Response to Ada and Barrera & Quiroa Articles

Since I chose to do my assignment on Latino/Latino young literature, I unfortunately was unable to find many inside sources. I also had a problem finding reviews on the books I chose so because of this; I have reviewed the course pack articles and found many issues relevant to my reviews. The articles I have reviewd are Words of Jade and Coral: Latino Literature for Children and Adolescents by Ada and The Use of Spanish in Latino Children’s Literature in English: What Makes Cultural Authenticity by Rosalinda B. Barrera and Ruth E. Quiroa. (I did find reviews on Francisco Jimenez but none of them were pertaining to La Mariposa; they were addressing his other pieces).

One of the first issues I found interesting was in the Ada article when it states that the reason Latinos prefer to be addressed by the name of, ‘Latino’ is because they have descended from Spanish speakers that, “Do not want to be called Hispanos or Hispanics because they do not want to be reminded of their connection to Spain…this places them further from the colonizer”. This was nice to read about because it made me able to clarify the reasons behind the genre that is Latino literature.

Since I was unsuccessful in finding more inside sources, I was pleased to see that Ada also addresses this issue by stating that there aren’t that many books out there, written by insiders, about the “Very rich and diverse Latino reality”. This statement was almost like another support for my lack of insider authors because the statement is saying that this genre is wonderful and worth reading but there are unfortunately not enough insider authors being published. Ada goes on to state, “There is an inner look to a culture that is not easily acquired and requires long contact with people of the culture and its environment. The deep experiences of people can seldom be told authentically from the outside”. This was such a wonderful statement to come across because from reading these books, both from insider and outsider authors, I have formed the opinion that I prefer the insider knowledge to be more realistic and educational. This statement perfectly stated what I feel is true about the benefit of reading a piece of literature that has been composed by an insider of that culture. I felt this most strongly with La Mariposa by Francisco Jimenez as the story is written about his own personal experiences.

The Ada article also when on to discuss the idea of outsider authors, stating that many of them publish books on Latino literature because they know that there there’s not that many books out there about that culture. So, it’s almost as if they are publishing books for the wrong reasons and not taking the true meaning of the book into consideration. This idea seems to complement my reviews of the outsider books I read because the majority of them seemed to be very stereotypical and didn’t seem to interest me as much as the books by Jimenez and Gary Soto, both insiders by some aspect. The Ada article goes on to mention these authors later, in a positive way by saying they write books of merit. The article states that Gary Soto uses Spanish in his books because, “Being bilingual makes the world twice as big”. This quote seemed so inspirational! The world really would be so much larger and grander if we all could understand each other. Yet, as Ada states and we have learned in this class, “Latino children are faced with societal prejudice against their home language”. An example of this can be seen in La Mariposa when the teacher scolds the main character for speaking Spanish.

The Barrera and Quiroa article mainly focuses on the use of Spanish in books. Through reading their article I found that most words that are used in Spanish are words that mean types of family, foods, ethnographic terms for place and surroundings. This makes sense as almost all the books I read included Spanish words that could most definitely be categorized by these criteria. The Spanish words that were included in the book really stuck out positively to me because I felt that they further drew me into the story, making each story that much more personal. This article also mentioned Francisco Jimenez and his use of Spanish in his books stating he uses his native language in his pieces because, “ [He] simply uses the language because it comes naturally to [him], and there’s no translation for it”. Jimenez’s statement further illustrates the personal feeling one can experience when reading a book of a genre like Latino culture and witness those words and feeling what they mean.