Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States (Paperback)

by Hector Tobar (Author) "Long before I understood what the word "revolution" meant, when I was a five-year-old boy growing up in the seamier half of Hollywood, California, I..." (more)
Key Phrases: beef plants, chicken plant, Los Angeles, United States, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The nation's growing Hispanic population constitutes a "Latin Republic of the United States," contends this engrossing survey of Latino America. Pulitzer Prize– winning journalist Tobar chronicles the surge in Central American immigrants to a Los Angeles where "Oliver Twist had escaped from London and was now a Spanish-speaking Angeleno in the age of crack"; listens in on the debate among Cuban exiles over Elián Gonzalez; and interviews undocumented migrants about to brave the ferociously defended Tijuana border crossings. He also follows Latinos, and their influence, into the heartland, finding a well-settled immigrant community in Dalton, Ga.; Nebraska corn farmers vying for the tortilla market; and a white Anglo Mormon who reinvents himself as a Mexican deejay for an Idaho Spanish-language radio station. Tobar insists that, thanks to their great numbers and easy access to cultural wellsprings in nearby homelands, Latinos will avoid assimilation. But he struggles to define the self-confident "Latinoness" he believes will "change the course of American history," locating it variously in a supposed resistance to "good, Protestant, money-making order"; a rejection of cultural boundaries; a taste for bright colors; and the iconography of Che Guevara. These don't really amount to the Tocquevillean insights he's aiming for, but Tobar's nuanced reportage vividly conveys the complexity and pathos of the Latino experience. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post
Before 1980, the U.S. Census did not even record Hispanic origin when it surveyed the country's residents. Today, Hispanics have surpassed African Americans as the nation's largest minority group, and the latest Census estimates (July 2003) indicate that there are 40 million Hispanics in the United States, 13 percent of the nation's population. Hispanics' importance has also burgeoned politically: Just 2 percent of voters in the 1992 national exit polls, they were 8 percent of voters in last November's polls.

This rapid increase in demographic and political importance will continue for decades. Census projections indicate, in fact, that by mid-century Hispanics will be one-quarter of the U.S. population. Quite a change for a group that wasn't even on the census radar screen a few decades ago.

But who exactly are the nation's Hispanics? They are poorly understood by most Americans, who have only the vaguest sense of the Hispanic population's remarkable diversity and geographic spread.

Attentiveness to the complexity of Hispanic life in the United States is the great virtue of Héctor Tobar's new book, Translation Nation. A former national Latino affairs correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and currently its Buenos Aires bureau chief, Tobar showcases diversity through vivid vignettes of Hispanics currently living and working in different areas of the United States. This book is the perfect corrective to the fuzzy profile of the nation's No. 1 minority group that many Americans carry around in their heads.

The most interesting stories are those that take us far, far away from the standard tale of Latino immigration to Los Angeles (which is Tobar's own personal story, also recounted in the book). My favorite starts with Gregorio, a former goatherd who, at the age of 50, moved to Texas, got fake papers and traveled around the country doing a wide variety of migrant labor jobs. When Tobar met him in McAllen, Tex., Gregorio had signed up with a labor recruiter to ride a bus to Anniston, Ala., and start work in the Tyson chicken factory there. Tobar, who had gone underground as a down-and-out Guatemalan looking for work, signed up with the same recruiter and went to Alabama with Gregorio. Once there, they lived in a cluster of trailers along Alabama State Highway 9 entirely occupied by other Hispanics bused in from Texas for the same purpose.

Tobar returned four years later to find that this nucleus of Hispanic workers had expanded into a real Hispanic community. While Gregorio left to do yet other migrant jobs, many workers stayed, and others arrived to work at Tyson and other local jobs. Community members built a Catholic church and have settled in for the long haul.

And so it goes all over the South. In Dalton, Ga., Hispanic workers were brought in to work in the carpet factories. Now Hispanics make up more than half the school-age population, and the local public schools have cheerfully adapted by using bilingual teachers and special programs. The local Hispanic community now supports a Spanish-language radio station, three Spanish-language newspapers and the wildly successful Dalton International Soccer League, with 36 teams. And the city even officially celebrates Mexican Independence Day.

Tobar describes other burgeoning Hispanic communities in the South, as well as a number of similar communities that are arising in the Midwest and the mountain states. The process repeats itself: Hispanics flow into a town or city to fill jobs, which produces a Hispanic community, which leads to institution-building, which makes the community even more attractive to Hispanics seeking work. The next thing you know, the town or city has a substantial Hispanic population with a vibrant culture that helps reshape the entire area.

Tobar's stories convincingly illustrate this process and should leave no one in doubt about the powerful influence the growth of the Hispanic population will have on communities throughout the United States. That's a real strength of his story-based approach, which allows you to visualize the process unfolding in specific places. The weakness, however, is that the stories he tells can also be repetitive, often making essentially the same points and not breaking any new ground.

The last half of the book goes off in different directions, including discussions of Hispanic political power in specific communities, from Miami to San Antonio to Bell Gardens, Calif. Throughout, Tobar is at pains to link the discussion to an important question: What is it that unites those whose origins lie in so many different countries -- Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, etc. -- into a group with any coherence?

Tobar argues that a sense of identity -- latinidad -- links these diverse subgroups and that it is based on a common identification with family ties and history in these lands to the south. The strength of that connection, made possible by the ease with which people can now travel back and forth between their new home and their old one, is something most Hispanics share. A European immigrant in previous eras, Tobar asserts, pretty much had to stay put once he got here. Not so today's Latino immigrant, who can and does return home and keeps his connection to his roots alive.

No doubt there is considerable truth to this analysis. But I was still left with a number of unanswered questions. Are things really as different today for Hispanic immigrants vis à vis earlier immigrants as he suggests ? And what about Hispanic immigrants compared to those from other societies -- isn't it now easier for all immigrants to return home and maintain their roots? If so, will groups from other regions of the world therefore develop their own versions of latinidad? And what about the role of class -- the kinds of jobs Hispanics tend to have -- in cementing Hispanics of diverse origins together, not to mention their common residence patterns?

Its analytical framework may not be completely successful, but Translation Nation does achieve what I take to be its main goal: making the tremendous diversity, dynamism and geographical breadth of our blossoming Hispanic population come alive. That's a valuable contribution to understanding where our country is going in this new century, and I am grateful to Tobar for providing it.

Reviewed by Ruy Teixeira
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade (April 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594481768
• ISBN-13: 978-1594481765
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #425,852 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Latinidad: Cultural Identity, Miscegenation or Diaspora -The Enriching of America, July 18, 2005

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Translation Nation: American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States (Hardcover)

Hector Tobar is a journalist now living in Argentina who also happens to be a fine writer. Probing his own past as the son of immigrants from Guatemala as a baseline and investigating like families and individuals, TRANSLATION NATION is one of the more interesting, readable, and informative books about the current rise in the number of Latin Americans who in their immigration to a new country have made a solid impact on the cultural, artistic, gastronomic, and political face to the USA.

Tobar interviews and follows histories of some fascinating and courageous people, documenting their diaspora-like web across the country. From the Cuban exiles in Florida and the massive Los Angeles and Southern California Hispanic population we all know to the enclaves and pockets of 'latinidad' communities sprinkled across the entire United States, Tobar gleans a feeling of identity, of success stories, of the numbers of Hispanics who have gained national importance and prominence to the beautifully persistent folk traditions that remain intact despite the surrounding environs. The importance of 'futbol' (soccer), the explosion of cuisines not only form the ubiquitous Mexican fast food chains but also the increasingly popular cuisines of Central and South America, the popularity of Chicano painting and crossover music, the on-going debates about border control - Tobar manages to define just what impact 'latinidad' has had and will continue to have as the Latino population grows faster than any other group in census studies.

In a time when the government seems to be polarizing the nation about the Latino influx it is refreshing to read Tobar's eminently optimistic evaluation of this newest aspect of the Melting Pot concept of America. An informative and fine read. Grady Harp, July 05

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye opening must read, April 21, 2006

By	lawliss (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Translation Nation (Hardcover)

<a href = "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EXYZO0/sr=8-1/qid=1145655770/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-4884275-2942513?%5Fencoding=UTF8">Translation Nation</a> by <a href = "http://currents.ucsc.edu/04-05/04-25/tobar.asp">Hector Tobar</a> is an absolute must read considering all that is currently happening with immigration litigation and the bills that are being proposed regarding illegal immigration into the United States. Tobar, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, takes a look at the insurgence of Mexican and Central American immigrants across the border into the United States; he looks at their motivations for doing so and tells their stories. To do so, he interviewed a few illegal immigrants and their guides, listened to Cubans debate the Elian Gonzalez matter, travelled to Central America, and infiltrates the various markets in Nebraska and the South where many migrant workers go to find work.

Tobar eloquently describes the process that many face in coming to the United States. You leave the book feeling like you have followed various people through their experiences and motivations. I put this book down feeling like I had a better grasp on the complexities of these sorts of issue. However, the book did have a weakness: towards the middle of the book, before Tobar gets into his experiences working in factories, the stories told get repetitive. I also have to wonder how "authentic" of an experience that Tobar had while working in these factories being that he was an educated man that could draw on a safety net if he had to, whereas the people that he was writing about and working with don't necessarily have that safety net.

All in all, an important and highly recommended read.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, February 24, 2006

By	Dennis L. Kaser (Southold, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Translation Nation: American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States (Hardcover)

An eye-opener for those of us who live in areas where hispanic immigrants are needed and present in significant numbers. Gives a needed perspective on the point of view of those seeking to share in the American Dream in a new and unique way. Essential reading for anyone whose ancestors were also immigrants (and weren't they all?).