Dialogicla Horizons: Latino Voices and U.S. Audiences: E Pluribus Plures

Comparative Civilizations Review Volume 32 Number 32 Spring 1995 Article 4 4-1-1995 Dialogicla Horizons: Latino Voices and U.S. Audiences: E Pluribus Plures Ann McBride-Limaye Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr Recommended Citation McBride-Limaye, Ann (1995) "Dialogicla Horizons: Latino Voices and U.S. Audiences: E Pluribus Plures," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 32 : No. 32 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol32/iss32/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the All Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Comparative Civilizations Review by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact , . McBride-Limaye: Dialogicla Horizons: Latino Voices and U.S. Audiences: E Pluribus COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW 46 "Dialogical Horizons: Latino Voices and U.S. Audiences: E Pluribus PluresV' Ann McBride-Limaye When diverse cultures encounter each other in a spirit of true dialogue, each is enriched, not only in the discovery of unsuspected riches in the other but also in the recognition of unnoticed potentials in itself. (Mikhail Bakhtin) This essay explores the problem of writing across cultural boundaries in the recent dialogical encounter between Latino writers and mainstream audiences in the United States by examining imagery and per spectives in literary creations which are beginning to fill the lacuna which is the Latin absence in the collective memory of the United States. Contemporary Latino writers are constructing vibrant narratives of cultural experience and imagination that provide audiences a new perspective on American life, a reinvention of the authors' own histories, and a reinvigoration of a more inclusive American history. In the process, they are creating anew a branch of literature that goes back over one hundred years, and like other dialogues, this one is proving to be a process of mutual discovery at the historical moment when the Latino presence in the United States is becoming substantial. Given current demographic trends, by 2010 Latinos will be largest minority in the United States. Et pluribus pluresl To what extent does the literary expression of transculturation corroborate findings of the recent poll, Latino Voices, which suggest that Spanish-speaking Latinos primarily identify with their ethnic group of origin, and desire assimilation and integration into the larger Anglo, i.e., English-speaking, society? This inquiry traces out the many other possible outcomes the encounter is having: denial of the other and persistence of ethnic identities, acceptance of the other and appreciation of the other's "outsidedness", pluralistic integration, or a process of Latinization that leads to engulfment of Anglo culture by a continuing process of mestizaje, i.e. cultural and physical blending and hybridization. Is there an emerging Latino consciousness? One finds in the voices of Latino writers a recognition of a shared, submerged cultural past made up of suppressed histories and memories. In this essay, I am listening to and engaging with voices in works by Latino writers who share varieties of linguistic and cultural continuity: 1 Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1995 1 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 32 [1995], No. 32, Art. 4 Ann McBride-Limaye Chicano: Mexican American: Americanized Mexican: Mexican: New Mexican: Latina: Puerto Rican/Nuyorican: Cuban exile: 47 Tomas Rivera, Victor Villasenor Richard Rodriguez, Arturo Islas Carlos Fuentes Gloria Anzaldua Rudolfo Anaya Sandra Cisneros Rosario Ferre, Edward Rivera Reinaldo Arenas, Cristina Garcia, Oscar Hijuelos Dominican exile: Julia Alvarez. These are writers who come from a cultural context which is a combination of the following elements: familiarity with the Spanish language and Latin American culture and myths. They write principally in English (or collaborate with others to create English translations) but their writing shows clear marks of Spanish-English hybridization. They show the common feature of what Victor Villasenor calls "thinking in Spanish and writing in English" (Rain of Gold xii). Although these writers share Latin origins, it is linguistic, ethnic and cultural heterogeneity that characterizes them. Some have a dialect of Spanish as a first language, others have a dialect of English, some are bilingual or multidialectical and still others use some form of "interlanguage", a metamorphosing variety of discourse made up of a prismatic blend of grammaticosemantic elements from two or more different languages. (The phenomenon of interlanguage will be addressed further below.) Out of the dialogue of the present with the past which constitutes history, these writers are creating new narratives. Carlos Fuentes uses the term "reinvention" to address the problem of recreating a past that has been lost: "Vivmos rodeados de mundos perdidos y de historias desaparecidas" [We live surrounded by lost worlds and their lost histories.] (Valiente 47). The language of the hybrids in this emergent literary landscape is considered here in its expressive and revelatory aspects and is analyzed in terms of metaphors of positionality, displacement and negotiation. Where are the roots of this emergent literary tradition, and in particular, how is it connected to Latin American literature and the immigrant literatures of North America? Why have U.S. audiences applauded the political nature of Latin American literature and, at the same time, tended to reject Latino literature for its political—and therefore, in this case, not universal—qualities which were said to make it unmarketable? (Shorris 384, 386). In attempting to answer these questions and to describe the audiences for these works, one immediately identifies problems of intelligibility to match the complexity of the voices: ideal readers of Latino texts must know English and Spanish as well as be familiar with myth and metaphor from Latin American and Latino cultures. 2 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol32/iss32/4 2 McBride-Limaye: Dialogicla Horizons: Latino Voices and U.S. Audiences: E Pluribus 48 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW The contested terminology and meaning of the Hispanic-Latino/Anglo encounter in political, social, gender, geographical and linguistic terms grows out of the competing identities that shape the diversity of both writers and audiences in post-modern, multi-ethnic America. Since the 1970 census "Hispanic" has been used as a category, but not since the 1930 census has "Hispanic" been used as a racial term. "Anglo" is a conflation that scarcely carries the weight of "non-Latino". Neither group, Anglo nor Latino, can be defined racially. Earl Shorris, author of Latinos: A Biography of the People, voices a representative view when he describes how: 3 During preparations for the 1980 U.S. Census, several names for the group were discussed (...truncated)