Marta Sanchez

Pocho en español: The anti-pocho pocho

Roberto Cantús Pocho en español (1994), a translation of José Antonio Villarreals Pocho (1959/1989), offers an example of intra-national translation: a dominant national language (English) is transferred to a major-minor language (Spanish), commissioned and published by a national publisher in the same nation-state. As such, it stands in contrast to international translation: a transference of different official national languages that stresses a belonging to different nation-states and involves, usually, a publisher outside the nation-state of the source text. The hallmark feature of Villarreals writing is literal translation of Spanish buried in English that conveys to anglophone readers his characters’ bilingual experience. Cantú translates into standard Spanish and misses the opportunity to retranslate (translate what is already translation) for readers of Spanish. In the following, I explore the intriguing paradox of the anti-pocho pocho posed by Cantús translation at the levels of both language and production for the marketplace.