A contentious debate: To write or not to write in Spanish

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https://play.ht/articles/cd9ad907d4bdCall me naive, but I never thought I would have to defend my story’s Spanglish lexicon in a writing conference, much less one in California. Nonetheless, there I was, doing just that on my last day of the writer’s conference.

Up until that point I was enjoying myself immensely. There’s absolutely nothing like being in a room of like-minded individuals. I don’t know what it was, I felt cozy like I belonged. Here I was discussing writerly things, with people who love to write. Normally at home and work, I’m around people who don’t share the same passion, so this was a treat.

But nothing is perfect and this conference wouldn’t be the exception.

The speaker asked for volunteers to read a passage from their works in progress, with the burst of a nerd on the first day of school I raised my hand and beat everyone there. I read in my perfect Spanish and English the first page of my manuscript. I held onto the correct pauses. Accentuated the correct syllables. Didn’t read too fast nor too slow. When I finished, I was like a rooster with my size 34C chest stuck out filled with pride and tentative smile on my lips.

The smile didn’t hold for too long. Another raised her hand. While my eyes trailed through each word on the page, and I traveled inside the page I hadn’t noticed her. But there she was with subtle flashes of brand and jewelry that could only come from someone who’s bought a home in the hills of La Jolla.

“I wouldn’t buy your book with Spanish words,” she said. She didn’t say this to me. She said it to the entire room.

I didn’t have a mirror in front of me, but I knew my cheeks were inflamed as soon as I heard those words. I don’t know what it is about those fight or flight moments, I sometimes have. I’m like a cheetah in the jungle, faced with a much larger predator. My vision often blurs and everything moves so slow, and I could hear even the quietest of farts.

I looked around the room oh so slowly, hoping for someone to save me, or at the very least agree with me. But everything was oh so quiet, I could hear a silenced ring tone. Still, I scanned the room, but there was nothing. It was then I realized in a room of like-minded individuals I was the only brown one pushing a Spanglish lexicon in my book.

I must have taken too long to talk because the speaker seized the opportunity, and in his lumberjack drawl, advised me to rethink my choice since I may lose potential readers. Without thinking, because my brain was as mushy as my vision, I said, “Then you are not my target reader.”

From the corner of my eye, I counted two nods from two women. But it was too late, they had watched as I was bitten on the neck. It was then I realized this was my fight to sort out alone.

“I’m not changing it,” I add.

The feeling of joy and wonder, dissipated and the back of my eyes burned from the angry tears, of an angry sob I usually reserve for the shower or my pillow.

I don’t cry in public, because very few people deserve the vulnerability of my tears. But these were not vulnerable tears, they were angry, no infuriating tears. Nonetheless, I held them back. They didn’t deserve those, either.

I would be lying if I told you, I paid attention to the rest of the class. The speaker moved on to another volunteer. I sat there bleeding from my neck and holding on to a pen, I couldn’t use to write. My hand was shaking so bad, whatever I wrote was unreadable. Only scribbles with anger-filled ink. That was the last class, on the last day.

When the class was finally over, many hung around and passed out cards and contacts. I stayed with my head down, filling my bag with my notepad and pens as fast as I could. But I felt her eyes burn a hole on my left cheek. From the moment she said those words, I knew right where she was, and followed with my ears each of her moves. I knew she had placed her expensive notepad in her five thousand dollar handbag. I knew she clicked her pen and slid it inside an inner pocket. I knew she sat back down with her hands on her lap waiting for me to be done. So I took my time because I needed to stretch my muscles before going back into the fight.

While others shuffled around the room, and before I could place the last pen in my bag, she said, “I just wouldn’t read it.”

I didn’t know if this was an apology or if she was pushing the dagger deeper to hit the artery.

“Ma’am, that’s fine. You are not my target audience.” I placed the bag over my shoulder and looked towards the door.

“You know I’ve lived in California my whole life and I won’t even learn it for my gardener, I’m not going to learn it now for a book.”

The thing with bias is that hardly ever we know we have them. Obviously, the rich lady with the pearls and expensive bag didn’t understand hers.

With my knees and soul protesting, I sat back down. My bag slumped on the floor, but I raised my head high. “I am a Latin American writer. A piece of me goes inside every story I write. Part of that is Spanish and I will not change that not even for sales.”

“You may not do so well in sales,” she warned.

I know she meant well and in a perfect world, I would have a mirror to place in front of her so she may peel the veil of racism.

I would love to say that I picked up my bag and left. But I stayed there, and listen to the words of wisdom from this lady who thought she was giving me good advice.

The fact is that I received good advice like this before. From a doctor who told me not to speak Spanish to my child because he was lagging behind in his vocabulary.

I discovered years later he could have learned both and eventually he’s vocabulary would catch up. Now he’s taking classes to learn the language.

At work from the co-workers who swear I’m talking about them and ask me to stop talking Spanish. I remind them, I can speak whatever I want and only business-related messages and briefings must be in English, and this was not.

I lived in Europe where most people speak more than one language and speaking one, the other, or both are not frowned upon. But here in the most freedom happy country inside a writer’s conference in California, I needed to justify using my birth language in my work of fiction.

And they will go on with their biases and probably will never admit they are holding on veiled racism or at the very least insecurity from not knowing it themselves. And they will live their lives pointing the finger at the ‘other’ because it will never be their problem.

When I got home I put more Spanish words into the story. But then I shelved it. Not because of the Spanglish lexicon, but because I chose to enroll in a creative writer’s program to hone my craft and eventually put the best version of me into my work.

But I still remember her words. They are still painful. What’s so funny about verbal scars is that they don’t heal like physical ones. There’s no cream to put over your scar and make it disappear. They never leave your memory bank. They just sit there, taunting me to doubt, and rethink my choices.

Sometimes fighting is exhausting and being on the defensive depleting.

Then I took a break. A very long break to hide and then to heal. Only choosing to read and write scholarly essays and research papers with lone works cited pages.

Once the break was over, I wrote again and wrote in Spanglish. On my third class towards my MFA in creative writing I shared it with my classmates. Some advised to italicized the words because the conventional publishing standard says so. I itched to write a response, with angry words from the comfort of my home. But my husband said, “not everything is a war zone. Let it go.”

And I let it go.

When the professor replied back on my submission she said, “And finally, speaking of italics, since this issue will probably come up, you’ll want to make a decision about whether to put the Spanish language in italics in the text. It is often standard publishing practice to put non-English words in italics. However, many writers also feel that this is a stylistic as well as a cultural issue, and they choose not to put other languages in italics. Since dual identity, and inhabiting a bilingual universe, seems key here, you keep the text as it is and avoid italics when different languages are used.”

For me is a cultural issue. Spanish is to me like the color of my eyes. It will always be a part of my life. Every world that I create has a piece of me, and that piece is Spanish without italics.