*(This article first appeared in Críticas magazine, on 08/01/2003)
Ed Morales is the author of Living in Spanglish: The Search for Latino Identity in America (St. Martin's) and The Latin Beat: From Rumba to Rock (Da Capo).


The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.

On the surface, translating these opening lines from Dr. Seuss's immortal The Cat in the Hat into Spanish seems like child's play. But don't tell that to Isabel Schon, director of the Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents at California State University at San Marcos. "We all know that in Spanish you need at least 20% more words than you use in English to say the same thing," says Schon, whose regular reviews in Booklist, the magazine of the American Library Association, can make or break a translated book's reputation. "If you want do be direct, precise, and concise even Tolstoy said, 'I'm going to use English.' If you want romance and rhythm and cadence, then you should use Spanish, or any romance language, for that matter."

The uncertain symmetry between English and Spanish has always been a problem in translations, but when it comes to children's books, it's an even touchier subject. When the reading audience is a group of highly impressionable youngsters just learning the ropes of a language or two, it's more important for meaning to come through. The universality of the Spanish used in these books is a bone of contention, as is the effectiveness of bilingual books.

The most recent census report reveals that over 34% of the U.S.'s 37.4 million Hispanics are under age 18. Clearly, Spanish-language children's books are a strong potential market. It's estimated that by 2010, one out of every five children in the United States will be Hispanic. In the early years, when the market was just opening for books in Spanish, most of the available children's Spanish-language titles came from Spain or Argentina, but increasingly, U.S. publishers are making inroads. With more translated and original Spanish-language books available to schools, libraries, booksellers, parents, and children, increased attention is being paid to the standards and preferences of educators and consumers. The heated debates over the "right" kind of Spanish to purchase may unnecessarily put off those in charge of selecting children's books.

The Mother Tongue With A Twist

Teresa Mlawer, the president of New York-based Lectorum Publications, is one of the true pioneers in Spanish-language book publishing. As a distributor and bookstore, Lectorum has a big influence on both local buying patterns and national distribution. The publishing arm, which is part of Scholastic, puts out 12 books a year, mostly translations of well-known and best-selling titles. Its biggest success has been its Spanish edition of Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham, with 90,000 copies sold.

"The Cat in the Hat/El gato en el sombrero was published in a bilingual edition by Random House in 1967, and the Spanish text doesn't rhyme," says Mlawer. "Our Spanish-language editions rhyme, but the Random House one is literal and that's too bad. I'm a small publisher, and I can spend nine months putting out a book, but a big publisher is not going to spend nine months to get it to rhyme."

But, according to Mlawer, the tide started turning away from only publishing U.S. classics in translation, and Lectorum began seeking original works in Spanish. In 2001, Lectorum published Puerto Rican children's author Georgina Lázaro (see Críticas author interview, fall 2001). At the moment, Mlawer is particularly excited about a new book by the Colombian writer Ivar Da Coll (see interview on p.25) that tackles the Mexican Day of the Dead. The transnational lifestyle of the author, who spends half the year in Mexico City, immediately raised a warning flag for Mlawer as she tried to maintain the Mexican integrity of the material. "Sometimes we use in-house translators and sometimes we use freelance and outside translators, but I have the final say," she says. "I called Ivar and told him, 'you're from Colombia, I'm from Cuba. I want this to be edited by a Mexican editor.'"

Mark Twain, Ebonics, and the Queen's English notwithstanding, the idea of standard English seems secure in the United States. But because Latin America is composed of so many different countries, each with its own idiosyncratic take on the mother tongue, it is often the Spaniards who have tried to set the standard for the rest. "There exists only one universal Spanish with different hues and textures according to regions, zones, or countries where it is spoken," says Poppy Grijalbo, publisher of Ediciones Serres in Barcelona, which last year exported more than 11,000 children's books to the United States. According to Grijalbo, Ediciones Serres is known as the art house for children's books, with translations of Lucy Cousin's Maisy series the centerpiece of its stateside success.

"The translators and proofreaders we use always have in mind that our books are intended for the North American Hispanic market as well as the Latin American one," says Grijalbo. "When problems come up, there should be a small index with different synonyms for each country." Ediciones Serres has just published a translation of Lauren Child's I Will Never Eat a Tomato (Nunca jamás comeré tomates), about the difficulties some children have eating certain foods. "When we confronted the problem of the names of the foods in each country," says Grijalbo, "we created a game which explained them."

Grijalbo's optimistic slant on regionalisms reflects the reality of Spain, which must also contend with the languages originating in provinces like Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque country, as well as Latin America, whose countries have long accepted one another's versions of Spanish. But as the market for Spanish-language books grew in this country, educators and publishers representing different Latino groups clashed over the idea of what exactly standard Spanish is.

"In academia there's this chauvinism about the different kinds of Spanish," says Bobby Byrd, who, with his wife, Lee, is copublisher of Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, TX. "When we first started, there was a lot of disrespect for Mexican Spanish; it was the bad boy. That decreased as we began pointing out that the Mexican population [at approximately 67%] is the biggest Latino population in the U.S., so it's not good business to discriminate against them."

The Spanish spoken in Texas and the Southwest varies from the informal Mexican (and sometimes Spanglish) permutations of the border and the more formal Spanish of northern New Mexico. Since Cinco Puntos is located in El Paso, the cultural capital of the Texas-Mexico border region, it's only natural that it's one of the country's foremost producers of bilingual books. "As long as you're along the border or even in Los Angeles, it was always a natural thing to do. But when you got out of the Mexican-American territories it became sort of unnatural, and there was a lot of resistance to it," Byrd adds.

Bilingual Books Vs. Dual Editions

In the border regions of Texas, bilingualism is a natural societal phenomenon, while in California, the Chicano movement of the '60s and '70s established bilingual education in that state's school system. But in 1998, the passage of Proposition 227 banned bilingual education from California's classrooms. Dual-language editions are favored by language purists, who believe children establish a command over both languages by studying them separately. Some publishers and educators, mostly in western states like California and Texas, however, favor bilingual books, believing simultaneous exposure to both languages in one book better reflects the reality and desires of parents and children.

"Monolingual English teachers really like bilingual books," says Mlawer, "because while the child is reading the story in Spanish at least they know what they're reading and they can follow along. Also, parents who are monolingual Spanish and their children bilingual like them because they can read the story with the children at home."

But Mlawer is troubled by what she sees as the creative restrictions placed on the translations in bilingual books, in which the English and Spanish versions appear side by side. This can create an over-literal translation, although many parents and educators believe this juxtaposition makes it easier for children to decipher the text's meaning in both languages. "Recently, I was translating a book by Rosemary Wells called Only You. I didn't realize that the text in English rhymed, and it was almost impossible to get it right and fit it on the page. I asked the publisher to let me adapt a little bit, and they agreed. But you'll find many publishers who don't want you to do that. Still, I'm not against bilingual books, I think they have a place in the market."

Schon scoffs at the idea of bilingual books, insisting they don't make sense for children under 13. "For publishers, librarians, and some teachers and parents, bilingual books are now very sexy," says Schon. "They have a real market appeal. People think, 'I'll buy bilingual books because my children are going to be bilingual.'" But Schon says bilingual book supporters use adult logic when they talk about the problem of educating children. Many parents look fondly on the day, when, in high school or college, they read a bilingual edition by a poet like Pablo Neruda and found themselves drawn back to the mother tongue they had neglected in trying to assimilate.

"You were already an adult, you were very interested in a second language, you already knew English well, that's why you can read Pablo Neruda in English and at the same time enjoy the beauty of original Neruda. That's a good example of how you can use bilingual books very well," Schon says. "But generally, with few exceptions, bilingual books for children are lousy, especially the Spanish because it's too often written in English syntax--they're literal translations."

Schon, who was a librarian in her native Mexico City for 10 years before earning her Ph.D. in the United States, doesn't necessarily believe that children should be force fed books written in traditional or nonregional Spanish. She is very enthusiastic about the work of Los Angeles children's author Gary Soto, whose Chato's Kitchen was translated into Chato y su cena by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy. Soto's writing style draws heavily on California Chicano dialect, especially in its description of barrio life. "It's that comic storytelling, that vernacular--'the coolest low-riding cat of East L.A.' and 'novio boy'--that is beautiful. This is really going to encourage readers. You can't do it if you're offering books that are not written in a beautiful natural style."

Byrd of Cinco Puntos believes the Spanish in his books has been unfairly singled out, and that a double standard exists. "We could have a hundred errors in the English and nobody would ever say a word, but if you have an error in the Spanish it's a real faux pas." He believes his formula--75% of his children's books are published in bilingual editions--captures the essence of the region that produced folktales like La Llorona and El Cucuy, two of his biggest-selling books. La Llorona has sold more than 80,000 copies since its debut in 1985. "At the insistence of some people, we did a dual-language book, and it was a miserable failure. Curbstone Press did a dual edition of Luis Rodríguez's La llaman América (America Is her Name), and they sold five times as many in English."

Oralia Garza de Cortés, an independent scholar in children's book selection who also serves on several children's book award committees, including the U.S. chapter of the IBBY Hans Christian Award, currently works as a parent education specialist for the Boyle Heights Center in Los Angeles. As a specialist on the market, she says bilingual books have become a political and economic controversy in the Latino community. She has defended bilingual books since the late '80s, when she spoke out during a Booklist panel at the ALA convention, insisting they were crucial to family literacy. She believes the climate that has all but outlawed bilingual education in California is not helped by dual-language editions of Spanish-language books.

"With these dual editions, librarians who are under increasing budgetary constraints chose only to buy the English edition," says Garza de Cortés. "Bilingual books are the only way to get any Spanish at all into the classroom." Garza de Cortés laments that children already have enough difficulty getting their hands on bilingual books because libraries often catalog them in the Spanish section. "This method effectively discourages opportunities for English- dominant children to read about Latino culture, whether or not they are Latinos themselves."

As for the argument against the literal translations that occur in bilingual editions, Garza de Cortés believes it is more of a problem in literary trade books like De oro y esmeraldas (Of Gold and Emeralds, Bt Bound, 2001) by Lulu Delacre, but sees no reason why simpler preschool books like I Had a Hippopotamus shouldn't be published in bilingual versions. "I also lament the fact that Messengers of the Rain, which was done by Canadian publisher Groundwood, was done in two separate volumes instead of a bilingual edition."

Garza de Cortés maintains that there has been a prejudice against Mexican Spanish in the past, pointing out that the frequent use of the diminutive, a characteristic of Mexican Spanish, drew dismay from publishers and educators from other backgrounds. The debate over regionalisms often hinges on whether they are used in the narrative or dialog. "One of our books that does really well is Cada niño, Every Child, a bilingual songbook," Byrd says. "People criticized it, said it's bad Spanish, but we said that's the way she sings the songs. You wouldn't want to change a song by [blues legend] Leadbelly into good English, or a song by [Mexican American singer] Tish Hinojosa into good Spanish, would you?"

"I'm not opposed to dialects," says Schon. "When Elena Poniatowska translated Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street (La Casa en Mango Street), she used Mexican Spanish in the dialog. But in the narrative you have to have standard Spanish. No book published in the United States would go through with 'I ain't know nothing,' unless it's part of a dialog and required in the dialog. Otherwise editors are very careful about inducing a writing style that is beautiful, that shows the rhythm, the logic, the symmetry of the Spanish language."

Universal Spanish? The Forecast

That some kind of standard Spanish, which is at least recognizable to most Spanish readers, is necessary is indisputable. But Spanish usage by Latinos who have long lived in the United States, as well as by recent immigrants, is in a constant state of flux. Still, even standard English has long been altered by dialects from the South, from urban areas of the North, and these days, even from Spanish; and book publishers and the public have accepted these mutations of syntax, grammar, and vocabulary.

Arguments over the state of the language continue, with some people trying to make our appreciation of it more precise and others trying to leave more room for interpretation. As part of her latest agenda, Schon is pushing strongly for the glossaries in bilingual books to include the definite article for whatever nouns it's translating, because in Spanish it is either masculine (el) or feminine (la), and not knowing these distinctions is a major impediment to mastering the language. But if Byrd wants to use El día que nevó tortillas (The Day it Rained Tortillas), a grammatically challenged title for an upcoming Joe Hayes book (the Royal Academy of Spain insists the word should be nevaron), is he helping to deteriorate the language or being truer to the quirks of his cultural region?

"It's important for children to read books that contain regionalisms from other countries' cultures," says Garza de Cortés. "But I also think it's important for children to be able to read a book in the language they speak so that a book in Spanish isn't foreign to them. There's something to be said about the sounds that are overlooked in an effort to be correct. How it sounds is sometimes so much more important."

Universal Spanish could be defined as Spanish that steers clear of regional character. But perhaps incorporating the sounds and feel of regional variations in the long run will help the regional become all the more universal. The more children's literature absorbs these variations, the more children get a sense of who Latinos really are, and how diverse the culture is. Would Americans want the world to think that American English is just the bland, "universal" variety spoken on national television?

"It's very positive for different groups to learn about the way people use different words," says Mlawer. "The more vocabulary you know the better. You become somebody--even if you don't have a lot of opportunity to travel--who can encounter other people and learn their customs and traditions through literature." By being exposed to these differences, children of immigrants from Latin American countries that never got a chance to get to know one another can finally do it here, north of the border.

Posted November 2003