Although the book “Yo-Yo Boing” has a disperse, non-linear structure, I enjoyed reading it while I slowly discovered its unique character. The book is a collection of conversations, showing love, passion, anger, and arguments about diverse topics. There is not a very obvious transition between one topic and the other, sometimes making it hard to follow, but as I Spanish and English speaker, I was able to better understand these conversations and some of the expressions used. The author explains that she obtained some of her ideas from conversations she listened to and experienced, which were inspirational for her in a time of hope and prosperity for the US and the world. There is even a conversation where the characters are arguing about writing a book, and one of them is asking for help to the other or for a peaceful environment to be able to write: “My book needs your English. – The dialogues are fine the way they are. I think we should dedicate to the structure. – When do we start? – This weekend. – I have a dinner. – Again? It’s the only time I have to work.”
The author of the book is a Puerto Rican writer who has lived for many years in New York City. With her literature and specifically with this book, the writer intends to portray the bilingualism and biculturalism of people like her, who emigrated to a place with a different culture, language, and environment. Therefore, the book intends to show this “fight” between languages, specifically between her native language, Spanish, and the language she had to become proficient at growing up and in NYC, English. This implicitly shows a “fight” or clash of cultures through language, showing that English, representing her life in the US, is something new that she is adapting to while she can’t let go of Spanish, representing her heritage from Puerto Rico.
A remarkable aspect of this book is the switches between English and Spanish, as it is written in both languages. The author claims this is a portrayal of her struggle while writing the book, as she didn’t want to write a book entirely in English, but at the same time, she was living in the US mainland, so she couldn’t write it fully in Spanish either. Therefore, she is portraying “the struggle of the emigrant”. This is something that happens to a lot of people I know who immigrated to English-speaking countries, including myself. My bilingual routine, as well as Giannina’s and every other bilingual emigrant, makes you sometimes forget certain words in one of the languages and automatically switch to the other one. These language switches not only show the complex nature of bilingualism, but in my opinion, also show certain emotions in the characters. When I read a combination of English and Spanish in the middle of the characters’ conversation, I could especially sense confusion and anger. For instance, in the conversation when the narrator is talking about the benefits of always being suspicious or “uncomfortable”: “Dónde. A tu lomo. – Coño. Respiro aire fresco y me siento bien. Te lo juro. I’m not ready for another tragedy, really, who’s ever ready for a tragedy.”
Did you enjoy the bilingual nature of this book or did it make you get lost more often? If the book was translated into only one language, would the reader get a similar experience out of the thoughts and conversations of the characters?
I really like your description of Braschi’s bilingual acrobatics as a “fight” or “clash.” I’ve definitely experienced the frustration and confusion of translation in my multicultural upbringing; a lot of times feelings of defensiveness or defiance come up. But I also like to think of Braschi’s characters’ and my bilingualism as a sort of dance, an art in and of itself. It feels great to have the freedom to skip between languages as needed and be fully understood – maybe even more understood than had you translated the sentiment entirely. This comes with a great deal of privilege, of course, including growing up around people who feel equally comfortable English and Spanish. But, as Spanglish is oftentimes a source of ridicule for Hispanic immigrants (in my experience), I think it’s nice to reclaim some of the joy of it.
A someone who speaks both languagesit made me enjoy the book even more, it reminded me of how my brian thinks usally. Having learned english from a very young age, and specially now that i live in an englis speaking country I often find both languages trying to be dominant one in my head and due to that I often find myself tilizing the beaty that is spanglish.
Montserrat Avendano.
Hi Julia, I agree with your statement about being fluent in both English and Spanish helped me understand this book as (I believe) the author intended. This kind of answers your question as the bilingual aspect in this case helped me flow more comfortably with the book as I myself sometimes talk in Spanglish. I think that if the book was either translated fully into Spanish or English, a lot of the expressions and the “atmosphere” of the conversations portrayed in the book would be lost and its charm itself would not be the same
Hi there,
thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
As a duo-language speaker who had to re-learn Spanish through oral practices, though I didn’t read as fast in Spanish as I do in English, I still enjoyed the book for the fact that it delved into the social topic of duo-lingual identities. If it were translated into one language than I think it would of defied the purpose of the book since it was meant to be read by Spanish and English speaking identities.