If English Is Spanish Then Spanish Is ...: Literary Challenges of Representing Bilingual Speech Production and Reception in Esmeralda Santiago's America's Dream

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 America, 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. America, 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 America 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 America would be interested in the job. America 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, America 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. America 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. America herself adjusts and adapts, but the adjustment and adaptation are not only reflexive. They are also transitive verbs, describing the effect that America has on the Leverett family. America notes with a certain satisfaction: "She's learning their ways and is beginning to change them" (152). A sort of Caribbean Mary Poppins, America 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 America'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 America 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 America 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. America must look after Karen and Charlie as she looks after the children (cf. …