atisa paper

8/8/2019 ATISA Paper

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ATISA 2010

Founded in AmbiguityNarrative Manipulation in Bilingual Versions of Puerto Ricos

Foundational LawsAlejandro lvarez Nieves Universidad de Salamanca


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Introduction

Ever since the United States took control over Puerto Rico, as part of the

Spanish American War of 1898, and until the creation of the Commonwealth of

Puerto Rico in 1952, Puerto Ricans tried repeatedly to establish an autonomic

government pursuant to the will of its people. The issu e has surpassed the

limits of Commonwealth itself, for most Puerto Ricans believe that the final

political future requires the elimination, or major changes to the political status

quo of the island. Since the American Invasion, the issue of identity has b ecome

one of the main problems in Puerto Rican sociology and the humanities, an

identity completely intertwined with political status, a narrative inherited from

Spanish rulethe issue of whether Puerto Rico should attain independence, or

remain in a territorial status, or annex itself to the metropolis. It is our conviction

that most Puerto Ricans believe that until a final political status is reached, none

of the cultural and sociological issues regarding identity will be (re)solved.

In order to accomplish a government by the people of Puerto Rico, the

1948 Muoz Marn administration, the first one to be elected by the population,

had one main goalto return to an autonomy similar to the one already agreed

in 1897 with the then Kingdom of Spain, which gav e some sovereign power to

the island, and also a voting participation in the Courts. One if the first steps by

the Muoz Marn administration was to declare Spanish the official

administrative language of the islandmeaning that the government will

communicate only in Spanishand also to appoint a commission in charge of

creating a bilingual version of the Puerto Rican legal codex. This is a significant

event because it fulfilled two key purposes. The first one is that it adjusted the

government to linguistic realityPuerto Ricans are Spanish speakers, and most


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of the population (84%) either cannot sustain a conversation in English, or just

do not speak English at all, leaving an elite 4% fully bilingual population (2000

Census). The second achieved purpose derives from the first one: it allowed

Puerto Ricans to have a voice heard by the American colonizer by means of

translationbringing about an autonomic government implied mediating

through a linguistic barrier only translation can surpass, and also meant

breaking with a politics of silence.

By this we mean that the former Spanish colonies had no voice in the

peace negotiation of the Spanish American War: they were not allowed to

speak; they were summarily silenced (Torruella 2008: 28). For the first time, the

Muoz Marn administration used translation as a tool which could open the

door (and did) for direct negotiation with U.S. Congress in order to forge what

today is the Commonwealth1. We have a bilingual legal codex, the Laws of

Puerto Rico Annotated, which include in the first title, Historical Documents,

the legal instruments that lead to our current political status. A comparison of

each version puts in evidence some translational disparities and asymmetries

which point to an interesting sociolog ical situation. Furthermore, we suggest

that, if translation is credited as the essential tool for the creation of our current

political structure, it is not illogical to believe that the 1948 administration

employed several translational operations within their legal discourse for the

purpose of convincing Congress to approve a law enabling the creation a local

constitutional government for the island. Our purpose is to identify these

translational operations, which consist mainly in ambiguity and linguist ic

1 Although Puerto Rican members of the House of Delegates would speak English, because the Senate

before Commonwealth was conformed by American politicians appointed by the President, we refer here

as Puerto Rico speaking in its vernacular language as a political entity, at a governmental -institutional

level.


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uncertainty, given that Puerto Ricos identity issues revolve around an indefinite

political status, which is itself founded upon legal terms. In this way, translation

can prove to be an innovative and useful approach to the identity issue among

Puerto Ricans.

LPRA Title 1

The Laws of Puerto Rico Annotated are the result of Law 395 11 May

1950, providing for a commission authorized to revise, classify, arrange, and

publish in English and Spanish a scientifically annotated recodification of all the

codes and laws in force in Puerto Rico (LPRA1: 5) In 1999 the codifying

commission was dissolved because the Legislature believed its members could

not keep up with the task assigned to commission members; therefore, law

codification became a responsibility of the secretary of each legislative house.

The secretaries, under Law 354 22 December 1999, have the authority to hire

private publishers to help in revising and publishing the LPRA.

Title 1, Historical Documents, Federal Relations, and the Constitution, includes the relevant legal instruments preceding the laws pursuant to the

creation of the Commonwealth, the laws enabling the Commonwealth, and the

Constitution of the United States , followed by the Constitution of the

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico . They are indexed as follows, with their

respective translation combination:

I. Documentos Histricos Historical Documents

1. Carta Autonmica de 1897 Charter of Autonomy, 1897 (ES > EN)

2. Tratado de Pars de 1898 Treaty of Paris, 1898 (EN >


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3. Carta Orgnica de 1900 [Ley Foraker] Organic Act of 1900 [ForakerAct] (EN > ES)

4. Carta Orgnica de 1917 [Ley Jones] Organic Act of 1917 [Jones Act]

(EN > ES)

5. Creacin del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico Establishment ofthe Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (EN> < ES)2

Establecimiento de la Comisin del Status Poltico Establishment ofStatus Commission (EN> ES)

Ley de Relaciones Federales con Puerto Rico Puerto Rico FederalRelations Act(EN>ES)

Constitucin del Estado Libre Asociado Constitution of theCommonwealth (ES>EN)

Pretextual level: narrative theory applied to translation

At a linguistic level, translation works as an interactive vessel between

the narratives of different linguistic communities; such is the case of Puerto Rico

since its watershed moment in contemporary history: the consequent American

invasion at the end of the Spanish American War of 1898 (lvarez -Curbelo

1998). From the moment in which bilingual versions of foundational

documentsa selection which constitutes a narrative in its own rightwas

authorized in 1950, translation became the mediating channel between the

colonized, the people of Puerto Rico, and their colonizer, the United States of

America. There are several narratives, then, uniting the people of P uerto Rico

and the United States in a territory -metropolis political relationship, an inevitable

process which reaches beyond linguistic and cultural borders, and which is

mediated by translators.


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The first translational act by the Puerto Rican government in order to reach

autonomy was to enable translation, to become the starting point of interaction

between narratives. Once the language issue had been dealt with, the problem

is how translation affects narratives. In an unequal relationship, we suggest, the

subalterns public narrative becomes diluted when it is translated, because it

only becomes a small fraction of the public narrative of the hegemonic power:

But narrativity being what it is, the translator and

ethnographer both necessarily reconstruct narratives by weaving

together relatively or considerably new configurations in every

act of translation, and re -siting these new configurations in

different temporal and spatial settings. Each new configuration

modifies and reinterprets the narratives th at went into its

making. One consequence of this process is that translating a

narrative into another language and culture inevitably results

in a form of contamination, whereby the original narrative

itself may be threatened with dilution or change. (Baker: 62)

The situation changes when the hegemonic powers narrative is translated into

the public narrative of the subaltern, for their normative faculties are greater and

evidently more powerful. And, in our case, since we are referring to narratives

constructed for identity purposes based on legal discourse, the hegemonic

powers discourse seems to be legally binding, and sometimes it actually is.

Returning to Muoz Marn, it is convenient to say that his main goal was to

reach an autonomic government, with as much sovereign power as possible,

although, in the end, the Commonwealth ended up being a strictly local

constitutional government. This was not a new wave of political thought. Puerto

Rico had already achieved autonomy in 1897 by means of the Charter of

Autonomy, although it only lasted a couple of months due to the American

invasion. Therefore, the second translational operation by the Popular


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Democratic Party was the selection of the texts to be included in the codex,

deciding what was to be translated and what was to be left out. The inclusion of

the Charter of Autonomyis an affirmation of difference: it is a claim for a

Hispanic inheritance, interrupted by U.S. domination; it is also a justification for

the emergence of an autonomic government it belongs within the public

narrative of Puerto Ricans. Building an identity discourse requires this first step,

i.e., proclaiming difference. Inclusion within the national narrative in translation

was Muoz Marns way for doing so.

Microtextual level

There are several instances in which microtextual asymmetries cause

translational short circuits. A good example can be seen in the English version

of the Treaty of Paris, where the word Puerto Rico appears five times in the

document. Out of these five, the name of our island is spelled Puerto Rico

twice, and the spelling Porto Rico is present three times. We do not question

the latter way of spelling, but it must be mentioned that it is ideologically loaded,

for it was the initial way in which the colonizer wrote the name of the subaltern,

and it must be pointed out that the colonial spelling is irritating to most Puerto

Ricans, to the extent that the U.S. corrected the name of the island by Act of

Congress 15 May 1932, Chapter 190, Section 47, Line 158.

Again, we do not question the appearance of the old spelling, but the

inconsistent publishing practice by Lexis Law Publishing of Puerto Rico. The

publisher had two choices hereto keep the current spelling and, therefore,

reinforce a narrative of difference, or to keep the original spelling in order to

preserve historical legacy, despite the visual effect of such a spelling. We

believe that either choice is valid; yet the presence of both spellings creates an


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ambiguity within a narrative of identity, a split between the reaffirmation of

difference or a submissive integration into the narrative of the colonizer. It

seems to us that Puerto Rican identity reflected in its legal discourse seems to

be ambiguous, and even clustered, or divided.

Lexical Level:

The controversy over the name of the new autonomic government is worth

mentioning. One of the most controversial topics regarding translation and

political identity is the name proposed and approved for the new local

constitutional government voluntarily subject to the United States

commonwealth. It should not be surprising that the Muoz Marn administration

came up with the name for the new political status in English before proposing a

name in Spanish, because it was precisely its members who started the

mediation via translation. Resolution 22 of the Constitutional Status Assembly

defines the term:

a politically organized community, that is, a free state (using word (sic) in the genericsense) in which political power resides ultimately in the people, hence a free state, but onewhich is at the same time linked to a broader political system or other type of associationand therefore does not have independent and separate existence. (Ferns: 127)

The resolution later states that th is definition clearly falls within the semantic

scope of the definitions of commonwealthof the time. A quick consultation of

the most known English dictionaries resulted in an individual entry for the notion

of commonwealth as referring to Puerto Ricos status. Since such a definition

must have been included in the dictionary after the creation of the

Commonwealth, the argument by the Assembly seems at least doubtful, and a

clear case of translational manipulation, namely, the use of the elocutionary

effect of translated terms for a particular purpose, in this case, legitimating of a


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new autonomic government by a particular administration ( Vidal

Claramonte1995).

We believe that Antonio Ferns, Assembly chairman, forgot to mention in

the resolution that Commonwealth is included in the names of some states of

the Union. Therefore, Puerto Ricos official name is inscribed within the

semantic system of politico-geographical components of the hegemonic other.

Furthermore, the name still partially bears a colonial weight, the remains of the

old British Empire, present today in the name of a few states, as well as former

British colonies. The current use of a word does not exclude the semantic

weight of old uses.

The Spanish translation of the name does not avoid controversy either.

The resolution proposes Estado libre asociado as the translation of

commonwealth:

there is no single word in the Spanish language exactly equivalent to the Englishword 'commonwealth'...in the case of Puerto Rico the most appropriate

translation of 'commonwealth' into Spanish is the expression 'estado libreasociado inasmuch as the word 'state' in ordinary speech in the United Statesmeans one of the States of the Union. (127)

We have before us an example which illustrates that the name of the current

political structure was created by means of a translation which has been

accommodated and manipulated by the local government, that is, by means of

taking advantage of a public narrative in translation. It is our conviction that the

definition of a political entity should be stated as clear as possible, and avoidphrases like which should not be rendered as, which are ambiguous, and a

constant source of political uproars and confusion, elements embedded in

Puerto Ricos sociocultural identity.


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Pragmatic Level

Since translation is also a diachronic process (Tymoczko 2008), especially

when dealing with normative, legal discourse, translation praxis does have

repercussions within the places in which it takes place. As recently as 2005, a

task force appointed by the W Bush administration carried out a report on

Puerto Ricos status. Once again, ambiguity regarding the term

commonwealth, lexically and conceptually, surfaces as a recurrent issue

which must be clarified by hegemonic power:

However that term [Commonwealth] may be used, Puerto Rico is, forpurposes under the U.S. Constitution, a territory, as President GeorgeH.W. Bush recognized in his 1992 memorandum concerning Puerto Rico(See Appendix A). It is, therefore, subject to congressional authority,under the Constitutions Territory Clause, to dispose of and make allneedful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory belonging tothe United States. (5)

Report By the Presidents Task Force on Puerto Ricos Status, Ruben Barrales,

chairman, 2005.

Conclusion

There is little doubt that identity has been a key issue in Puerto Ricos

sociological composition. Studies and research on the issue has been abundant

and diverse. The language of Puerto Ricos current political status, as pointed

out, is borne out of translational operations, or at least it has been heavily

influenced by translational issues within its foundational discourse. These

operations have different textual levels and cover plenty of concerns, as can be

seen from the few examples provided. Puerto Rico, it seems, has historically

drawn from legal discourse for constructing essential elements of its identity, an

identity, we suggest, which is that of a translated subject. Furthermore, the


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Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, our current political status, was created under,

and is still subject to, the Federal Relations Act, 3 July 1950, of the US

Congress, which implies that our local autonomy , historically seen by Puerto

Ricans as a space of political difference from the hegemonic other rests upon

an act of Congress.

Despite the abundance of identity studies regarding Puerto Rico, not

much attention has been given to a translational approach to Puerto Rican

identity. We suggest translation opens the door for exploration into an

ambiguous identity, a possible result of the battle between, on the one hand,

Puerto Ricos vernacular, Spanish, that is, a distinct Hispanic heritage, a hybrid

heritage, which intended up to a certain point to distance itself from Spain; on

the other, there is the English language, a language which Puerto Ricans have

consistently failed to make their own, yet also a language which they need to

use in order to claim the already mentioned hybridity. Translation, in the end,

we suggest, can be a tool, not only to reclaim difference our more that evident

hybriditybut also, by placing languages in contact, by providing an

anisomorphic mirror between the subaltern and the heg emonic other,

translation approaches can define the elements that have created the hybrid,

and thus clarify, however limitedly, issues of ambiguity among Puerto Ricans.

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