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?