Se Habla Espanol: Voces Latinas en USA = Spanish is Spoken Here

There was a time when exotic locations found in stories by Manuel Puig, Gabriel Garc a M rquez, and Isabel Allende novels were exciting to U.S. readers. But now the tables have turned. Latin Americans want to read about foreign places like Denny's, New York's El Barrio, and East L.A. This collection features the works of well-known writers such as Junot D az, Mayra Santos-Febres, Ilan Stavans, and Ernesto Qui onez. While based in Ithaca, NY, Edmundo Paz Sold n and Alberto Fuguet gathered essays from some of the most recognized U.S. Latino voices into one collection, including essays in their original Spanish, in translations from English, and in the now omnipresent Spanglish. The short stories are broken up into sections corresponding to U.S. regions, with titles such as ""Welcome to Miami,"" ""California Dreamin',"" and ""New York, New York."" Through this format, the reader is able to navigate the vast cultural differences among Latino experiences. The story that will surely garner the most attention is Junot D az's ""Instrucciones para citas con trigue as, negras, blancas o mulatas"" (""How To Date a Brown Girl, Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie""), which introduced the art of Spanglish to the mainstream when it was originally published in The New Yorker. It's not an easy task to translate D az's story about a Dominican teen coming of age in New Jersey, known for its East Coast street poetics and slang, but translator Eduardo Largo is able to relay his comical posturing quite smoothly. Other entries worth reading are Silvana Paternostro's sarcastically chilling essay, ""Northern Ladies,"" about the fad of revirginizing oneself through clitoral surgery in the hope of marrying in Queens, NY, and Ernesto Qui onez's mysterious tale, ""El ni o blanco"" (""The White Baby""), about an urban legend in an El Barrio botanica. By acquainting themselves with these quirky stories, the South will learn that the North, with all its complexities, is speaking espa ol in ever-growing numbers. Recommended for public and academic libraries and all booksellers. --Adriana Lopez, ""Cr ticas""