirical data analysis
makes the argument about these texts more robust by examining and analyzing actual
responses from real readers of the narratives in question. Therefore, in order to best
approach the central questions of this project, the social scientist's conscientious concern
with empiricism is conjoined with the humanist's analytic and critical hypothesis
formation, thereby triangulating these perspectives in order to present a richer picture of
what effect these texts have on readers. By combining the forces of experience and
evidence with those of innate and self-reflective ideas, this chapter examines the degree
to which code switching Latino-authored texts influence language and culture
relationships in the United States.
-----------------_.__ _.- ._ __ .
166
Language Ego Permeability and Reader Reception
Within the past several decades, the field of applied linguistics has begun to
examine the notion of ego permeability and its influence on second language learning.
According to the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, ego permeability refers
to the ease with which new experiences, cultural features or perceptions of other people
may pass the defenses of one's personality. The term was borrowed from clinical
psychology and used by language researchers to explain learners' openness or lack
thereof to a foreign language or culture ("Ego"). The language ego permeability
hypothesis argues that some people have difficulty learning foreign languages because
they are reluctant to give up control over self-presentation. This hypothesis about
people's potential resistance to new languages and cultures informs the central question
of this project. A monolingual English-speaking reader's language ego permeability may
very well influence that person's reception or rejection of a text which alternates between
English and Spanish, because it simultaneously articulates a bicultural reality foreign to
the reader.
Amy Bruckman and James Hudson argue that giving up control is necessary to
learning a new language (1); likewise, the ability to surrender linguistic control is
necessary to receive a textual narrative that features language excerpts with which the
reader is unfamiliar. Madeline Ehrman of the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S.
Department of State notes that almost all of the most successful second language learners
167
show substantial flexibility and willingness to shift cognitive see7 because they possess
what she terms "thin ego boundaries" (330-331). These learners are described by
Alexander Guiora as having the ability to successfully function in new language
situations based on their capacity to tolerate ambiguities and uncertainties, which he
names as a sign of the psychological strength essential to an understanding of the "other."
Furthermore, he notes, "[t]he capacity to entertain an alternate hypothesis about any
proposition is the mark of the successful blend of cognitive and affective templates that
can lead to new discoveries" (171).
According to the ego permeability construct formulated by Betty Lou Leaver,
Madeline Ehrman, and Boris Shekhtman, thin ego boundaries are associated with a
relatively permeable ego, a tolerance of ambiguity, flexible categories, and subconscious
learning. Thin-boundary people accept the fact that in immersion or communicative
second-language learning situations, there will be many words and a lot of grammar they
do not understand, particularly when they are at the lower levels of proficiency. These
types of learners also accept that a word will have multiple meanings in a foreign
language, some of which do not equate to the same range of meanings of the most
obvious translation in their first language. Thin boundary types are relatively likely to "go
with the flow" and to try to figure out what they can as they proceed. Often, they learn
implicitly, meaning they learn new second language features but cannot identify how the
learning occurred. Moreover, as Leaver, Ehrman and Shekhtman argue, the flexibility of
37 In psychiatric research, shifting cognitive sets refers to re-directing one's focus away
from one fixation and toward another. Within the context of Ehrman's argument, a shift
in cognitive set suggests an ability to refocus attention in a new direction.
168
thin ego boundaries promotes empathy, which also helps with accepting and absorbing
another language and culture (124).
In contrast, thick ego boundaries relate to a desire for clear categories,
compartmentalization of information and lifestyle, and a relative intolerance of
ambiguity. Thick-boundary people may be irritated and confused when they cannot figure
out clear rules for the grammar they encounter or clear meanings for the words they hear
in the second-language environment. They sometimes try to translate words literally from
their native language into the foreign language as a result of an assumed one-to-one
correspondence between terms in both languages. The rationale behind this reflex is
understandable: these learners want everything to have a clear, predictable place in their
mental organization. Leaver, Ehrman and Shekhtman note that empathy may not be as
well developed in thick boundary people, who may have difficulty putting themselves in
the place of a person from the culture they are studying. Furthermore, they argue, learners
with thick boundaries could learn to communicate more effectively in the second
language if they lessen their need for control (125).
In their discussions of language ego permeability, the above-mentioned scholars
all reference what is in general terms described as a tolerance of ambiguity, or an
acceptance of confusing situations and lack of clear lines of demarcation. Ehrman notes
that students who can tolerate moderate levels of ambiguity have been more likely to
persist in language learning as well as to achieve more than students who cannot (335).
Tolerance of ambiguity as a personality characteristic, she notes, relates to the frequency
of use of many kinds oflearning strategies as well as to an individual's willingness to
169
take risks. Students who avoid risk taking for fear of criticism from others or from
themselves experience limited progress in their language learning (335).
Another important factor in an individual's reception of new language and
cultural input, according to Ehrman, is the ability to manage novelty. Managing novelty
involves the ability to keep both the original schema and an alternative hypothesis in
mind when confronted with foreign linguistic or cultural stimuli. Every second language
learner, notes Ehrman, is faced regularly with this kind of challenge. Consequently,
anxiety plays a significant role in the language learning experience, so much so that
experts have coined the term language anxiety to refer to a form of anxiety manifested in
the second language-learning context. Because language learning is such a complex and
emotionally involved process, writes Ehrman, all anxiety in the language-learning
environment is likely to have debilitating effects on a student's progress (335). The case
of readers encountering texts that require them to engage with foreign language, such as
the Latino narratives under examination throughout this project, is strikingly similar to
the second-language situations discussed above. Language anxiety could have a
potentially crippling effect on readers' willingness to continue with the text. This
possibility invites a close examination of readers' language ego permeability as a
potential variable in the degree to which they receive bilingual narratives.
An Empirical Examination of Reader Receptivity of Spanish in Junot Diaz's The
Brief Wondrous Life ofOscar Wao
This section contains a brief analysis of reader receptivity of Spanish language
entries in Junot Diaz's 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative The Brie/Wondrous Life 0/
170
Oscar Wao. Oscar, an overweight, romantic, ghetto geek born in the Dominican Republic
and raised in New Jersey, writes fantasy fiction in hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R.
Tolkien. As discussed in depth in chapter V, the narrative is written predominantly in
English yet features numerous lengthy passages of untranslated, unexplained Dominican
Spanish, which the reader must grow accustomed to encountering through the course of
the 352-page text. In essence, Diaz authored a novel accessible to the English
monolingual but which contains passages that only the Spanish speaker will fully
understand. Hence, the narrative challenges the English monolingual to continue reading
in spite of multiple comprehension failures, much like the second language learner
attempting to construct comprehension in a foreign language.
Furthermore, readers of all linguistic backgrounds who wish to gain full access to
the text must first familiarize themselves with the many science fiction and fantasy
references, Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying games, as well as with J.R.R. Tolkien's
oft-cited epic high fantasy novel Lord ofthe Rings. Diaz makes no concessions of any
sort for his readers, very few of whom will escape the necessity to research arduously in
order to completely comprehend the events that unfold. Often within a single sentence,
the author switches not only from English to Spanish, but also from a reserved formality
to an educated urban vernacular, or from a Homeric epithet to a coarse bilingual insult. In
essence, Diaz assumes in his reader the same considerable degree of multicultural,
bilingual facility he himself possesses, and offers no gloss on his many un-italicized
Spanish words and expressions, or in his plethora of genre and canonical literary
allusions.
171
In an attempt to measure how the unapologetically bilingual narrative style of this
novel affects readers of varying linguistic backgrounds, a short study was conducted in
which reader responses to the text were analyzed and categorized in terms of degree of
receptivity to Spanish insertions in the narrative. What follows is a data analysis
conducted and examined within this chapter according to the established structure of
ethnographic research, including an introduction, methods section, results, and
discussion.
Introduction to Study. As noted above, this study was conducted in order to
analyze reader responses to the Spanish language entries in The Brief Wondrous Life of
Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. The source of data in this analysis consists of 100 written
responses from the web-based social networking book review site called Goodreads. The
network currently has over 2,400,000 members who recommend and rate books, compare
what they are reading, keep track of what they have already read or would like to read,
form book clubs, and discuss texts in online forums ("about goodreads"). In September of
2009, the total number of written responses to The BriefWondrous Life ofOscar Wao
submitted to Goodreads was 34,433 ("Brief'). In order to collect a representative
sampling of all responses that mention textual Spanish use as well as the reader's
proficiency in Spanish, the first 100 reader reviews which specifically referenced textual
Spanish usage and reader proficiency were collected from the site's default listing. The
default sorting algorithm on Goodreads uses a variety of factors to determine what they
deem the most interesting reviews for other users. The factors include length of the
172
review, number of people who responded to it, recency of the review, and overall
popularity of the reviewer ("Brief').
The writers of the samples collected were not responding to specific questions
about the narrative in question, but rather were offering their opinion in an open-ended
discussion forum. Although information was sought regarding reactions to Spanish
language entries in the text, this was not a predetermined topic of any feedback delivered
by members. Therefore, not every response referenced the Spanish language entries in the
narrative; hence, those that did not were not included in the study. In addition to
receptivity of Spanish, a secondary characteristic the analysis attempted to measure was a
rough estimate of the reader's Spanish language ability.
In completing the study, two research hypotheses were tested: 1) that the majority
of readers would fall somewhere in the range between primary positive (meaning fully
accepting) and primary negative (meaning fully rejecting) receptivity, and 2) that there
would be a positive correlation between lack of Spanish proficiency and negative
receptivity of Spanish in the text. The first research hypothesis was formulated based
upon the knowledge that in spite of the fact that Spanish is the second-most widely
spoken language in the U.S., and that consequently many monolingual English speakers
are potentially familiar enough with the language to feel somewhat comfortable engaging
with a small degree textual Spanish, English solidly remains the prestige language in this
country. Consequently, any non-English language is perceived as potentially threatening
to the standard. Therefore, the first research hypothesis suggested that readers' reception
of Spanish entries in an otherwise English text would fall somewhere between fully
173
accepting and fully rejecting the text. The second research hypothesis was based upon a
presumption that readers generally tend to feel more receptive to texts utilizing language
they fully understand, and that therefore those less familiar with Spanish would
understand less and consequently be less receptive to the Spanish entries in the text due
to its linguistic inaccessibility to them.
Materials and Methods Used in Study. As mentioned above, this study was
conducted according to the principles of ethnographic research. Ethnography is a
qualitative research method often used in the social sciences for gathering empirical data
on human societies and cultures. Data collection is typically carried out through
participant observation, interviews, or questionnaires. At its core, ethnography aims to
describe the nature of those who are studied through writing. In this study, the source
utilized to collect all the data was the online reader response forum on Goodreads. The
responses, all written voluntarily by Goodreads members and available only to other
members, were collected in September of 2009 but were originally submitted to the site
between September of2007 and August of2009. Members of Goodreads are not required
to submit written critiques of narratives but may do so if they wish. Therefore, the
responses collected were not elicited but rather offered by members who wished to make
their opinions known to the Goodreads community of readers.
Responses that specifically cited reactions to and discussions of the Spanish
language inserted into the text were collected according to the default listing as noted
earlier, based on a sorting algorithm adding randomness to the sample and thus
objectivity to the study. Additionally, responses that in some way referenced the reader's
174
Spanish language proficiency were elected over ones that did not - an easy step to take
since almost every sample focusing on textual Spanish also referenced the reader's
proficiency level. Feedback was collected in an Excel spreadsheet and subsequently
categorized according to the reader's receptivity of Spanish. Receptivity was classified
according to a range, including primary positive receptivity, secondary positive
receptivity, secondary negative receptivity, and primary negative receptivity. In general,
specific types of reviews fell into different categories of receptivity.
Those classified as primary positive receptivity readers included reviewers who,
regardless of Spanish language proficiency, expressed enjoyment of the Spanish language
insertions. In many cases, they also noted that the appearance of Spanish was an
important and worthwhile choice on the part of the author. For example, one such
reviewer proposed: "I think [Diaz's] ability or necessity to alternate between languages,
voices, registers (moving sometimes from the lyrical to the vulgar within a sentence), to
sound both street-smart and highly literate, to coexist in these multiple spheres that really
make up American society, is the whole point" (Kemp). Occasionally these reviewers
expressed the opinion that all readers should exalt in, or readily accept in spite of the
challenge, the Spanish language entries in the otherwise English text. As one reviewer
noted, " ... translating the Spanish would defeat the purpose. It only adds to the wild
amalgamation that makes the book so enjoyable for me" (Christian). A general opinion
among primary positive receptivity readers was that readers ought not to mind not
understanding every word, and that people should have to work in order to enjoy great
literature. One reader noted, "Like all great works of literature, you're going to have to
175
work to 'get' it. Most people don't 'get' Joyce's ULYSSES" (Christopher).
The secondary positive receptivity and secondary negative receptivity readers
were grouped according to a broader range of responses. In general, the secondary
positive reviews were written by readers who, regardless of Spanish language
proficiency, themselves liked encountering the Spanish in the text, but wondered if other
non-Spanish speakers would tolerate it - or predicted that they would not. For example,
one reader wrote: "I'm just not sure about recommending it to friends who don't know
Spanish. It might be frustrating to read it and not understand everything. That's why I
only give it 4 stars. But if I knew the review was only going to be read by English-
Spanish bilingual people, I'd probably give it five" (Donovan). Reviews that fell under
this category tended to be written by readers with good Spanish proficiency - most
bilinguals - who expressed enjoyment at finding Spanish in the text but suspected non-
Spanish speakers would be utterly lost or would reject the text. The secondary negative
reviews, on the other hand, tended to be written by readers who had little or no Spanish
proficiency, who didn't mind that there was some Spanish in the text but felt they would
have enjoyed the narrative more without Spanish or with a glossary. As one such
reviewer noted: "It's a struggle to read, especially considering I don't speak Spanish.... A
lot of the language used in the novel is a mix of English and Spanish slang that's never
translated - I need to figure it out based on context (which, I admit, isn't as difficult as I
thought it would be)" (buppyspek).
The primary negative receptivity responses were categorized as such if they
demonstrated open hostility toward the authorial choice to utilize a language they could
176
not understand in the text. Typically the writers of these reviews also noted that they had
little or no Spanish language proficiency. For example, one such reviewer noted: "Every
other sentence is Spanish or Spanglish. I have never taken Spanish in my life, and... it
was really frustrating and lots of the content was lost on me" (Walker).38 In general,
responses that fell into this category expressed such a high degree of intolerance of
Spanish that the reviewers often included comments relating to their sense of disbelief
about the accolades received by the narrative. Frequently, these reviews express a general
sense of offense by the choice to include Spanish at all; many also present the opinion
that others should avoid buying or reading the text, and that Dfaz was lazy and unkind for
leaving them in the dark linguistically when clearly he could easily have provided some
gloss for the Spanish ifhe had so chosen. One reader commented: " ... as I do not speak
spanish [sic] I found it frustrating that the author waxes on about history at will, but
doesn't bother to translate pasasges [sic] which seem to have been integral to the plot"
(Caroline).
A secondary characteristic that was categorized and later analyzed about the
responses was the Spanish language proficiency of the reviewer. Because reviews were
not written for the purpose of explicitly describing the readers' Spanish abilities, not all
responses included enough information to be able to approximate the level of proficiency.
However, in general most responses which referenced the appearance of Spanish in the
text also happened to include clues about the reader's own Spanish ability, since the two
38 This claim is of course not true, as most of the text is in fact in English. This reader's
statement underscores the racialization of Spanish, in that his misperception of Spanish a~
abundantly-present in the text reveals how this reader is threatened and frustrated by the
presence of people whom Spanish represents to him.
177
factors often (but not always) correlated. The categories for Spanish language ability
were broadly drawn: reviewers were rated in two categories: as having either little or no
Spanish language ability (based on specific comments to that affect), or as having some
or more knowledge of Spanish (again based on specific comments indicating this to be
true).
In rating the responses, particular care was taken not to confuse receptivity of
Spanish language entries with overall rating of the novel. While in many cases, the two
factors correlated, they did not always do so and thus every precaution was taken to keep
separate the readers' overall opinion from their opinion specifically about language use.
Results and Interpretations of Study. To analyze the data, responses were
initially sorted according to level of reader receptivity. The results revealed that 42% of
the responses analyzed presented primary positive receptivity, followed by 32% at
secondary positive receptivity, 15% at primary negative receptivity, and 11 % at
secondary negative receptivity (see Table 3). This indicated that, among the four
categories, the greatest number of reviews in the study showed a primary positive
reception of the Spanish language entries in Diaz's narrative, while less than half of that
number showed a primary negative receptivity of the Spanish. These results would seem
to suggest that, while a sizeable and quite vocal percentage of readers appear to resist the
appearance of Spanish in an otherwise English narrative, the majority not only had no
problem with the Spanish but also exalted in its appearance and effect. Meanwhile, the
two secondary ranges ofreceptivity, when combined, were roughly equal to the number
of reviews falling under the primary positive receptivity category. This finding indicates
r------
178
that a percentage of readers equal to those who enjoyed the Spanish fall somewhere
between fully accepting and fully rejecting the bilingual elements in this text. Put simply,
most people either love or mostly like Diaz's use of Spanish, while a few are openly
opposed to it.
Table 3
Receptivity
Primary Secondary Secondary Primary
positive positive negative negative
receptivity receptivity receptivity receptivity
Number of 42 32 11 15
responses
or 42% or 32% or 11% or 15%
(100 total)
As mentioned earlier, a secondary characteristic examined in this study was the
Spanish language background of the reviewers. Based on specific comments about
language ability found in their written responses, readers were categorized as either
having little or no Spanish proficiency, or as having partial to full comprehension of
Spanish. In some cases, the Spanish language ability could not be determined from the
review. The results were then correlated with receptivity as shown in Table 4. The results
revealed a clear, if unsurprising, correlation between Spanish proficiency and receptivity.
As shown in the table, the percentage of respondents in each category of receptivity who
had little or no Spanish proficiency climbed as their response become more negative.
This makes intrinsic sense, since readers want to understand what they are reading and
179
hence a reader who does not comprehend any Spanish would logically seem more likely
to reject it in the text, while a reader who has some Spanish language background would
presumably be more accepting of it. However, the secondary positive receptivity category
provided an interesting variation. As the table reveals, respondents categorized at this
level of receptivity actually demonstrated a higher Spanish proficiency than those
categorized as primary positive receptivity. This occurred because a number of reviews in
this category were written by people highly proficient in Spanish who expressed doubts
as to whether non-Spanish-speaking readers would tolerate the bilingualism in the text.
Many of these readers were themselves self-described bilinguals, who interestingly
proved less accepting of the Spanish code switching than those with lower Spanish
proficiency.
Table 4
Spanish Language Proficiency and Receptivity
Primary Secondary Secondary Primary
positive positive negative negative
receptivity receptivity receptivity receptivity
(42 total) (32 total) (11 total) (15 total)
Little/no 25 14 9 14
Spanish
or 60% or 44% or 82% or 100%
Some 8 16 1 0
Spanish
or 19% or 50% or 9% or 0%
Spanish level 9 2 1 0
unknown
or21% or 6% or 9% or 0%
180
Discussion and Conclusion of Study. This brief study aimed to examine both the
overall reader receptivity of Spanish language entries in Diaz's novel, as well as the link
between receptivity and Spanish language proficiency. As noted in the introduction, prior
to completing the study, I expected to find that the majority of readers fell somewhere in
the range between secondary positive and secondary negative receptivity, and that there
would be a correlation between lack of Spanish proficiency and negative receptivity of
Spanish in the text. Contrary to the first predicted result, it turned out that of the four
categories of receptivity, primary positive receptivity contained the greatest number of
reviews. However, the combined total of the two secondary categories (secondary
positive, secondary negative) equaled the total of the primary positive category,
indicating an equal split between the lukewarm reactions and the strongly positive
reactions to the Spanish in Diaz' s text. Hence, the first expectation was proven false.
The second expectation, however, was proven partially true. Since the results
indicated that receptivity depended on proficiency, receptivity served as the dependent
variable while Spanish proficiency was the independent variable. In general, the
hypothesis was proven accurate given that overall receptivity decreased as Spanish
language proficiency decreased. For example, almost 100% of the primary negative
receptivity reviews were written by readers with little or no Spanish background, while
only 60% of the primary positive receptivity reviews were written by readers with little or
no Spanish background. However, as noted above, some respondents falling into the
secondary positive receptivity category constituted an exception to the hypothesis. Many
181
of the reviews classified in this category were authored by either bilingual or highly
proficient Spanish-speaking readers who expressed a simultaneous enjoyment of the
narrative and a prediction that non-Spanish speakers would not tolerate it. Consequently,
although readers of this category tended to have a higher Spanish proficiency, they in fact
demonstrated lower receptivity than those in the primary positive category.
Whether or to what degree readers accepted or rejected the Spanish language
entries in the narrative, in general many of the reviews examined in this study expressed
strong affective reactions related to the issue of untranslated Spanish in an otherwise
English text. Reviewers tended not to discuss the issue of language in the novel passively,
but instead chose to infuse their responses with highly emotional reactions. If they loved
the Spanish, they truly loved it; conversely, if they did not, they expressed this dislike in
a charged manner.
For example, one reviewer from the primary negative receptivity category with
little Spanish background who identified herself as "Beth" wrote:
This book was a Pulitzer Prize winner??? Really??? It's awfull! [sic] First of all,
the language is incredibly crude and vulgar and does so in multiple languages.
Luckily I don't know much spanish [sic] and missed a good portion of it, at the
same time I felt I was missing the meaning of whole passages because I didn't
understand the language. (Beth)
Here, Beth asserts her response to the text with multiple exclamation points and negative
value judgments, explicitly linked to the Spanish language usage which she fails to
comprehend. She at once expresses ironic relief that she is unable to understand, but
.---~-- ---------------
182
simultaneously rejects the text for alienating her by utilizing some language she cannot
access. Many of the primary negative receptivity respondents wrote similar reviews.
Another reader, "Rebecca," wrote:
I felt like the narrator was some "clever" professor who is quite enthralled with
his own knowledge of Dominican history and Spanish. I could imagine him
sitting in a bar relating this "fuku" story and assuming that the listener already
knew everything about his culture and language. If you have a great story, please
tell it more concisely, and with less sarcasm, in order to properly educate the
stupid people out there, such as myself. I wish I was smart enough to love this
book so I could be part of the cool Pulitzer and National Critics club, but hey,
editor, please help! (Rebecca)
Here, Rebecca sarcastically refers to herself as "stupid" for not understanding the
Spanish, yet in so doing she makes it clear that this adjective is not her own self-
description but rather how she believes she would be described by the narrator for failing
to comprehend the text. In essence, like Beth, Rebecca feels alienated by the Spanish and
responds by rejecting it.
However, other readers with similarly little Spanish background appeared less
negatively affected by the Spanish, in spite of the fact that they could not understand. For
example, a reviewer who identified herself as "Marge Boyle" wrote: "I didn't get a lot of
the allusions, not having ever been a sci-fi fan, nor did I get much of the Spanish, but I
still "got" the book, deeply" (Boyle). Boyle suggests that comprehending every word is
peripheral to truly understanding the novel, its message, or its import. Therefore, she does
183
not feel inhibited from enjoying the text. Similarly, a reviewer named "Harley" who had
no Spanish background, wrote:
I enjoyed having things I only half understood sort of wash over me -- the
Spanish, the cultural references, the references to Oscar's obsession with Genre.
The book intimated these other worlds that I may only have time in my life to
brush up against, but that are fascinating. And I'm reminded that I could go there
if! choose. (Harley)
Both Harley's and Boyle's reviews were categorized as primary positive receptivity, and
each expressed an ability to override, or even to embrace, instances of failures of
intelligibility due to the Spanish language entries in the text.
In concluding this study, I noted that although the research hypothesis about the
secondary receptivity categories containing the majority of reviews was proven false
since primary positive receptivity had the largest percentage, a sizeable portion (43%) did
end up falling into these combined secondary categories. This result suggests that a large
section ofthe reviewers in the study presented ambivalent attitudes toward Spanish,
meaning they exhibited both positive and negative elements in their receptivity. This may
be a reflection of the place the Spanish language occupies in the mainstream
consciousness of the country; Spanish is regarded as "exotic" and "other" but at the same
time, it is the most widely spoken language other than English in the U.S. Even if a
person has never studied Spanish, he or she is likely to have heard it many times and to
even know some terms or phrases. Hence, within this context of a steady increase of
Spanish speakers in the United States, it makes sense that the language could have
184
naturally started to penetrate people's awareness whether they like it or not. Some, as
exemplified by the primary positive receptivity respondents, completely embrace its
appearance, while an equal number neither celebrate nor shun the language. The situation
is evocative ofthe push-pull tensions surrounding Latino identity in the United States
today as discussed in chapter II. As noted in that chapter, the identity of Latinos has been
shaped by a racial, cultural, and linguistic "in-betweenness" encapsulated in labels meant
to describe ethnicity but which implicitly - if indirectly - denote an inferior social reality
as part of the sociopolitical order of Anglo-oriented supremacy.
Immigrant for a Day
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, an object ofthe research behind this
entire project has been to examine how and why readers read and respond to U.S. Latino
code switching narratives, and what happens to them as a result. Predictably, readers
receive texts differently depending on their own language backgrounds, though not
always in expected ways. One truth that has come to light as a result of these analyses is
that a typical response for monolingual English-speaking readers is a sense of
marginalization - an experience that some embrace and some reject. Monolingual
English-speakers in the United States are not typically accustomed to the experience of
partial linguistic comprehension because they live in a culture that privileges the English
speaking monolingual at every level of society. However, communicative failures of this
sort are far from absent from the United States; indeed, they are a daily reality for many
immigrants who come to America speaking little or no English. Yet the experience of
partial comprehension is completely unknown to many monolinguals, who therefore can
185
choose to enjoy the privilege of assuming a posture of protest against the language
barriers they face in encountering un-translated, unexplained switches into Spanish in
texts like The BriefWondrous Life ofOscar Wao.
For example, in reviewing Diaz's narrative, one reader who identified himself as
"Cameron" in the study wrote:
.. .important information - be it dialogue or exposition - is often relayed in
Spanish. Now, I took two semesters of the language in college, and yet I
had no idea what characters were saying in many parts, because context
didn't lend hints. If Diaz is aiming this book towards a bilingual audience,
then so be it. But how difficult would it have been to translate the Spanish
in footnotes? [... ] Throw a gringo a bone. (Cameron)
Through comments about his lack of Spanish language proficiency, as well as his choice
to utilize the self-identifier "gringo," Cameron definitively presents himself as a
monolingual English-speaking, Anglo-American reader. At first pass, his commentary
seems reasonable enough: How hard would it have been, after all, for Diaz to include
gloss to help his non-Spanish-speaking reader to understand the code-switched passages?
Clearly, Diaz himself is a skilled bilingual, more than capable, as Cameron requests, of
"throwing a gringo a bone." Cameron's surprise at not having been guided by the author
toward a complete understanding of the Spanish language entries demonstrates a
presumption of English as nonnative.
As a monolingual English-speaker, Cameron protests the language barrier he
faces in encountering Diaz's switches into Spanish. The experience of unintelligibility,
186
however, may have been precisely the effect Diaz was hoping his narrative would have
on monolingual readers. In a 2008 interview about The Brief Wondrous Life ofOscar
Wao on National Public Radio, Diaz noted:
Part of the thing that really interested me about the reading experience is that a lot
oftimes, we forget that a large portion of what we're reading, we don't
understand. And most of the time we just skip over it, because it's sort of implicit
- we don't understand a word, we'll just skip over it and keep going. But you
know, that's like a basic part of communication - you know, unintelligibility.
And so if you're an immigrant, you're so used to not being able to understand
large chunks of any conversation, large chunks of the linguistic cultural codes.
And part of what I was trying to get at when I was writing this book is that, you
know, I wanted everybody at one moment to feel kind of like an immigrant in this
book. There would be one language chain that you might not "get." And that it
was okay. It might provoke in you a reaction to want to know - and that's good,
because it'll make you go look, and read other books and start conversations - but
that life, and the experience that most of us have in the world, is that we tend to
live in a world where a good portion of what we hear, see, and experience is
unintelligible to us. And that to me feels more real than if everything was
transparent to every reader. (Diaz "Junot")
In essence, Diaz, through his use of un-translated Spanish in the otherwise English text,
treats his monolingual English-speaking reader to the experience of unintelligibility so
common to immigrants in the United States. Due to the success of his novel, many, many
187
monolingual readers have had the opportunity to experience just that through the
narrative. For in spite of the objections of people like Cameron, The BriefWondrous Life
ofOscar Wao was published in 2007 to critical acclaim that eventually earned Diaz the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Clearly, Diaz's
language choices are not affecting his success as a writer in the United States or his
acceptance in the Anglo-American community of readers. Ultimately, this author's
decision to leave the Spanish code-switched passages un-translated forces a limited
reading for monolinguals like Cameron. As Frances Aparicio suggests, the resulting text
achieves a metaphorical displacement of the ideal monolingual American reader by using
language that requires cross-cultural and bilingual competency for full comprehension
("Sub-Versive" 800). Readers with no Spanish background will have to settle for
unintelligibility, which, according to the author, is the whole point. The monolingual
reader of his narrative is displaced into a new, marginal space in relation to the text.
And what about bilingual readers? As noted at the beginning of the chapter, when
examined within the minor literary framework discussed in depth in chapter V, narratives
such as Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life ofOscar Wao have a hand in
revolutionizing traditional Anglo-American discourses of knowledge by marginalizing
the monolingual and monocultural reader historically accepted as the prototype of
literacy in the U.S. (Aparicio "Sub-Versive" 800). According to the construct, this
marginalization is brought about by a textual appropriation and structural weakening of
the dominant language and culture via the creation of a narrative space that privileges
code switching to articulate bicultural identities.
188
Bilingual readers, then, are in theory privileged in a text like Diaz's novel.
However, the study examining reader receptivity of Spanish in Diaz's narrative yielded
an unexpected finding related to bilingual readers. While on the level of intelligibility,
bilinguals might be privileged by texts engaging in code switching, bilinguals themselves
do not necessarily embrace these texts in a predicted manner. As described in the
discussion section of the study above, on the whole, bilingual readers - or readers with a
high proficiency in Spanish - were less receptive to Diaz's narrative than those with little
or no Spanish background. Many of the bilingual readers enjoyed the Spanish but felt
quite sure that others who did not speak Spanish would not. As one such reviewer wrote,
"I only give it 4 stars (instead of 5) because I can't imagine what it would have been like
reading it, if I hadn't known Spanish" (Rachel). Another noted, "I appreciated the flow
from English to Spanish, but acknowledge that it's an easier read if you speak and/or read
Spanish" (Antonia). Hence, the proposal that U.S. Latino writers like Diaz are creating a
narrative space that specifically privileges bilingual readers may be correct on a linguistic
level; however, at least within the scope of the empirical study described above, overall
these readers presented a degree of caution in their receptivity of a narrative they knew
all too well could be met with hostility by many non-Spanish readers. This caution could
also be attributable to the outcome of the study conducted by Luna and Perrachio,
discussed in chapter III, in which bilinguals exhibited anxiety about their group's
perception by monolinguals (Luna and Perrachio 44).
189
Pedagogical Implications: Code Switching Narratives as a Path to Transformative
Learning
Given the findings of the reader receptivity study outlined in this chapter, one
might easily hypothesize a link between receptivity and the language ego permeability
issues discussed earlier. Perhaps those readers with thick ego boundaries - who are
predicted to be less flexible and more uncomfortable with linguistic unintelligibility -
constitute the reviewers who responded with negative receptivity to the Spanish in Diaz's
text. Likewise, readers with thin ego boundaries - predicted to be characterized by a more
flexible nature as well as by a comfort in situations of partial linguistic comprehension -
may very well be the authors of the more receptive reviews of the text.
However, regardless of the state of readers' egos when they encounter code
switching narratives like The BriefWondrous Life ofOscar Wao, a positive reception of
the text appears to be secondary. Writers like Diaz do not seem to have set out to make
readers comfortable with their books. What matters, according to the comment cited
earlier by Diaz, is the experience of unintelligibility for readers - an experience resisted
by some, embraced by others. Furthermore, this experience could arguably be more
valuable to those who most highly resist it, since they constitute the people least likely to
identify with linguistic experiences other than their own, and consequently are those most
in need of a broadened perspective earned through first-hand experience.
An adult learning hypothesis developed by Jack Mezirow called the
Transformative Learning Theory provides a useful framework through which to examine
the affects and pedagogical implications of code switching texts like many of the U.S.
190
Latino narratives analyzed throughout this project. Transformative Learning Theory,
while not specifically about language, is an adult education-based construct that suggests
ways in which adults make meaning of their lives. It looks at so-called "deep learning,"
not just content or process learning, and examines what it takes for adults to move from a
limited knowledge of knowing what they know without questioning. Transformative
Learning Theory looks at what mechanisms are required for adults to identify, assess and
evaluate alternative sources of information, and in some cases, reframe their world-view
through the incorporation of new knowledge or information into their existing world-
view or belief system ("Core").
At the core of Transformative Learning Theory is the process of "Perspective
Transformation." Mezirow identifies three dimensions to a perspective transformation:
psychological, meaning changes in understanding of the self; convictional, meaning
revision of belief systems; and behavioral, meaning changes in lifestyle. An important
part of transformative learning is for individuals to change their frames of reference by
critically reflecting on their assumptions and beliefs and consciously making and
implementing plans that bring about new ways of defining their worlds. This process is
fundamentally rational and analytical.
When examined through the Transformative Learning Theory lens, U.S. Latino-
authored texts which engage in passages of Spanish that challenge readers' willingness to
accept unintelligibility can serve as a springboard for monolingual English readers to
undergo a change of reference by critically reflecting on their assumptions about
language - namely, that every word should be transparent to every reader. Code
switching texts provide such readers with a chance to examine their beliefs about
language in so far as they challenge readers to interact with language in a new way by
requiring them to experience unintelligibility. Consequently, these texts also provide
readers with the opportunity to re-examine, and potentially change, their world-view.
191
192
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"about goodreads." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., n.d. Web. 24 Sep. 2009.
Acosta-Belen, Edna and Judith Ortiz Cofer. "A MELUS Interview: Judith Ortiz Cofer."
MELUS 18.3 (1993): 83-97. Print.
Alcoff, Linda Martin and Satya Mohanty. "Reconsidering Identity Politics: An
Introduction." Alcoff, Linda Martin, et ai, eds. Identity Politics Reconsidered.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print.
Alvarez, Julia. "Citizen of the World: An Interview with Julia Alvarez." Latina Self
Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers. Bridget Kevane and
Juanita Heredia, eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. 19-
32. Print.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism. 2nd ed. New York: Verso, 1991. Print.
Antonia. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 14 Oct. 2008. Web. 23 Sept.
2009.
Anzaldua, Gloria. BorderlandslLafrontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute
Books, 2007. Print.
Aparicio, Frances. "U.S. Latino Expressive Cultures." The Columbia History ofLatinos
in the United States Since 1960. Ed. David Gutierrez. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2004. 355-390. Print.
Aparicio, Frances. Interview with Juan Zevallos Aguilar. Trans. Dascha Inciarte and
Carolyn Sedway. "Latino Cultural Studies." Critical Latin American and Latino
Studies. Ed. Juan Poblete. Cultural Studies of the Americas Ser. 12. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2003.3-31. Print.
Aparicio, Frances. "La Vida es un Spanglish Disparatero." European Perspectives on
Hispanic Literature ofthe United States. Ed. Genvieve Fabre. Houston: Arte
Publico, 1988.147-160. Print.
Aparicio, Frances. "On Sub-Versive Signifiers: U.S. Latinalo Writers Tropicalize
English." American Literature 6 (1994): 795-801. Print.
193
Aparicio, Frances. "Whose Spanish, Whose Language, Whose Power? An Ethnographic
Inquiry into Differential Bilingualism." Indiana Journal ofHispanic Literatures
12 (1998): 5-23. Print.
Appel, Rene and Pieter Muysken. "Bilingualism and Language Contact." Introduction.
Language Contact and Bilingualism. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,
2006. 1-10. Print.
Arteaga, Alfred. "An Other Tongue." An Other Tongue: National and Ethnicity in the
Linguistic Borderlands. Ed. Alfred Arteaga. Durham: Duke University Press,
1994. 9-33. Print.
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tifflin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and
Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routledge, 1989. Print.
Associated Press. "How many Hispanics in the U.S.? Not easy task for census." Daily
News. NYDailyNews.com, 19 Mar 2009. Web. 9 Jan 2010.
Balbuena, Monique. "A Few Words on Minor Literature." Homeless Tongues, Textual
Identities: Poetry & Languages ofthe Sephardic Diaspora. Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press, forthcoming, 2010. 210-233.
Barnstone, Willis. The Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1993. Print.
Beth. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 29 Nov. 2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2009.
Blommaert, Jan. "Context is/as Critique." Critique ofAnthropology 21.1 (2001): 13-32.
Print.
Bolonyai, Agnes and Myers-Scotton, Carol. "Calculating speakers: codeswitching in a
rational choice model." Language in Society 30 (2001): 1~28. Print.
Boyle, Marge. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 21 Mar. 2009. Web. 23
Sept. 2009.
Braschi, Giannina. Yo-Yo Boing! Pittsburgh: Latin American Literary Review Press,
1998. Print.
"BriefWonderous Life of Oscar Wao." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 2009. Web. 24 Sep.
2009.
Bruckman, Amy and James Hudson. "Disinhibition in a CSCL Environment." Amy
Bruckman. Georgia Institute of Technology, 2002. Web. 25 April 2010.
194
Buell, Marcia. "Code-Switching and Second Language Writing: How Multiple Codes are
Combined in a Text." What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to
Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices. Bazerman, Charles and Paul Prior, eds.
Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.97-122. Print.
buppyspek. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 6 Oct. 2007. Web. 23 Sept.
2009.
Callahan, Laura. "Metalinguistic References in a Spanish/English Corpus." Hispania
84.3 (2001): 417-27. Print.
Callahan, Laura. Spanish/English Codeswitching in a Written Corpus. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004. Print.
Callahan, Laura. "SpanishlEnglish Codeswitching in Fiction: A Grammatical and
Discourse Function Analysis." Diss. U of California, Berkeley, 2001. Print.
Cameron, Deborah. Verbal Hygiene. London: Routledge, 1995. Print.
Cameron. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 17 Jun. 2008. Web. 11 Sept.
2009.
Caroline. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 14 Oct. 2008. Web. 23 Sept.
2009.
Carter, Phillip. "Spanish in the U.S." Do You Speak American? Public Broadcasting
Service, 2005. Web. 10 Apr. 2009.
Cashman, Holly. "Conversation and Interactional Analysis." Handbook ofResearch
Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism. Ed. Li Wei and Melissa Moyer.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. 275-295. Print.
Cashman, Holly. "Language choice in U.S. Latina first person narrative: the effects of
language standardization and subordination." Discourse 21.3 (1999): 132-150.
Print.
Castillo, Ana. So Far From God. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. Print.
Castillo, Debra. Redreaming America: Toward a Bilingual American Culture. New York:
SUNY Press, 2005. Print.
Chavez-Silverman, Susana. Killer Cronicas. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
2004. Print.
195
"Chicano." Dictionary. com. Dictionary.com, 2010. Web. 5 Aug. 2008.
Ch'ien, Evelyn Nien-Ming. Weird English. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Print.
Chomsky, Noam. Aspects ofthe Theory ofSyntax. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute
of Technology Press, 1965. Print.
"Chronology." Centro de estudios puertorriquenos. Hunter College, 2007. Web.
12 Apr. 2009.
Christian. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 11 Sept.
2009.
Christopher. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 8 Aug. 2008. Web. 11 Sept.
2009.
Cisneros, Sandra. "A Home in the Heart: An Interview with Sandra Cisneros." Latina
SelfPortraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers. Bridget Kevane
and Juanita Heredia, eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000.
45-57. Print.
Cisneros, Sandra. Caramelo. New York: Random House, 2002. Print.
"Core Principles of Transformative Learning Theory." Transformative Learning Theory.
N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Sep. 2009.
Crawford, James. "Anatomy of the English-only Movement." At War With Diversity: US
Language Policy in an Age ofAnxiety. Buffalo: Multilingual Matters, 2000. 4-
30. Print.
Crawford, James. Language Loyalties: A Sourcebook on the Official English
Controversy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print.
Davila, Arlene. "Introduction." Latinos, Inc.: The Marketing and Making ofa People.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. 1-22. Print.
De Genova, Nicholas and Ana Ramos-Zayas. "Introduction: Latino Crossings." Latino
Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics ofRace and Citizenship.
London: Routledge, 2003. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Print.
196
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. "What Is a Minor Literature?" Kafka: Toward a
Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Theory and History of Literature Ser. 30.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. 16-27. Print.
Diaz, Junot. Drown. New York: Riverhead, 1996. Print.
Diaz, Junot. "Fiction Is the Poor Man's Cinema: An Interview with Junot Diaz." Callaloo
23.3, Dominican Republic Literature and Culture (2000): 892-907. Print.
Diaz, Junot. "Interview with Junot Diaz." Other Voices 36. Web del sol, 2002. Web. 13
Aug. 2009.
Diaz, Junot. "Junot Discusses his 'Wondrous' Debut Novel." Fresh Air from WHIT.
National Public Radio, 2 May 2008. Web. 26 Sep. 2009.
Diaz, Junot. "LAist Interview: Junot Diaz, Author and Pulitzer Prize Winner." LAist.
Gothamist LLC, 10 Apr. 2008. Web. 22 Jun. 2009.
Diaz, Junot. "Otra Vida, Otra Vez." New Yorker 21 Jun. 1998. 186-91. Print.
Diaz, Junot. The Brie/Wondrous Life o/Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead Books,
2007. Print.
Diller, Frank et al. "A Growing Community." Immigration. Library of Congress'
Learning Page, 20 Mar 2005. Web. 9 Jan 2010.
Dilthey, Wilhelm, Rudolf A. Makkreel, and FrithjofRodi. The Formation o/the
Historical World in the Human Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2002. Print.
Donovan, Rachel. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 18 Nov. 2008. Web. 21
Sept. 2009.
Duranti, Alessandro. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997. Print.
Eble, Connie. "Sociolinguistics Basics." Do You Speak American? Public Broadcasting
Service, 2005. Web. 28 Apr. 2009.
"Ego permeability." Encyclopedic Dictionary 0/Applied Linguistics. Cambridge and
Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. Print.
197
Ehnnan, Madeline. "Ego boundaries revisited: Toward a model of personality and
learning." Strategic Interaction and Language Acquisition: Theory, Practice, and
Research. Ed. James Alatis. Washington, Georgetown University Press, 1993.
330-362. Print.
Espino, Rodolfo and Michael Franz. "Latino Phenotype Discrimination Revisited: The
Impact of Skin Color on Occupational Status." Social Science Quarterly 83.2
(2002): 612-623. Print.
"Fast Facts on Literacy." Holboldt Literacy Project. Humboldt Literacy Center, n.d.
Web. 16 Aug. 2009.
Ferguson, Gibson. "Minority Languages and Language Revitalisation." Language
Planning and Education. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. 71-109.
Print.
Firmat, Gustavo Perez. Tongue Ties: Logo-Eroticism in Anglo-Hispanic Literature. New
York: Macmillan, 2003. Print.
Flores, William V. and Rina Benmayor. "Introduction: Constructing Cultural
Citizenship." Latino Cultural Citizenship: Claiming Identity, Space, and Rights.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1997. 1-23. Print.
Forsyth, Patrick with Robin Birn. Marketing in Publishing. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Print.
Fraga, Luis, et al. Still Lookingfor America: Beyond The Latino National Political
Survey. Palo Alto: Stanford University, 1994. Print.
Frey, James. How to Write a Damn Good Novel. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.
Print.
Gafaranga, Joseph. "Demythologising language alternation studies: conversational
structure vs. social structure in bilingual conversation." Journal ofPragmatics 37
(2005): 281-300. Print.
Galloway, Vicki. "Toward a Cultural Reading of Authentic Texts." Languagesfor a
Cultural World in Transition. Ed. Heidi Byrnes. Lincolnwood: National Textbook
Company, 1992. Print.
Goldweber, David E. "Minority Writers Needn't Focus on Being a Minority." Los
Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 10 JuI. 2004. Web. 13 Aug. 2009.
198
Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest ofEmpire: A History ofLatinos in America. New York:
Penguin Group, 2001. Print.
Graham, Joseph, ed. Difference in Translation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Print.
"Guide to Pronunciation." lvIerriam- Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11 th ed.
Springfield: Merriam-Webster, Inc, 2003. 33a-37a. Print.
Guiora, Alexander. "Language, personality, and culture, or the Whorfian hypothesis
revisited." On TESOL '81: Selected Paper from the Fifteenth Annual Conference of
Teachers ofEnglish to Speakers ofOther Languages. Eds. Mary Hines and William
Rutherford. Washington: TESOL, 1982. 169-177. Print.
Gumperz, John. Discourse Strategies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Print.
Gutierrez, David. "Economic Development and Immigration, 1890-1920." Walls and
Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics ofEthnicity.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. 39-117. Print.
Gutierrez, David. "Introduction: Demography and the Shifting Boundaries of
'Community': Reflections on 'U.S. Latinos' and the Evolution of Latino Studies."
The Columbia History ofLatinos in the United States Since 1960. Ed. David
Gutierrez. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 1-42. Print.
Hagedorn, Hermann, ed. The Works ofTheodore Roosevelt. Memorial ed. Vol. XXIV.
New York: Scribner, 1923-1926.24 vols. Print.
Hall, Stuart, ed. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices.
London: Sage Publications, 1997. Print.
Hamilton, John Maxwell. Casanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and
Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling, and Reading ofBooks. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. Print.
Hansen, Abbie. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 3 May 2008. Web. 17
Sept. 2009.
Harley. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 24 Jul. 2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2009.
Hernandez-Chavez, Eduardo, et aI, eds. "Introduction." EI Lenguaje de los Chicanos:
Regional and Social Characteristics Used by Mexican Americans. Arlington:
Center for Applied Linguistics, 1975. v-xviii. Print.
199
Hilton, Mary. "Online posting." Readers' Comments: A Good Mystery: Why We Read.
New York Times, 26 Nov. 2007. Web. 10 Aug. 2009.
"Hispanic." Dictionary. com. Dictionary.com, 2010. Web. 31 July 2008.
Hobsbawm, Eric J. Introduction. Nations and Nationalisms Since 1780. Cambridge (UK):
Cambridge University Press, 1992. Print.
Hobsbawm, Eric J. "The Perils of the New Nationalism." The Nation. 4 Nov. 1991: 537,
555-556. Print.
Holmes, Janet. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 2nd ed. Essex: Pearson Education
Limited, 2002. Print.
Horwitz, Tony. "Immigration - and the Curse of the Black Legend." New York Times.
New York Times, 9 JuI. 2006. Web. 9 Apr. 2009.
"How to Write a Bestseller." WikiHow: The How-to Manual That You Can Edit.
WikiHow, n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2009.
"The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)." Timeline o/US. Diplomatic
History. U.S. Department of State, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2009.
JanMohamed, Abdul, and David Lloyd. "Introduction: Minority Discourse - What Is To
Be Done?" Cultural Critique 7 (1987): 5-17. Print.
Jimenez Carra, Nieves. "Estrategias de cambio de c6digo y su traducci6n en la novela de
Sandra Cisneros Caramelo or Puro Cuento." TRANS. Revista de Traductologia 9
(2005): 37-59. Print.
Jones, Daniel. How to Write a Best-Seller While Keeping Your Day Job! A Step-By-Step
Manual o/Success/or Writers Who Want to Be Published But Don't Have the
Time. Bloomington: iUniverse, Inc, 2001. Print.
J0fgensen, Johannes. "Children's Acquisition of Codeswitching for Power Wielding."
Codeswitching in Conversation: Language, Interaction, and Identity. Ed. Peter
Auer. London: Routledge, 1998.237-258. Print.
Jussawalla, Feroza, and Reed Way Dasenbrock, eds. Interviews with Writers o/the Post-
Colonial World. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992. Print.
200
Keller, Gary. "How Chicano Authors Use Bilingual Techniques for Literary Effect."
Chicano Studies: A Afultidisciplinary Approach. Ed. Eugene Garcia, Francisco
Lomeli, and Isidro Ortiz. New York: Teachers College, 1984. 171-190. Print.
Kemp, Mark. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 28 Apr. 2008. Web. 23 Sept.
2009.
Kenny. "Online posting." Readers' Comments: A Good iVJystery: Why We Read. New
York Times, 26 Nov. 2007. Web. 10 Aug. 2009.
Kevane, Bridget, and Juanita Heredia, eds. Latina Self-Portraits: Interviews with
Contemporary Women Writers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
2000. Print.
Kirsch, Irwin et al. Adult Literacy in America, National Center for Educational Statistics,
2002. Web. 16 Aug. 2009.
Kloss, Heinz. Forward. The American Bilingual Tradition. 2nd ed. Washington: The
Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998. xvii - xix. Print.
Kronfeld, Chana. On the Margins ojModernism: Decentering Literary Dynamics.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Print.
Labov, William. "Self Evaluation and Linguistic Security." The social stratification oj
English in New York City. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1966.455
- 481. Print.
Labov, William. '''System' in creole languages." Pidginization and Creolization oj
Languages. Ed. Dell Hymes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. 447-
472. Print.
Larsen-Freeman, Diane. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.
Leaver, Betty Lou, Madeline Elizabeth Ehrman, and Boris Shekhtman. Achieving
Success in Second Language Acquisition. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2005. Print.
Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and discrimination in
the United States. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.
Lipski, John M. "The Importance of Spanish in the United States." Varieties ojSpanish
in the United States. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2008. 1-13.
Print.
201
Lipski, John M. "Spanish-English Language Switching in Speech and Literature:
Theories and Models." The Bilingual Review/La revista bilingue 9.3 (1982): 191-
212. Print.
Locke, John. "Of Retention." An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. By Locke.
London: England, 1690. N. pag. Enlightenment. Web. 8 Apr. 2009.
Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History
Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Touchstone, 1996. Print.
Luna, David and Laura A. Peracchio. "Sociolinguistic Effects on Code-Switched Ads
Targeting Bilingual Consumers." Journal ofAdvertising 34.2 (2005): 43-56.
Print.
Lye, John. "Some Notes on Realism." Department ofEnglish Language and Literature.
Brock University, 22 Apr. 2008. Web. 4 Aug. 2009.
Martinez, Glenn A. Mexican Americans and language: iDel dicho al hecho! Tucson:
University ofArizona Press, 2006. Print.
McCracken, Ellen. New Latina Narrative: Thefeminine Space ofPostmodern Ethnicity.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999. Print.
Mezirow, Jack. Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in
Progress. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000. Print.
Miller, Laura. "The Best-Seller List as Marketing Tool and Historical Fiction." Book
History 3 (2000): 286-304. Print.
Milroy, Lesley and Pieter Muysken. "Introduction: Code-Switching and Bilingualism
Research." One speaker, two languages. Ed. Lesley Milroy and Pieter Muysken.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.1-14. Print.
Mohr, Nicholasa. "A Matter of Pride." A Matter ofPride and Other Stories. Houston:
Arte Publico Press, 1997.9-41. Print.
Moraga, Cherrie. The Last Generation. Boston: South End, 1993. Print.
Morrisey, Tom. "Online posting." Readers' Comments: A Good Mystery: Why We Read.
New York Times, 26 Nov. 2007. Web. 10 Aug. 2009.
202
Moya, Paula 10M. "Introduction." Reclaiming Identity: Realist Theory
and the Predicament ofPostmodernism. Moya, Paula 1. M. and Michael Hames-
Garcia, eds. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000. 1-26. Print.
Muysken, Pieter. Bilingual speech: a typology ofcode mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000. Print.
Myers-Scotton, Carol. "The matrix language frame model: Development and responses."
Codeswitching Worldwide II New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2001. 23-58. Print.
Myers-Scotton, Carol. "Rational actor models and linguistic choices." Language,
Linguistics, and Leadership. Joseph O'Mealy, Laura Lyons, and Carol Eastman,
eds. Honolulu: University of Hawaii and East-West Center Press, 1998.76-88.
Print.
Myers-Scotton, Carol. "A Theoretical Introduction to the Markedness Model." Codes and
Consequences: Choosing Linguistic Varieties. Ed. Myers-Scotton. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998. 18-40. Print.
Nemy, Enid. "At The Office With Brian Sietsema; Man of Many Words, Each One
Overheard." New York Times. New York Times, 22 Jul. 1993. Web. 30 Apr.
2009.
Ngai, Mae. "Introduction." Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of
Alodern America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 1-14. Print.
Nussbaum, Martha. Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense ofReform in Liberal
Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Print.
Obo1er, Suzanne. "Hispanics in the United States: 'We All Sing a Different Song.'''
Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of (Re)Presentation in the
United States. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1995. xi - xxi. Print.
ami, Michael and Howard Winant. "Racial Formation." Racialformation in the United
States: from the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994.53-76. Print.
Ortega, Julio. "Mas sobre el espafiol en Estados Unidos." El Pais. EI Pais, 24 Nov. 1998.
Web. 23 Jun. 2009.
Ortiz Cofer, Judith. "Corazon's Cafe." The Latin Deli. Athens: University Press of
Georgia, 1995.93-116. Print.
Ortiz Cofer, Judith. "Nada." The Latin Deli. Athens: University Press of
Georgia, 1995. 50-60. Print.
203
Paul, Richard. Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly-
Changing World. Ed. AJA Binker. Rohnert Park: Center for Critical Thinking and
Moral Critique, 1990. Print.
Perez, Jeanette. "Publishing Advice from Jeanette Perez Of HarperCollins Publishers."
About. com: Fiction Writing. New York Times Company, n.d. Web. 10 Aug. 2009.
Perez, Rolando."What Is 'Minor' in Latino Literature. MEL US 30.4 (2005): 89-108.
Print.
Pickover, Cliff. How To Create An Instant Bestselling Novel. University of Wisconsin -
Madison, n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2009.
Poblete, Juan, ed. Critical Latin American and Latino Studies. Cultural Studies of the
Americas Ser. 12. Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 2003. Print.
Poplack, Shana. "Code Switching." Soziolinguistik. An international handbook ofthe
science oflanguage. 2nd ed. Ammon et aI, eds. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004.
Print.
Poplack, Shana. "Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en espanol:
toward a typology of code-switching." 1980. Preface Shana Poplack. The
Bilingualism Reader. Li Wei, ed. London: Routledge, 2000. 221 - 256. Print.
Preston, Dennis. "Where They Speak Correct English: The View from Southern Indiana."
Perceptual Dialectology: Nonlinguists' Views ofAreal Linguistics. Dordrecht and
Providence: Foris Publications, 1989.51 -70. Print.
Rachel. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 6 Jan. 2009. Web. 21 Sept. 2009.
Rebecca. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 14 Dec. 2008. Web. 21 Sept.
2009.
Renato, Rosaldo. "Cultural Citizenship, Inequality, and Multiculturalism." Race, Identity,
and Citizenship: A Reader. Ed. Rodolfo D. Torres, Louis F. Miron, and Jonathan
Xavier Inda. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1999.253 - 261. Print.
Rich, Motoko. "A Good Mystery: Why We Read." New York Times. New York Times,
25 Nov. 2007. Web. 10 Aug. 2009.
Romaine, Suzanne. Bilingualism. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Ltd, 1995. Print.
204
Rossman, Marlene. A1ulticultural Marketing: Selling to a Diverse America. New York:
AMACON, 1994. Print.
Rudin, Ernst. Tender Accents ofSound: Spanish in the Chicano Novel in English. Tempe:
Bilingual Review/La Revista Bi1ingiie, 1996. Print.
Ruiz, Vicki. "Nuestra America: Latino History as US History." The Journal ofAmerican
History 93.3 (2006): 655-672. Print.
Rumbaut, Ruben G. "The Americans: Latin American and Caribbean Peoples in the
United States." Perspectives on Las Americas: A Reader in Culture, History, and
Representation. Eds. Matthew Gutmann, et al. Malden: Blackwell Publishers,
2003.90-113. Print.
Ryn, C1aes G. "The Ideology of American Empire." Orbis 47.3 (2003): 383-397. Print.
Saldivar-Hull, Sonia. Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Print.
Santiago, Esmeralda. America's Dream. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Print.
Santiago, Esmeralda. "A Puerto Rican Existentialist in Brooklyn." Latina Self-Portraits:
Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers. Bridget Kevane and Juanita
Heredia, eds. Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, 2000. 125-140.
Print.
Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1993.
Print.
"Selected Social Characteristics in the United States: 2007." United States Census
Bureau. United States Department of Commerce, n.d. Web. Apr. 17,2009.
"Standard English." The American Heritage Dictionary ofthe English Language, 4th ed.
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Web. 30 Apr. 2009.
"Standard English." Chambers 2Ft Century Dictionary. Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd,
2009. Web. 30 Apr. 2009.
"Standard English." Dictionary. com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc., n.d. Web.
30 Apr. 2009.
"Standard English." Merriam- Webster Online Dictionary. Merriam-Webster
Online, 2009. Web. 30 April 2009.
205
Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline. "Spanish English code switching among US Latinos."
International Journal ofthe Sociology ofLanguage 158 (2002): 89 - 119. Print.
Torres, Lourdes. "In the Contact Zone: Code-Switching Strategies by Latino/a Writers."
Alulti-Ethnic Literature ofthe United States 32.1 (2007): 75-96. Print.
United States Census Bureau. Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000.
Washington: US Department of Commerce, 2003. Print.
United States. Office of Management and Budget. "Revisions to the Standards for the
Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity." Federal Register Notices.
Office of Management and Budget, 30 Oct. 1997. Web. 31 July 2008.
"US In Focus." Migration Information Source. Migration Policy Institute, Oct. 2009.
Web. 19 Mar. 2010.
Valdes, Guadalupe. "Bilinguals and bilingualism: language policy in an anti
immigrant age." International Journal ofthe Sociology ofLanguage 127 (1997):
25-52. Print.
Vehman, Calvin. The Future ofthe Spanish Language in the United States. New York
and Washington, DC: Hispanic Policy Development Project, 1988. Print.
Vehman, Calvin. "Reflections on the Process of Anglicization." Language Shift in the
United States. Berlin: Mouton, 1983.211-215. Print.
Viramontes, Helena Maria. Under the Feet ofJesus. New York: Dutton, 1995. Print.
Walker. "Online posting." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 27 Feb. 2008. Web. 23 Sept.
2009.
Walsh, Catherine E. Pedagogy and the Struggle for Voice: Issues ofLanguage, Power,
and Schoolingfor Puerto Ricans. New York: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1991.
Print.
Wei, Li. "Dimensions of Bilingualism." Introduction. The Bilingualism Reader. London:
Routledge, 2000. 2 - 21. Print.
Wei, Li. "How can you tell? Toward a common sense explanation of conversational
code-switching." Journal ofPragmatics 37.3 (2005): 375-389. Print.
Wei, Li. "The 'Why' and 'How' Questions in the Analysis of Conversational
Codeswitching." Code-Switching in Conversation: Language, Interaction, and
Identity. Ed. Peter Auer. London: Routledge, 1998. 156-76. Print.
206
Wetherell, Margaret. "Positioning and interpretative repertoires: conversation analysis
and post-structuralism in dialogue." Discourse and Society 9.3 (1998): 387-412.
Print.
Wolfram, Walt and Natalie Schilling-Estes. "Social and Ethnic Dialects." American
English: dialects and variation. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 1998. 151-183. Print.
Zentella, Ana Celia. "The 'Chiquitafication' ofD.S. Latinos and Their Languages, or
Why We Need an Anthropological Linguistics." Salsa 111: Proceedings ofa
Symposium on Language and Society. Austin: University of Texas, 1995. 1-20.
Print.
Zentella, Ana Celia. Growing Up Bilingual. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997. Print.
Zinn, Howard. The People's History ofthe United States. New York: Harper Perennial,
2005. Print.