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Notes
1. Perry, “Rosario Ferré,” 102.
2. Many Puerto Rican writers are ardent defenders of writing in Spanish as part of their efforts to preserve the island’s cultural independence from the United States. Many of these same authors are firm supporters of Puerto Rican independence. Ferré’s changed position on this issue (which followed her decision to write in English) sparked the following incensed editorials in El Nuevo Día: Ana Lydia Vega’s “Carta abierta a Pandora” (March 31, 1998) and Liliana Cotto’s “Carta abierta a una estadista híbrida” (April 9, 1998). For a brief account of the controversy surrounding Ferré’s decision to write in English, see Javier Espinosa’s “¿Por qué hiciste eso, Agapito?,” originally published in El Mundo (July 31, 1998).
3. Ferré, “Puerto Rico, U.S.A.”
4. The debate about statehood, independence, or continued commonwealth status for Puerto Rico has become more urgent in recent years on account of the island’s multi-year recession, its expected default on an estimated 72 billion dollar debt, and its declining population. Some commentators argue that Puerto Rico’s continued “commonwealth” status is itself a culprit for the island’s economic woes, in that the island is subject to the financial repercussions of tax and commerce decisions made by the US legislature but has no real autonomy with which it can confront or accomplish a response to these changes. Since being designated as a “commonwealth” or an “estado libre asociado” in 1952, Puerto Rico has held a number of plebiscites relevant to national status—in 1967, 1993, 1998, and 2012. Support for statehood has gradually increased, with, by some accounts, over 50 percent of the populace in favor of statehood in 2012. The first federally supported referendum is expected to occur in 2017. Though Ferré campaigned for her pro-statehood father, Governor Luis Ferré, in 1968, she announced her support for independence in 1972. Since 1998, she has supported statehood.
5. Ferré, The House on the Lagoon, 6; hereafter cited in text as House. “Mi propósito original fue tejer, a los recuerdos de Quintín, las memorias de mi propia familia, pero lo que escribí finalmente fue algo muy distinto.” Rosario Ferré, La casa de la laguna,18; hereafter cited in text as Casa.
6. Tanselle, “The Editorial Problem of Final Authorial Intention,” 335.
7. Ferré, “On Destiny, Language, and Translation,”162.
8. Ibid., 162–63.
9. Ibid., 163.
10. Ibid., 163–64.
11. Ferré, “Writing in Between,” 107. For more about Ferré’s notion of translator as “prostitute,” see Jaffe’s “Translation and Prostitution.”
12. Firmat, Tongue Ties, 108.
13. House, 311. “Durante los últimos días, Isabel había estado muy afable con Quintín. En el curso de la cena, empezó a discutir con él la novela que estaba leyendo por aquellos días: Les Liasons dangereuses, de Choderlos de Laclos. La encontraba sumamente interesante. La convención literaria de las cartas intercambiadas entre monsieur Valmont y madame de Merteuil, sobre todo, le pareció particularmente eficaz. Los personajes se comunicaban indirectamente por medio de ellas, a través de un eco postergado. —Entre la escritura y la lectura de un texto, el mundo da vueltas, la gente cambia, los matrimonios se hacen y se deshacen. La persona que escribe la última oración de una página no es la misma que escribió la primera. ¿No es ésa le naturaleza misma de la escritura?—le preguntó Isabel a Quintín, mientras brindaban con sus copas de vino—. Cada pliego es una carta dirigida al lector; su significado no estará completo hasta que alguien lo lea” (Casa, 332).
14. Casa, 320.The English version of the same statement is less explicit as to the identical nature of the plans for the house: “One of them was the plan of the house on the lagoon” (House, 299).
15. Di Iorio Sandín chronicles Ferré’s transformation from an “autora puertorriqueña” to a “US Latina Writer” in Killing Spanish.
16. In English: “Kerenski was obsessed with the choreography, which he was doing himself. … We would interpret segments of works in an original Kerenski version” (House, 171). In Spanish: “Kerenski estaba obsesionado con la coreografía, que sería original para cada obra … interpretaríamos segmentos de ellos, en una versión original suya” (Casa, 184).
17. Casa, 191. “Tony had never been given a chance to dance the second act. His friends crowded together at the foot of the stage and began to throw shoes at Professor Kerenski, handbags, umbrellas, cigarette cases, whatever they could find in their handbags, yelling that he was a cheat and a liar, that he had led everyone to believe that he was giving Tony Torres the star role when he had planned to take his place from the start” (House, 178).
18. Ferré, “Puerto Rico, U.S.A.”
19. Ferré, “On Destiny,” 163.
20. Two other examples: first, Isabel writing that Quintín’s mother, Rebecca, resumed her artistic activities only two weeks after giving birth (House, 64) in English, while in Spanish, Isabel recounts that Rebecca didn’t observe even a week in bed, “ni una semana de cama” (Casa, 80); second, in English, Isabel relates that pre-plebiscite polls showed “four percent” for independence (House, 357), whereas in Spanish, she says “el cinco por ciento” (Casa, 380).
21. Ferré, “On Destiny,” 162.
22. House, 73. “Isabel había cometido unos errores históricos inexcusables. Algunos eran tontos; por ejemplo, decir que en 1917 se vendían ‘perros calientes’ en San Juan. … Quintín se rió de nuevo. Nadie sabía, a ciencia cierta, cuándo habían llegado los hot dogs a Puerto Rico, pero estaba seguro de que no había sido antes de la segunda guerra mundial” (Casa, 89).
23. House, 73–74. “Un error más serio era afirmar que los submarinos alemanes sitiaron la isla durante la primera guerra mundial, cuando en verdad sucedió durante la segunda. … Pero Isabel necesitaba inventarse el sitio de Puerto Rico en 1918 porque el bloqueo alemán le resultaba útil para desarrollar la personalidad fascista de Buenaventura. Había alterado—conscientemente—los hechos para hacer más interesante su historia” (Casa, 89).
24. House, 380. “Añadir sus comentarios iracundos al margen de estas páginas” and “estampar sus pensamientos torturados en ellas” (Casa, 402).
25. In House on the Lagoon, she translates in text the expression “Vegigante a la bolla; Contigo, pan y cebolla!” as “Marry me tomorrow, and we’ll live on radishes with bread and onion” (141). In the Spanish version, the phrase appears, imaginably, without the accompanying English translation, though “Vegigante” is spelled with a “j” (Casa, 154).
26. In addition, in English, Isabel recounts that when Quintín’s father, Buenaventura Mendizabal, arrived in San Juan in 1917, he heard “someone announc[e] through a loudspeaker that all citizens over twenty-one were expected to sign up as volunteers in the U.S. Army” (House, 19). In Spanish, Isabel recounts that Buenaventura “escuchó a alguien anunciar por aquellos megáfonos que los que desearan alistarse como voluntarios en el ejército norteamericano podrían hacerlo” (Casa, 30). Certainly, the distinction between being “expected to” and “being able to” enlist in the US army “if desired” is significant.
27. Ferré, “Blessing of Being Ambidextrous,” 9.
28. Ferré, “Memorias de Maldito Amor,” 13.
29. House, 239. “A un descendiente de los conquistadores”; “se le hacía difícil aceptar que su patria de adopción no se gobernara a sí misma” (Casa, 257).
30. House, 183. “Tentada a renunciar sus ideales independentistas” (Casa, 196).
31. House, 270. “Si uno le preguntaba cuál era la condición política que le parecía más conveniente para la Isla, contestaba devolviendo la pregunta. Si uno decía que la independencia, Ignacio contestaba que a él también. Pero si cinco minutos más tarde un estadista le preguntaba si creía en la estadidad, también aseguraba que sí” (Casa, 289).
32. House, 183–84. “Por eso soy apolítica; cuando llegan las elecciones, no voto. Quizá mi indecisión se remonta a la época en que me sentaba de niña en la sala de la casa de Ponce con el catálogo de Sears sobre las rodillas, anhelando la independencia y a la misma vez soñando con que nuestra isla formara parte del mundo moderno” (Casa, 196–97).
33. Ferré, “Puerto Rico, U.S.A.”
34. Vega, “Carta abierta a Pandora.”
35. Ferré, “Blessing of Being Ambidextrous,” 8.
36. Ferré, “Blessing of Being Ambidextrous,” 9.
37. Ibid., 9.
38. Ferré, “Puerto Rico, U.S.A.”
39. Ferré, “Blessing of Being Ambidextrous,” 8.
40. Ibid., 8–9.
41. Ferré incorporates several other multilingual asides and intertexts into her works. She references authors such as Homer, Shakespeare, Balzac, Sand, de Quevedo, Marx, Poe, Suetonius, Plutarch, and the aforementioned Laclos. Moreover, she writes of Dobermans named Fausto and Mefistófeles, cites Letizia the mother of Napoleon, and references artists such as Marc Chagall, Antoni Gaudí, and Carlo Crivelli.
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Marlene Hansen Esplin
Marlene Hansen Esplin is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Brigham Young University with a PhD in Hispanic Cultural Studies from Michigan State University. Her research interests include translation studies and contemporary literatures of the US and Latin America. Her current book project examines the possibilities of “self-translation” in the works of various US and Latin American writers.