When solidarity is possible yet fails: A translation critique and reader reception study of Helena María Viramontes’ “El café ‘Cariboo’”

ABSTRACT

This article provides a methodology for translation critique that combines textual and sociological analysis. The source and target texts of the Chicana short story “The Café Cariboo” / “El café ‘Cariboo’” are examined in connection with a reader reception study. It is argued that the use of Mexican Spanish as the translating language reveals a norm of ethnic appropriateness, while diminishing diversity among the story’s social figures. This suggests that the terms of the debate regarding the translation of Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x literature must be broadened beyond the representation of hybrid identities. As evidence, a discussion of the qualitative data from a translocal reader study conducted with Hispanophone readers of “El café ‘Cariboo’” in Europe and the United States is presented. Different ways of imagining the Anglo, Nicaraguan and Chicana/o characters and the social relations among them are explored in terms of the political implications for construing solidarity.

KEYWORDS:

• Chicana literature
• translation
• reception study
• focus groups
• solidarity
• identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article is part of a larger study on short stories by Junot Díaz, Achy Obejas, and Daisy Hernández. The project was approved by the Institutional Committee for Ethical Review of Projects (CIREP-Universitat Pompeu Fabra) (application no. 152).

2 There are some well-known exceptions like Elena Poniatowska’s translation of Sandra Cisneros or Obejas’ translation of Junot Díaz, but this is not the general trend.

3 All names are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation: [Grant Number PID2019-104755GB-I00].

Notes on contributors

Mattea Cussel

Mattea Cussel holds a PhD in translation studies from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and is a research fellow at Universitat Autònoma Barcelona. She has published on “Methodological nationalism in translation studies: A critique” (2021) in Translating and Interpreting Studies and “Transnational and global approaches in translation studies: methodological observations” (2020) in The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Globalization. She is a member of the Political Translation research project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.