U.S. Latinx Literature in Spanish remains an understudied academic field despite the fact that a large and vibrant corpus exists. In the last decade, there has been an influx of contemporary authors publishing in Spanish in the United States which is tied to the growth of small independent publishers using both print and digital platforms. Instructors in Spanish degree granting departments across the United States are recognizing the importance of the study of U.S. Latinx literature as intrinsic to their programs although resistance remains due to the erroneous impression that this literature is written only in English. Traditional programs in English, Chicano Studies , and Ethnic Studies have focused on English texts for strategic reasons to include non-Spanish speakers and non-Latinx students, which has created a vacuum in the area of research on Latinx literary production in Spanish . The University of Houstonâs âRecovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Projectâ has made contributions towards the recovery of Latinx literature while creating a critical discourse on lesser-known texts in Spanish along with English texts through the publication of primary texts and criticism (based on conference proceedings), however this applaudable effort focuses on pre-1960s works, which leaves the contemporary field wide open for exploration.
In En otra voz: AntologĂa de la literatura hispana de los Estados Unidos, edited by NicolĂĄs Kanellos and his âRecovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Projectâ team, we read the following about Latinx literature written in Spanish : âEsta literatura incorpora las voces del conquistador y del conquistado, del revolucionario y del reaccionario, del nativo y del desarraigado de su tierra. Es una literatura que proclama un sentido de lugar y pertenencia en los Estados Unidos mientras que tambiĂ©n elimina fronteras y es transnacional en el sentido mĂĄs moderno posibleâ (xiâxii). 1
Kanellos and his team highlight the relevance of being inclusive, that is, he foregrounds those who lived in the United States speaking Spanish or indigenous tongues, to show that the history of the United States began as polylingual. Of course, today, that multilingualism has survived and thrived due to the exceptional immigrant communities that bring diversity of culture as well as of linguistic expression to our nation.
Historically, Spanish or Latin American heritage meant that one spoke Spanish, but that is not necessarily the case in the twenty-first century United States. Indeed, we must ask ourselves the relevance of Spanish to being a citizen of the United States and also to retaining and passing on the Hispanic culture to the next generation. In other words, are literacy skills in Spanish a necessity to be a Latino/a/x? Of course, notâlanguage is one of the many markers that define ethnicity, but not the only one. Yet this volume focuses on the Spanish literary production of Latinx writers not simply to underscore the connection between language and ethnic identity but also because it is an opportunity to highlight the growing U.S.âSpanish literary market that parallels the strength, visibility, and participation of Latinxs as Americans.
The United States considers itself to be a nation of immigrants, yet at the national level, evidently there are those who feel the United States should be more homogenous. We see attacks against immigrants for many reasons: religion, language, and skin color being the most prevalent. In the Latinx context, coercing native Spanish speakers to speak only English and read literature that does not place their ethnicities at the center results in the most basic loss of forgetting oneâs native tongue. In less than a generation, assimilation into the mainstream (read: dominant culture) also has the consequence of losing other cultural markers as well, such as customs, rituals, and traditions that historically have celebrated each unique ethnic identity. Speaking and producing art in Spanish becomes a tool in the arsenal of the Latinx used to defend oneself and oneâs culture against assimilation. Continuous immigration from Spanish-speaking countries to the United States makes it a moot effort to enforce outdated policies such as English Only. As human beings, the need for creative expression underlines a deep-seated foundation of who we are and what our larger purpose is. In an effort to support this broader understanding of humanity, this volume brings to light the obligation that we have to encourage, celebrate and, when required, defend othersâ need to express themselves in the language that most accurately captures their cultures. Those who disregard the contributions of Spanish literature as part of our cultural production may simply not be aware of its existence or may only see products of the English language as worthy of the label âmade in the USA.â As a consequence, the national imaginary may at times have a limited perspective resulting in a large portion of artistic creativity gone missing from our narrative as a people, and as a nation.
Language, in part, reflects culture as well as history; the colonial era and diasporas have brought the language of the European colonists and their descendants across the globe. At once the language of the oppressor, it has now become the language of those that wish to defend their identities against the larger, more dominant English. However, as students of history and of literature, one understands that the hegemonic use of language is not only a tool to control; it can also be used to deter subjugation and reinforce cultural strengths. Language must be used to speak to each other, to bring us closer together, yet simultaneously to historicize the past while carrying us towards the future, a future where the dominant language may indeed be Spanish , or perhaps âSpanglish.â Maintaining identity, culture and a sense of self allows us to share our strengths and celebrate them.
Publishing works in Spanish is beginning to take place with more frequency in the United States, however such publication is not an easily accomplished task. There are many publishing houses that are mired by ignorance surrounding the linguistic nature of the Latinx population living in the United States. Due to this deeply held misunderstanding based on outdated attitudes, publishing in Spanish in the creative or critical literary fields can be a challenge. Despite authors writing in Spanish in the United States , there have been very few publishing houses who will take on what is perceived to be a financial risk of publishing in Spanish . One of the primary reasons that presently we do not have much scholarship on U.S. Latinx literature composed in the Spanish language is because contemporary Spanish literature lives on the margins and is not readily circulated in the United States. Daniel Cubias, the author of Barrio Imbroglio, in a 2015 article in Huffington Postâs Latino Voices, reports that the attitude of the U.S. publishing world has a lot to do with it. When asked why there were so few books representing Latino characters, or works by Latino authors, an unnamed New York publishing executive responded, âHispanics donât readâ (par. 2). This response seems shocking since it does not reflect a twenty-first-century reality. Consequently, Cubias writes in English and after being turned down by various publishing houses, he published directly and digitally with Amazon. Cubiasâ article also quotes Marcela Landres, an editorial consultant and co-founder of Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference. According to Landres, to change the attitude, there is a need to have Latinos working in key positions in these publishing houses (par. 7â8). As a strategy to fight the unreceptive attitudes in the publishing industry, Landresâ suggestion seems obvious, but there is a problem when Latinxs in prominent positions in these very same publishing houses are unaware of authors writing in Spanish in the United States . Publisherâs Weeklyâs 2015 webcast titled âSpanish-Language Books in the U.S.: Trends, Forecasts, and Titles to Watch For,â featured a panel of representatives from Harper Collins Español, Vintage Español, Penguin Random Houseâs Celebra Libros and House Grupo Editorial-USA, and Independent Publishers Group. If last names are any measure of ethnicity, the majority were Latinxs. According to the panelists, there is an acknowledgment that there is a growing Spanish-reading population in the United States, and the trend is for books about self-improvement, finance, health, and marriage. These publishing companies were also going to release literature books in Spanish, but they were either translations of books written originally in English by non-Latinx authors or authors writing in Spanish from Latin America and Spain. On being asked by one of the editors of this volume about U.S. Latinx literature in Spanish , the executives said they were looking, that currently there are not many authors, and that most of them choose to write in English, although some will compose bilingually. These replies demonstrate that even when we have Latinxs represented in positions that hold the power to make changes in the publishing hierarchy, U.S. Latinx literature in Spanish continues to remain on the periphery of what is already a marginal area in the publishing field.
At present, the U.S. Latinx Literary canon promotes mainly English texts. Anthologies, including the largest to dateâ The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature âis partial to English texts, except when including Spanish colonial and nineteenth-century texts which are translated to English. Norma E. CantĂș in the introduction to the updated edition of her 1994 semi-autobiographical novel CanĂcula updates her readers about the other two books in the trilogy; CanĂcula was the second of the three texts. She says the first one remains unfinished as she is still researching the period 1880â1950 in which it is set, but more importantly the delay of its publication is due to the fact that it is written in Spanish. CantĂș thinks that she may have to translate it into English to get it published (xxiii). She does not elaborate on why she thinks so, but it underscores that an established scholar and author like CantĂș still considers publishing in the United States in Spanish in 2015 to be an obstacle to reaching her readers. By extension, there are those who are less-well known and therefore even less likely to receive the boon of a contract to publish work in Spanish.
Another example includes Roberto G. FernĂĄndez, who began his career as an author in 1975 writing in Spanish , but soon realized that to reach larger audiences he needed to write in English. However, he did make a return to Spanish in 2001, with his last two publications released in Cuba and Spain. Another author of Chilean heritage, Marjorie AgosĂn, usually publishes her works in English translation, although she specifically only writes in Spanish . At this point, the editors of this volume find it pertinent to highlight that although many ideas and concepts are easily translatable into other tongues, there are reasons beyond the financial for writing in oneâs native language. There are times when the content being represented comes from the heart, that is to say, from the emotional or spiritual center of the human experience. As language professors, all the editors have had the opportunity to express ourselves in at least two languages, when teaching students about which language we choose to speak in outside the classroom, the answer to such a question many times resides in the emotional connection to the subject matter. What we are attempting to express is that authors like CantĂș, FernĂĄndez, and AgosĂn write from an emotional place of longing. What language lends itself to capturing that longing? There is no doubt the answer that is most apt is Spanish. Representing in Spanish allows the author to impregnate the words with emotion, with feeling, with passion and desire in a way that English simply may not capture.
The challenges for authors to find publishing houses that support their works in Spanish only presents one side of the equation. For those who wish to read in Spanish , whether academics or not, locating appropriate works becomes difficult because many times the authors choose to publish outside the United States, making it almost impossible for a U.S. based readership to come across their work. Underlying this monumental challenge is the labeling aspect of publishing houses, that is to say, how they market the work and also how they choose to portray the identity of the author. For example, many authors writing in Spanish that publish in Spanish-speaking countries are promoted as belonging to their ancestral countries and not the United States The ramifications of this result in less visibility of their work in the United States because academics and the general audience may not be able to correctly identify these authors as pertaining to U.S. literature.
The cause and ...