04/10/2016 Journal Entry 1: Pre-translation reflections
I want to speak as to why I am choosing to translate Little Red Riding Hood and why I am choosing to do this project into Spanglish. I grew up in a low-income household and at one point early in my childhood I was homeless. Because my parents were always struggling just to feed us and were always working, they did not really emphasize the importance of reading at the time. Furthermore, they only knew how to read and write in Spanish and finding books exclusively in Spanish back then was harder than it is now. It was not until I started school—and after we finally were able to save enough money for an apartment—that my parents, specifically my mom, started reading to us and trying to teach us how to write. La caperucita roja was the very first book I checked out with my first library card. It was the first real book my mami read to me and the first book I learned to read by myself. Needless to say, Little Red Riding Hood has a special place in my heart.
I am choosing to write this project in Spanglish for many reasons. Firstly, Spanglish, specifically a Southern California Spanglish, is truly the language I grew up speaking. It is the language I primarily use to speak to anyone I love and consider close to me. Secondly, there are not many translations into Spanglish. By translating this story into Spanglish I would be adding to Spanglish works in general. Lastly, one day I imagine reading this story to my children. Why not have this story to share in the language I claim as my own? This, in fact, is who I am aiming to reach in my translation. Children of Mexican/Mexican-American parents and any other nationality who have a strong Spanish presence in their lives, but do not necessarily only speak Spanish in their households. I hope that this mixing of languages in the translation helps emphasize that speaking Spanglish is actually an okay thing to do and nothing to be ashamed of.
I also want to point out how difficult it was to find the correct version of Charles Perrault’s version of this children’s tale. There are many reasons for this difficulty. Probably the biggest difficulty came from the fact that the Grimm Brother’s version of this story—which has a happy ending with the hunter rescuing Little Red Riding Hood—is much more popular today and has been the one told to children for many years now. The Perrault version of the story also has a moral at the end of the story, but not all books have that. The Montreso version I will be drawing from heavily, does not have the moral at the end. For that part of the translation I will have to heavily rely on the online version of this story.
In general, my strategy for translating this story will be to rely on the English translation version of Montreso for a basic understanding of the translation from French, consulting the online Spanish translation for comparison of the structure between the two versions, and then move on to tackle the Spanglish translation. Since Spanglish is still mostly an oral language, I’ll focus on having the story read out loud and then transcribing. Because I grew up speaking Spanglish in Southern California, I will be using that variation of Spanglish. We’ll see how this first try goes.
04/17/2016 Journal Entry 2: Version 1 Translation Reflections
It has been a couple of days since I last saw and made significant corrections to my Spanglish translation. Writing it was much more time-consuming than first expected. I did not know that there were so many famous lines and phrases in the story that would be recognizable by anybody. I had to pay specific attention to those phrases, since I wanted to keep that classic resonance in the translation. I attempted the first line, for example, by saying “Once upon a vez.” At first I was very satisfied with this. However, after a recommendation from one of my classmates, I am now considering “Había una time’ as a phrase to start it off.
Now, looking back at it entirely, I have found many errors. It is still a good first draft, but there are typos and small phrases that I do not like the sound of. When I go back I will pay particular attention to these phrases and make sure to fix the typos. Additionally, I think I’m going to up the stakes and try to incorporate more Spanglishized words into the translation and play around with wording in itself. I like that I kept “por” for “poor,” since it is sort of portraying something like a Spanish speaker trying to say the word “poor” in English. Maybe I’ll try and do this more often throughout the translation….
Working with the French version of this book was difficult. If it had not been for the help of French-speaking friends and friends who are learning French who were able to read parts of the story out loud to me, I would have found the start of this project much more burdensome than I actually did. Additionally, having heard it in French and had someone who spoke French available, helped me make my decision to keep “gallette” in French. At first, I was debating whether or not I should, but I decided to keep it because gallette is not very translate-able into English. Many translators use “cake,” but that is not exactly what a gallette is. Besides, regional foods should be kept in the original language and “gallette” looks French enough that people would understand that it is probably something French.
04/20/2016 Journal Entry 3: Version 2 Translation Reflections
Going through this second translation was much more interesting than the first attempt because I now have to only focus on fixing mistakes and trying to make the translation better. I took more liberties with changing verb tenses and changing some wording around. I paid particular attention to typos this time around and read out loud more to make sure everything sounds alright. I feel much more satisfied with this version. I think all that is left to do this time is to reread and make sure that the oral originality and musicality of Spanglish is honored in the written form of this translation.
The oral aspect of Spanglish is specifically difficult to tackle in this translation. My English writing skills are stronger than in other languages, even Spanglish. So what I have noticed in the translations is that there sometimes is a lot heavier English usage than Spanglish. This goes against what I want my Spanglish to use. It’s not just a mostly use of English with some Spanish in between, or vice versa. Spanglish is a…musical language. There is order in the chaos. There is logic in what may seem to be nonsense. It is frustrating that this gets lost while I am trying to write down how I have translated the story in my head. I will reread it now, but out loud to see how this musicality sounds for me when I am speaking it. Hopefully, it will get captured better.
04/22/2016 Journal Entry 4: Post-Audio Version Reflection
After hearing my friend read the version out loud, I was able to notice certain sections that do not flow as well as others. I will focus on this on the coming third version. Before this, I had not noticed that there are certain words in English stuck in between two Spanish words that could potentially also be read in Spanish. Although it would not make sense if you read it in Spanish, this causes confusion. How do I fix this? Should I just get rid of the word in English or italicize it or change the sentence into English?
04/26/2016 Journal Entry 5: Before Finishing the Third Version
I just found this great clip of an old I Love Lucy show in which Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) is telling Little Red Riding Hood to Little Ricky. This show is from 1954 and you have probably the first oral version of Spanglish Little Red Riding Hood. Ricky uses mostly a Cuban, code-switching form of Spanglish when telling the story to his child, along with exaggerated movements to enhance the comedic effect of the scene. Although in the show they are obviously showing this for a quick laugh, I see this as a gem. Hearing it from someone so original has definitely made me reflect on what I am doing. I am now switching up the infamous exchange between Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf, since Ricky’s version definitely sounds much better with the “que big” as “what big.” Hopefully, it flows more naturally after these changes.
04/28/2016 Journal Entry 6: Post Final(?) Version
The changes I made definitely sound better. This last version sounds and flows more naturally than the very first translation. I wish I knew how to fix certain awkward sections, like the moral section of the story. I think that part could have flowed a little better when read out loud and I think the awkwardness comes from the way I tried to stay somewhat loyal to the original and keep similar sentence structures. In general, however, this is a satisfying version. It was stressful, confusing, but fun to write this out.
05/03/2016 Journal Entry 7: Final reflections
I am reflecting upon orality and how this has impacted my translation process throughout this process. Translating the “original” Little Red Riding Hood by Charles Perrault and seeing the many paths this story has taken throughout history has made me wonder about how orality can impact a story. Before Charles Perrault actually put this story on paper, people all around the world had been telling this story by word of mouth. Does this actually make him the “original” author? In my case, for this specific project, I tend to say yes. He was the first one that we can credit to writing this story down on paper and have it published. By writing it down, Perrault now set a standard as to how the story was going to be told and what the purpose of this particular story would be for future readers. Of course, through the many adaptations, his point and his moral have changed, but that does not change the fact that he was the first one to put it down on paper.
Orality was crucial in this project, since Spanglish is so oral and there is yet no standard written Spanglish that exists. Dealing with that turned to be more difficult than I originally expected. I as I pointed out earlier, I wanted to keep certain classic features of this story, but still mesh in Spanglish. That was much more difficult than I thought, but hopefully I did it justice.
I am also reflecting on certain choices that I made regarding my translation. For example, I decided to use the word “pos” instead of “well” or “pues” because that is a very Mexican/Chicano way of saying either of those words. I changed “grandma” to “abue” since that’s what a lot of the people I grew up with refer to their grandmothers. I pretty much generally stuck with a Chicano/Santa Ana Spanglish in my translation.
I chose not to change the tones of the different characters in the story because of several reasons. First of all, I am not an expert in that many dialects of Spanglish and so I felt that attempting to change the dialect and attempting a Nuyorican Spanglish or Texan Spanglish would not be appropriate for me to do. Additionally, this would be a bit of a challenge. Who would I be characterizing as the bad guys in the story? Lastly, I figured if the characters were from the same family or the same region, they would be speaking similarly, so changing tonalities in how they spoke would not have made much sense.