Spanish or English: A Matter of Choice? (Part VIII)

This time around, with a set of reasonable expectations, I passed the doctoral exams without experiencing the slightest trauma.

A whirlwind of events immediately followed. First, I wrote my dissertation on Don Quijote de la Mancha, in English—for now I was far too excited about my development as a writer in this language to desist. I had conducted the necessary research three years earlier and saved the information in orderly files. And since I had plenty of time to dwell on the topic, the three-hundred page treatise seemed to write itself.

But in those three years away from Spanish something inside of me had changed. No longer was I the wide-eyed, idealistic student who had loved the language unconditionally. The experience of the failed exams had destroyed my innocence. Also, during that time I had discovered a new passion: English—and my heart now wanted to continue along this path. What’s more, having a doctorate in Spanish no longer meant the completion of a dream: it had become something akin to having fulfilled the stipulations of a business contract so I would be allowed to enter the teaching profession at the next level of play.

That step came when I accepted an offer to join the Department of Foreign Languages at Appalachian State University, in Boone, North Carolina. This meant moving to the east coast, a world away from everything I had ever known. But the lure of living on the cusp of the mystical Blue Ridge Mountains was too strong to resist—to this day I’ve never lived anywhere so beautiful.

My first years at Appalachian I was happy teaching Spanish. But as I began to probe my heart, searching for the area of research and publication I wanted to pursue, a place where I could carve out a small niche for myself as a scholar, I failed to find one. Having attended a couple of conferences devoted to Don Quijote, I knew that I didn’t want to pursue this path for I thought the Cervantistas a stuffy crowd. And the dilemma became worse after I scanned the entire horizon of Spanish and Spanish-American literature and found nothing that ignited a fire within me.

I was adrift, without an academic area, after many years of preparation, that I wanted to call home. I started to fear—and for someone who teaches college this is an enormous phobia—that my passion for studying had completely burned out, rendered a pile of ashes, and that I was destined to become someone who would never distinguish himself in his chosen field.

Submerged in this stagnant pool of scholarly ennui, I felt trapped, caught in a limbo where the meaning of one’s life work is absent. This changed, and abruptly, however, the day I strolled into a bookstore on Main Street, in Boone. Browsing through the stacks, I came across Oscar Hijuelos’s The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. I knew the novel, written by a Cuban-American, had won the Pulitzer Prize, so I took a chance and bought it. Reading that book changed my life as well as the way I looked at fiction written in the English.

When I wrote my earlier novels, I yearned for models—writers with a similar background to my own who straddled the line between cultures and languages and who saw the world in a way similar as I did, but at the time I could find none. I had now read such a writer.

(What I still find mystifying is that the characters in The Mambo Kings are eerily familiar, as if I had lived among them during my Los Angeles childhood. This was the same feeling I had upon first reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, in which Gabriel García Márquez managed to capture the essence of the people who populated my Nicaraguan adolescence.)

The discovery of Hijuelos and his work reignited a fire within my imagination, and that blaze started to roar like a furnace in the dead of an Appalachian winter. But I first approached the topic of US Latino and Latina Literature—written in English—from a scholarly perspective, not as a creator, for I firmly believed that my dream of becoming a novelist had been nothing more than a foolish catharsis against the disappointment of having failed the exams. Regardless, I suddenly possessed an academic obsession, an intellectual and emotional fervor I was willing to die for.

But this new found passion also divided me, and often times painfully. I was expected to teach Spanish, exclusively; but now the new calling of my soul, coupled with the knowledge I was accumulating at an astonishingly rapid rate and that I desperately wanted to share with the world, was pushing me even further into English.

Spanish or English: A Matter of Choice? (Part VII)

Reeling in pain from the thought that five years of arduous work and total dedication to learning everything I could about Spanish-language literature had been for nothing, I sought refuge in English.

Now free for the first time in ages to read books of my choosing, I started to devour the works of American and British novelists to catch up on the English-language masterpieces I felt I had been missing.

But, more significantly, I found immense solace in writing: my first novel, in English. The idea for the story had come to me a couple of months before the mishap, in what felt like a blinding flash, while I was showering. It was a clear vision, playing in my head like the clearest of films, of a young Nicaraguan who, from the pitcher’s mound, threw a blistering fastball to an American batter. The setting was Nicaragua, 1933, during the final months of the three-decade old U.S. Marine occupation.

I knew the story ended with that pitch, and I became ardently devoted to uncovering everything that preceded the vision. What particularly excited me about writing this novel was the possibility of painting on a canvas so panoramic that I would be able to incorporate a good portion of the history of Nicaragua during the 20th century. (This is something that, I believe, I accomplished years later in Bernardo and the Virgin.)

Writing this book greatly eased the bitter disappointment of having failed my doctoral exams. I found fiction an addicting elixir, capable of lifting the drab clouds of reality that surround our daily lives. What’s more, the magic of creation was taking place in English, and this vastly increased my interest in, as well as my love for, the language.

I completed the novel, polished it as best as I could, and sent the manuscript to a few publishers, absolutely sure that they would jump for joy over having discovered this new and vastly talented writer who was in command of the English language yet wrote from a Latino perspective.

Quite the opposite happened.

I received a series of impersonal form-letters; but among them was one that helped me understand that I still needed to learn a lot about the craft. Structure, characterization, point of view, pacing, and purposeful revision meant little to me. Realizing this, I abandoned hope of publishing this book and set forth on a new venture: a novel, detailing the entire life, from infancy to old age, of the legendary Zorro. (I wrote this fifteen years before Isabel Allende published her Zorro.)

In writing this novel, I was able to conduct considerably more research than with the first one. (In fact, a large part of the problem with my first effort was that I was writing about Nicaragua after having been away for more than ten years, and I’ve since learned that to bring a setting to life the details of the place must be fresh in a writer’s mind.) Over the course of my investigations I became quite an expert in the Spanish colonization of California and the years of Mexican rule.

But as I wrote the rough draft, the subject somehow shifted. Now the story, in addition to being about Zorro, became about the rise and fall of the Californios, and to reflect the importance of the dual protagonists would require a major overhaul of the manuscript, something I felt incapable of performing. Because of this, I shelved the rough draft—never to touch it again—but, still madly in love with writing in English, I immediately embarked on a third novel.

This new effort was influenced by the large amount of children’s literature I was reading at the time. The work was a cross between a fairy tale and a fantasy, but I didn’t ever discover the story and when I was about a hundred pages into the manuscript, the characters held a meeting in my head and told me, in no uncertain terms, that although they were most interesting, I had them performing absolutely boring tasks; and since they were right, I abandoned the work.

Throughout this time I continued working in education, at the University of Arizona, in a non-teaching position. Through my job I was able to keep abreast of developments in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Since I had left, three years earlier, a new chairperson, Dr. Charles (“Chuck”) Tatum—one of the most remarkable persons I’ve ever met—had managed the miracle, and in an amazingly short period of time, of bringing stability to the department. He was well acquainted with my case and one day he contacted me, saying, “Are you ready to return to finish your doctorate? We need to right the wrong that was done to you.”

Knowing that Chuck was a person who could be completely trusted, I accepted, excited about the idea of finishing what I had come to believe was impossible; and almost at the snap of my fingers I once again found myself immersed in Spanish.

Spanish or English: A Matter of Choice? (Part VI)

During five years of graduate school, virtually everything I wrote was in Spanish. But these writings were academic—esoteric essays that could only interest, and remotely at that, hardcore researchers on obscure topics of Spanish-language literature. Still, at the time I believed that to produce articles and, perhaps someday, a book or two on literary criticism, was my destiny—as well as my only recourse—as a writer. What’s more, I fully embraced the notion of a life devoted to teaching and scholarship in the areas of Spanish and Spanish-American literature.

But then, one of those luminous moments in a writer's development took place. I was well into my fifth year of graduate work, and shortly before I was scheduled to take my doctoral exams, when I wrote a piece on Juan Boscán, a Catalan poet of the Spanish Renaissance, for one of my classes. The professor believed that with some revision the essay would be worthy of publication; and I, caught on the academic treadmill and in a hurry to add muscle to my C.V., began to explore the possibility further. Upon conducting the suggested research, however, I concluded that I needed to write the essay all over again, from scratch and with a different focus.

When I sat down before the computer to begin writing the new version, in Spanish, I did so without an outline—which is something highly unusual for me. I stared at the blinking cursor, for what seemed like ages, unable to conjure up a single word. Then, without thinking, I typed the name of Juan Boscán’s wife—Ana Girón de Rebolledo: the noblewoman who played a key role in introducing the works of Garcilaso de la Vega, the first truly great poet of the Spanish language, to the world.

I stared at her name, my first sentence, still unable to continue further. At last, and suddenly, as if in a trance, my fingers started moving rapidly along the keyboard and, virtually without being aware of writing, I finished the essay in a single sitting. The experience felt absolutely magical, a genuine visit from the muses.

More interestingly, however, I wrote the article in English. Ultimately, the piece was so flawless that when it was accepted for publication, the editors of the journal didn’t even ask me to change a comma. And for the first time ever, in spite of years practice in writing and editing several newsletters in English, I felt as if I had been in total command when writing in that language, and the feeling was exhilarating.

But while basking in the glow of that triumph, believing that I was now truly able to express myself with equal strength, in writing, in either language, something unexpected happened that altered the way I felt toward Spanish.

For five long years I had devoted myself, body and soul, to being the best student I could possibly be. I had done everything my professors had ever asked of me, and I had managed to excel, in their estimation, in several of my classes. That’s why, when I failed to pass the doctoral exams, I felt as if my entire world had collapsed—years of trying to build the foundations of my knowledge on solid ground suddenly came tumbling down like a house of cards.

Pain and outrage consumed me because—and I say this with the objectivity that comes from more than twenty-years distance—I had been set up to fail by one individual: the Graduate Advisor at the time, a sadistic person who wanted to send a message to all graduate students, through me, that we were fair game and none of us lived up to his expectations.

(At the time the Department of the Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona was utterly dysfunctional—the problems were so pronounced that we made the cover of The Chronicle of Higher Education as “The Nation’s Most Conflictive Department”—and the injustice done to me was perceived on campus as just another small complaint in a mile-long list of faculty and student grievances.)

I was advised to stay in the department for another year and then retake the examination; but angered over the unfairness of it all, I walked away from the doctoral program and took out my frustration on Spanish, asking myself, irrationally, I now admit, “How could the language I had loved so faithfully since adolescence betray me in such a heartless fashion?”

Spanish or English: A Matter of Choice? (Part V)

My first two years back in Los Angeles I sought linguistic refuge among my Spanish-speaking friends. But, at the same time, English was working its way back to the forefront of my brain in steady waves that crashed upon the rapidly expanding shoreline of my first language. To help in the process, when I was away from the safety zone of my group, I eavesdropped on English-speakers as discreetly as possible to learn the art of casual conversation. At home, I’d spend hours watching movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s—which explains my fascination with actors of this era—to bridge the gap between the way previous generations spoke and the talk I heard on the streets. And I although I didn’t realize it a the time, this is when, slowly—as opposed to the sudden rush with which Spanish swept me off my feet—I started falling in love with English.

Indeed, my love affair with English seemed to take forever to develop when compared to the six-months it took me to fall head over heels for Spanish. Two seemingly endless years went by before I gained enough confidence to take risks in the English-speaking world. (And since I had spent my adolescence in Nicaragua, the stage in human learning when we soak up idiomatic expressions, there was a huge gap in my knowledge, one that took me fifteen years to fill. Most sayings bewildered me when I first heard them. After all, why would anyone or anything be “after my own heart?” Or, what’s an albatross, and what would it be doing around anyone’s neck? Or, for that matter, why would anyone put a monkey on their back? Or, how could a circle be vicious? Expressions like these puzzled and yet fascinated me for a decade and a half when, at last, I had finally heard and assimilated most of them.)

And during my first two years in college I successfully avoided taking classes that required writing. The sting of my first English professor’s pronouncement, that my writing was unreadable, still hurt. But my dodging this bullet came to an abrupt halt when, in order to continue in my major, Business Management, I was required to take a course on Business Writing. When I walked into the room for that first class meeting I was absolutely terrified, expecting the teacher to point toward the door and cast me out.

But the instructor—I can still remember her name, Mrs. Violet Brown—approached teaching like a cheerleader, celebrating every inch her students gained on the playing field.

And with respect to building my confidence as a writer, Mrs. Brown was exactly the type of mentor I needed at that moment of my life. I always enjoyed writing, regardless of the language, but the comments the Freshman English instructor made two years earlier convinced me that I should confine every thought I chose to put on paper to Spanish. Mrs. Brown, however, beginning with the very first assignment, was delighted with what I wrote for the class, and she presented any criticism as gentle suggestions.

We started the semester composing memos. Then we graduated to letters—at first letters with simple requests, such as making a purchase, and ended with letters of complaint or in response to a complaint: a writing task that required tact and a great deal of imagination. We then learned how to produce Public Service Announcements: calls for community action designed to be read over the radio at a normal pace and in exactly thirty seconds: a wonderful exercise in learning how to write economically. Then Mrs. Brown taught us how to produce a House Organ—a newsletter designed to inform employees of a company about useful or fun information related to their jobs. (The craft of putting together a newsletter served me well in several non-teaching jobs that I had following my graduation from college.) And she ended the course teaching us how to write a research paper. It was through Mrs. Brown that I learned the importance of tone, which is paramount if a writer wants to win readers over.

The teacher praised my progress throughout the semester, and she was the first person to mention that I had a nice “voice” on paper. To this day, I credit Mrs. Brown with giving me confidence. Her class, by far—especially considering that I have never taken a single class in “creative writing”—was the most helpful course I ever took on my way to becoming a writer. The debt I owe her is immeasurable, and thanks to her I was able to complete college because I never avoided another course that required writing. In fact, Mrs. Brown taught me that putting together a research paper can actually be a fun and challenging experience—an attitude that was essential in helping me survive graduate school.

In the years that followed graduation, through the jobs I had, I became so entrenched in the English-speaking world that I no longer hesitated to speak or write for an audience. And yet, Spanish remained the language of my soul as, in my mind, it represented the sounds of poetry and passion.

Four years after having completed my bachelor’s degree, I met another great influence in my life, Dr. José Elgorriaga, Chairperson of the Modern Languages Department of California State University in Fresno. Inspired by what he did for a living, I decided to quit a well-paying job as an insurance underwriter to go to graduate school and study Spanish-language literature full-time. And with that rather sudden turn, I switched language once again—for the next six years almost everything I wrote, and most of what I would speak, would be in Spanish.