Críticas Magazine

Bruce Jensen

This just in: You can't please everyone
July 4, 2008

Earlier this week, Críticas somehow found itself in the crosshairs of a notable scholar.  Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, who 40 years ago founded the first Chicano Studies program in this large state—at the University of Texas-El Paso—and who has over the years distinguished himself as a wide-ranging literary critic and educator, published a long piece on Sunday that takes this magazine to task for its very focus. 

An English speaker's guide to Spanish-language titles is what Críticas has always worked to be. Who was doing that in 2001, when the magazine began? What review sources existed to help librarians and booksellers in the US and Canada find out about lots of books and other materials, from all over the world, published in Spanish? 

There was no such source.  Nobody was doing it.  The magazine has stayed true to its mission, which turned out to be a pretty big job, under the guidance of three very smart editors. But Dr. Ortego demonstrates that, darn it, you just can't please everyone: 

For in focusing only on Spanish language publishing Críticas believes that U.S. Hispanics are essentially a Spanish-language reading group or that non-Hispanic English speaking Americans are interested in Spanish- language materials. Both are tenuous assumptions.

It seems to me that Críticas is not about U.S. Hispanics but about Spanish language publishing as the editors told Irma Flores Manger [sic]. There's the rub. It appears the editors of Críticas do not see the forest for the trees or else wrong-headedly they are pushing an agenda that profits them but is inconsistent with the actualities they profess to serve. 

In other words, they're about Spanish language books. They don't ask: Who will read them? They think 35+ million U.S. Hispanics will read them. It turns out, only a small percentage will since only a small percentage of U.S. Hispanics are Spanish-language readers. In this matter, Críticas’ posture is “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind’s made up.” As I said, Críticas is serving an important space, but it's not the space of all U.S. Hispanics. Sadly, while serving this important space, it aggressively underscores the assumption that all U.S. Hispanics are Spanish language speakers/readers and therefore linguistically monolithic.

There you have it.  Caring about Spanish-language publishing is, we're told, "pushing an agenda."  Striving to give the literature of the Spanish-speaking world its due, trying to help the best of it find its way into more libraries and bookstores, and thence into the hands of interested readers, is a wrong-headed act that "aggressively underscores" a preposterous assumption.

Uhm, okay...

Whatever it is that you read this fine holiday weekend, I hope you enjoy it.  Try pulling your nose away from the computer and sticking it in a book of some kind.  Any language you like.

Posted by Bruce Jensen on July 4, 2008 | Comments (1)