Kimberly A. Nance, Illinois State University
Much has been written of late about the difficulties of translation, issues of faithfulness and readability that arise when a text originally produced in one language is remade in another, but here the questions are of a different order. Much of Santiago's novel[1] takes place precisely on the borders between two languages, as América, the Spanish-speaking protagonist, struggles to understand the English that is a prerequisite to work in San Juan and later in Westchester County. In writing the dialogue for these scenes, the novelist takes on the familiar task of transposing the oral to the written, but with the additional challenges of representing the production and reception of two languages, varied by multiple dialects, by varying degrees of mastery, speed, and effort at enunciation, and even by whether a character chooses to remove the cigar from his mouth when he speaks. While some Spanish remains in the text, for example, in several song lyrics, in nearly all of these cases the language has been adapted to suit monolingual English-speaking readers. In Santiago's novel, then, the challenge lies in representing a complicated dual-language context for readers who by and large have at their disposal only one. This article examines Santiago's technical choices for the representation of language contact and their effect on readers and readings of the novel.
América, the novel's protagonist, works as a housekeeper in a tourist hotel in Puerto Rico. Early on, her only child, a teenaged daughter, Rosalinda, briefly runs away with a local boy, then moves away to live with other relatives to escape the local gossip. When one of the hotel guests asks América to baby-sit, she makes such an impression on them that when the family's childcare worker back in Westchester County quits, they call to ask if América would be interested in the job. América seizes the opportunity to escape an abusive lover, who later discovers where she has gone and stalks her. At the novel's climax he breaks into the house while she is there with the children and attempts to kill her with a kitchen knife. During the struggle, she shoves him toward a table, where he hits his head on a sharp granite corner and dies. By novel's end, América has an apartment in New York, a better job in a hotel, and a new and non-abusive lover.
With the exception of the fateful encounter, the stalking plot functions mainly as undercurrent to the novel's principal thread of cross-cultural assessment, adaptation, and adjustment. América notes and critiques the differences in family dynamics and material culture, comparing and contrasting her own nuclear family on the island, her aunt's family who now lives in the Bronx, and the Leveretts' WASP enclave in Westchester County. América herself adjusts and adapts, but the adjustment and adaptation are not only reflexive. They are also transitive verbs, describing the effect that América has on the Leverett family. América notes with a certain satisfaction: "She's learning their ways and is beginning to change them" (152). A sort of Caribbean Mary Poppins, América as nanny is the avatar of goodness, love, and effective parenting, in contrast with the often distant, immature, and disorganized Anglo parents--all this as América's own nuclear family (alcoholic mother, rebellious daughter, and abusive lover) has disintegrated. The nanny romance is occasionally tempered by references to low wages and unreasonable expectations: "Charlie has been out of town, so América has put in fifteen hour days. She thinks she should get paid extra for working more than the eight hours Karen Leverett told her she would be working. The truth is that América is on duty by seven in the morning and doesn't get to her room until after eight every night" (255). However, in the novel the Leveretts are infantilized and it is difficult to hold them responsible for their own actions. América must look after Karen and Charlie as she looks after the children (cf. 152). By and large sweetness prevails, making for an even more jarring juxtaposition between the nanny track and the looming stalker story.
In terms of language, Santiago opts initially for showing over telling, placing the reader in the position of the struggling protagonist. Since from the beginning unmarked English stands in for the protagonist's familiar Spanish, the reader must be alerted to those instances when English really is English. Frequently this is accomplished by straightforward labeling in the dicendi phrases: "he bellows in English" (2); "He talks in English to the people in the Isuzu" (11; emphasis added). At other points América's difficulty in understanding spoken English is conveyed with visual variations, as in Don Irving's "Whasgoneonere?" (2); "Oh, fahcrysakes … Geddadehere, c'mon" "Izevrydinalride?" (30) or Karen Leverett's phone introduction "Itskarnlevret." Here the effort of sorting an unfamiliar language into separate and intelligible words is readily apparent. The technique requires the reader to replicate, at least in part, the hearer's effort at parsing a phrase. But that effort quickly becomes more wearisome than an idle reader is likely to tolerate, especially in passages of prolonged interchange between América and the monolingual English characters.
Santiago frequently shifts technique in mid-novel, trading off consistency in representation and focalization so as to allow the reader unmediated access to the English speech that América herself cannot comprehend. Whole utterances or exchanges are presented in unmarked English: "What's all the screaming about?" (2); "Oh sure, I'm sorry, of course. Anyway, Charlie, Mr. Leverett and I were talking" (115). Such a veering away from potential readerly exasperation runs a distinct risk: the unmarked passages would appear to suggest an equally transparent comprehension on the protagonist's part. To combat this impression, Santiago employs a variety of techniques. Occasionally the phonetic transcription is emphatically repeated. "'Any word from your daughter?' It all sounds like one long work she's never heard: 'eniwoidfromerdora.' 'Excuse?' 'Yerdora. Eniwoidfromerayet?'" At times the English utterance is followed by América's take: "Mr. Leverett. Talking. Irving. You." In other cases it is América's response, or the lack of it, that indicates the limits of understanding: "A response is expected. 'Uhmm'" (116). Still other passages describe América's difficulties rather than demonstrating them: "She doesn't know how to respond, whether he's being kind or critical" (31); "She strains to understand, and the effort gives her a headache" (146); people speak "incomprehensibly fast" (149). The effort is further pointed up with the occasional juxtaposition, as in the Westchester County section of the novel where América remarks to other empleadas (domestics): "Ay, it's so nice to be speaking Spanish" (185).
Given that América's unspoken thoughts (and most of her conversations with Spanish interlocutors) are expressed in the unmarked English that stands for Spanish, the effort it takes for her to speak in English must likewise be marked emphatically. Here the quotations are set in a transcription that is part phonetic rendition of a Puerto Rican variety of English, but also part simple visual distinction : "'Ees my dohter,' says América, avoiding Don Irving's eyes. 'She in trubel'" (3); "Okéi" (11). In some instances the utterances also reflect the false cognate relationships between Spanish and English, as when América orders Kyle: "You stop molest baby sister" (177)--the verb molestar meaning in Spanish simply "to bother." Typically the differences in América's English pass unremarked upon by her U.S. interlocutors, with the exception of one scene in which an angry Kyle, exiled to his room for hitting his little sister, takes revenge by calling attention to América's pronunciation of "Plis." In general, however, América's English proves highly effective with the two young children: "'You eat good breakfast,' América tells them, 'you grow big.' Her statements sound to them like commandments. Unlike their mother, she doesn't punctuate every instruction with 'okay'? … If they argue, she tells them she doesn't understand what they're saying and repeats her instructions" (152). Ironically, América's lack of familiarity with idiomatic English becomes a source of power in dealing with the children, and another means of pointing up the contrast with their mother's trendy, tentative, and ineffective parenting.
In general, then, the text's unmarked English is understood to be Spanish, while marked English is English. So where does this leave the novel's Spanish? What distinguishes those instances in which Spanish is represented not by unmarked English but by actual Spanish? Fairly frequently and, with the exception of song lyrics, in roman type, the Spanish lexicon here includes forms of address (Mami, Don, m'ija); greetings, interjections, and phatic replies (Buenos días, Ay!, Deja eso, Okéi); insults (Idiota, puta, hijo de la gran puta, maricón, pendeja, mocoso); a small inventory of common nouns--culinary terms like asopao and the kitchen herbs and spices; transportation and landscape terms (público, marquesina, reja); and sexually selected body parts (specifically tetas and culos). In almost every instance, the meaning of the Spanish term is either obvious from the context--"Surely he caught a glimpse of her tetas, barely covered by the bikini top" (13), "each [house] had a four-wheel-drive vehicle in its marquesina" (18)--or else made so by a follow-up or repetition in English. "Both of them taking her for a pendeja, sneaking around behind her back" (9); "if the only way she can learn is 'a fuerza de puños' well, then, his fists should be the teacher" (34). This Spanish is studiously undemanding of the monolingual reader; careful selection and contextualization make the Spanish terms and phrases nearly as transparent as is the English (read Spanish) text. This isolated use of Spanish serves the conventional and occasionally maligned function of "local color," reminding the reader that this is a novel about a Puerto Rican protagonist.
The most extensive instances of Spanish in the novel are a nursery rhyme generally used to soothe an injured child and verses of América's favorite danza. Again, each can serve a certain narrative function for readers who lack any knowledge of Spanish. When América sings to her teenaged daughter: "Sana, sana, colita de rana, si no sana hoy, se sana mañana" (83), the surrounding text makes clear that this is a nostalgic moment between mother and daughter, and little would be added by a literal translation. Spanish/English cognates in the danza convey the generic gist of a pop love song, although not the foreshadowing reference to torments approaching on that day.
At one other point knowledge of Spanish offers information that is otherwise unavailable--an early play on the meaning of place names. The first chapter ends: "América tugs her dress down at the hips, runs her fingers through her hair, and heads not toward Esperanza, but away from it, toward Destino" (15)--not toward hope, but toward destiny. The second chapter begins "It's all uphill from Esperanza to Destino" (16). Other than these two instances, the lexical meaning of all Spanish words is made almost entirely transparent.
Representation of differences between the Spanish of novice tourists and fluent speakers demands a similar level of writerly ingenuity and compromise, since most readers will not be able to tell the difference on their own. Like fluent English, fluent Spanish remains unmarked. Beginner Spanish is signaled through dicendi phrases or else marked phonetically. At the beach where Correa is a guard, "The man looks quizzically at him, but the woman has studied a little Spanish and decides to use it. 'Yo soy Ginnie,' she responds, enunciating every syllable as if she were in class, 'y estos son nuestros niños, Peter, Suzy, y Lily'" (12). For Spanish-speakers, Ginnie's speech is marked even further by a typical beginner error, her employment of niños (children in general) where hijos (one's own children) would be expected. Kyle, one of the Leverett children, proudly announces that he has been practicing Spanish. His demonstrations, "Boonus dees América. I can also say boonus tardus" (98), are classic examples of English interference in the treatment of diphthongs, reduction of vowels, and generalization error in "Buenos días" and "Buenas tardes."
As in the case of English, the use (or non-use) of Spanish is also commented upon. Language is explicitly thematized in this novel, as in the observation on Don Irving: "To América, he looks like Anthony Quinn, and in the ten years she's worked for him, she keeps expecting him to speak Spanish when he opens his mouth, but he never does" (35). "She has picked up some English. He has never learned Spanish and speaks as if it didn't matter, as if it were the person he's talking to who has to make sense of what he's saying" (36).
Characters' use of English and Spanish in the novel follows conventional dynamics of power. English-speakers in the novel who employ Spanish do so optionally, as a gesture of connection somewhat tainted by a sense of display, rather benign in children but less so in adults. Spanish-speakers use English out of obligation, and despite her success with the children, América's limited knowledge of English circumscribes her life in instances as trivial as food choices in a restaurant and as critical as the inability to make herself understood to the 911 operator.
In the novel, access to English figures as access to power in multiple arenas, economic but also social and domestic, as evident in the merengue "about a man whose wife went to New York and now that she's back, she won't do his laundry, won't cook his meals, and won't have sex with him unless he speaks to her in English. 'Ay, pero ay no spik' the singer tells his wife who responds 'Geev eet tú mí, beybee'" (71). In the novel such power often comes with a backlash, especially when it is acquired by women, and at a further cost. The Ortiz family, the successful and progressive wing of América's relatives, is also losing its Spanish: "They all speak Spanish with an accent and sometimes use English words they make into Spanish by adding an o or an a. Paulina used the word liqueo to tell Ester the faucet had a leak" (66).
Their Spanish will soon be reduced to the same role it plays in this novel--scattered nouns, affectionate and insulting address, foods, nursery rhymes and songs. The limited role of Spanish language in the novel reflects a vestigial and nostalgic status, a beloved but limited lexicon of domesticity and intimacy. It is precisely these attributes that make América herself at once valuable and vulnerable to the Leveretts … and to Correa. Love of children and enjoyment of a clean house leave América open to exploitation by the Leveretts. Romanticism initially trumps fear in the relationship with Correa. Intimacy is likewise paired with compulsion in América's relationship with the hotel guests on the island and with the Leveretts--she knows far more than she wants to know about them: "She knows the brands of toothpaste they use, whether they have dentures. She knows if the women have their periods. She knows if the men wear jockey or boxer underwear, and what size" (30).
Within the framework of the novel, both intimacy and domesticity are frequently de-romanticized and subordinated to other values--values the novel connects with the mainland and with English--for instance, the "fair but firm" approach advocated by the radio psychologist. The linguistic division of spheres is of course contingent, dependent upon particular economic and social developments rather than any essential property of either language, but the connections are no weaker for their contingency. The island and Spanish are here represented as the sites of passion--warm and sensual but ultimately limiting and dangerous--and the mainland and English are the sites of reason--cold and distant but finally empowering. At the novel's end América trades off sunshine and contact with children in favor of autonomy and health insurance, efficiency and privacy--enjoying Wonder bread toast with grape jelly and a hotel job where she rarely has to see the guests. Culturally as well as linguistically, América's Dream is an American dream in which American reads mainland U.S.
Footnotes
1. Esmeralda Santiago, América's Dream (New York: Harper, 1996). All subsequent references are to this edition and are cited in the text in parentheses.
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