However, as recent scholars of translations studies are quick to point out, such equivalencies are always threatened by failure. Successful translation is defined in terms of authenticity and the ability of the translation to be faithful to the original. In the context of American cultures, and especially the texts that we look at in this course, these terms become central to the construction of individual and community identity. In these texts, the protagonists are often positioned as translators, creating equivalence between languages, cultures, and generations. For them, translation signifies both their own sense of self as well as the text that they produce.
Translation is thus both transmittal and invention.
To this extent, the way that the texts position themselves as works of literature become central to the way that they comment on cultural and political aspects of linguistic identity. Supplemented by readings in theories of translation and ethnography and in history of language policy and politics in the U.S., we derive a set of critical tools that guide the readings during the rest of the semester. In the following weeks, readings are organized thematically around four central themes. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, we ask what gets lost in translation, and how the notion of loss is linked with the process of assimilation. These two texts also allow us to distinguish between first and second generation immigrant narratives as well the difference between homelands that are accessible and ones that aren't.