Book Review of Translated Woman by Ruth Behar - Essay Example

Book Review of Translated Woman by Ruth Behar What constitutes impressions? Why have certain events, people, and political ideologies come to represent a common or shared notion of "influence"? Conversely, why have other events, incidents, and communities not been considered "influential"? How do we, as gatherers of information, negotiate others’ as well as our own interpretations of memory? How do we sort and complement the existence of emotional moments with community and individual histories? As we think these questions through we will get a better understanding of the important and complicated task in defining voice, memory, silence, and of course emotions in the book Translated Women. As an example of somebody who has a strong voice in this matter and can negotiate well what their characters are suffering from is Ruth Behar in I would like to focus mainly on the book Translated Women, which is a beautiful narrative that crosses the boundaries of culture, class and gender to let the reader see life through the eyes of an uneducated Mexican woman. Ruth Behar (born Havana, Cuba, 1956) is a Cuban American anthropologist, poet, and writer who teaches at the University of Michigan. After receiving her B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1956, she studied cultural anthropology at Princeton University. Her dissertation (1983), based on her first fieldwork in northern Spain, became the basis for her first book. Her more recent writings have focused on her fieldwork in Mexico, Cuba, and the United States. The author tells the extraordinary story of Esperansas life and the friendship she developed with her. In spite of the author’s background, the style is rich and unique. The book would be easy read and very entertaining for people able to appreciate womens perceptions and spirituality in unprejudiced manner. I have very different background from both the writer and the main character and yet could relate to the story and the experience. This book makes you re-think my own cross cultural experiences and identity; it just gives you a global view on different personalities. Esperanza, a poor Mexican street peddlar, is befriended by Ruth, an American anthropologist with Cuban-Jewish roots during the course of Ruth’s fieldwork in Mexico. Translated Women might be called the archetype of a modern anthropological creation because the author does not hide behind the curtains, but places herself in the center along with the subject and like current Anthropology as a field, it is so full of self-doubt, both personal and professional, that a reader perceives more questions than answers, the main one being. Nearly every interaction in our world has either class, race, or sexual components. Are we to refrain from communicating with all but our class, racial, or sexual doubles unless we worry that we are abusing some kind of power? Exploitation exists, many anthropologists have severely exploited their subjects (as have people of every kind) but it does not follow that all relationships across cultures, from rich to poor society, are therefore exploitative. With a strong, independent woman like Esperanza, it is very unlikely she would have pursued the connection if she did not feel she also benefited from it. Ruth persisted in swimming in the pool of uncertainty. She faulted herself for driving to poor Mexquitic village in a new car and then worrying about possible damage. She dressed inappropriately as she accompanied her comrade around the streets and bemoaned her incongruity. She notes how intrusive her photography must have been, but she took the photos. She shopped in expensive stores that her neighbors could never afford and then agonized. Esperanza tells her life story in her own words, as far as is humanly possible in the translation from Spanish to English. Ruth is so determined to keep Esperanza’s voice present (and I admire Ruth for this) that she allows some considerable repetition and confusion to remain and does not translate a large number of Spanish words. In other sections, Ruth places Esperanza’s story in the context of Mexican culture, relates it to the fascinating cult of Pancho Villa, and to the context of the anthropological discourse in general. These chapters are very insightful, as are the sections in which Ruth talks about the nature of social science writing on Latin American women and of how North American feminists have tended to take control of feminist agenda in Third World countries, seeing women from those nations as sexually-constrained, ignorant, and controlled. She writes “One of the limitations of North American feminism has been its narrow definition of the kind of knowledge and practice that can be counted as feminist. Can I not speak of Esperanza as engaging in feminist thinking and practice in the way I have?” Esperanza’s actions and beliefs are translated, not only into English, not only across the physical frontier, but into cultural terms that educated Americans can understand. In other words, Ruth puts her own life into the picture, how she came to Anthropology, how she benefited from her work, and her own ambivalence. Translated Women is a highly complex work which can be read for many different purposes, discussed in endlessly different ways. The Cuban American anthropologist Ruth Behar tried to section together the lives led by women in one Mexican village, she didnt surmise on the stubborn charisma of Esperanza, who "seemed determined to push her story into my hands and stuff it into my ears, so I could take it back across the border." Translated Woman is a frivolous rush of dramatic words from Esperanza herself chatting late into the night about the failures and triumphs of her life. Having barely fled the rage of her drunk father, she takes up with a philandering wife-beater who keeps her in the Mexican version of purdah, absolute with a scolding mother-in-law. Threatening malnourishment and the loss of child after child, which she ascribes to the coraje (rage) her worthless husband riles up in her breast, impels her to leave him. Gradually she carves out enough work as a street peddler to support herself and her children. Great turns of phrase from Behar and Esperanza cheer up this unusual story. Skirting volatile feuds between neighbors, Behar worries lest her research get mired in "a nest of old hatreds." Says Esperanza of being penniless, "I almost had to use one hand to cover my front and another hand to cover my back." The book is self-centered in a very subtle way. There are both a lot of critics and advocates of this book. For me it was rather difficult to form an opinion, and personally, I think opinion puts you in a certain frame that limits your perception of the book. Bibliography: Behar, R. (1993). Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanzas Story. Beacon Press: Boston, Massachusetts. Read More